Becoming more whole - only when we have to

          In the movie, The Family Man, the main character is given the opportunity to see what his life would be like if he had made different choices.  In his real life, Jack is CEO of a prominant company and Alan, who works under Jack, is timid, unsure, unable to make any decisions without Jack holding his hand.  In Jack's "glimpse" into a different life, Alan is the CEO.  As the CEO, Alan is a man of strength and of courage.  He stands up for what he needs and does not hesitate to make decisions or to fight for them.  When Jack eventually returns to his real life and meets up once again with the timid, unsure Alan, he makes the comment, "Somewhere inside of you there's a much more assertive person."

         In my own life, if I had not been put in a position where I was forced to be in charge of... well of everything, I, too, would not have stepped into that position.  I was comfortable being an associate pastor and later, a co-pastor, not wanting to make the hard decisions.  In my family, while it looked like I was the alpha, the big decisions, all of them, were made by my husband.  He decided when and where we should live, what schools our kids should attend, when we moved out of state and even what jobs we had.  He wasn't domineering. I just was more comfortable having someone else make those decisions.  I didn't trust my own voice, I didn't trust my ability to choose well.  But along with that beta position in my own life came a sense of inferiority, of incompetence, and frankly of deep insecurity.  Being forced into a position where I raised my kids alone, worked as the sole pastor of a congregation and the lone income provider for my family, being the only adult who had to make every decision for the family: while the transition was difficult, it also helped me to grow in my own strength, my own abilities, and ultimately, my own sense of wholeness, happiness and well-being. Additionally, I learned how to do things.  I learned how to mow the lawn, how to do small repairs in my own home, how to invest money.  Before, it had been simpler not to learn these abilities.  But I am grateful I now have them. While I never would have chosen what we lived through, the deep truth is that I would not be half the person I am today without having survived it, and thrived through it.

       I look around and I wonder what certain people could be if their lives forced them to step up.  More, I've been thinking about how we sometimes enable people to be lesser versions of themselves through our care for them.  When we make all the decisions, are we disempowering others to make their own choices?  When we take charge of certain aspects of another's life, are we disempowering them from being able to take charge of those aspects themselves?  When we stand up for one another, are we disempowering them from standing up for themselves?  

       No, this is not a political argument against aid.  I believe there are universal rights people have: the right to clean water, food, shelter, healthcare, education.  All people should have these, and there are  people who absolutely need help. You cannot teach a person to fish who is so hungry they can't hold the rod or net.  But aid would undoubtedly be more empowering if we were to also teach, and more, to help folk make the connections they need to get the work they often want.  

      While sometimes we are thrown headfirst into needing to take more control of our lives, it is easier if we are gradually empowered to grow.  With our children, they are given more responsibilities as they grow up.  If a person is not used to making decisions or doing things for themselves, easing into those behaviors is certainly better than being thrown headlong into the deep end.  Also, I believe we can support one another in ways that do not take away another's opportunity to make decisions, stand up for themself or learn a new skill.  But these take thought.

        There is a Murdock Mysteries episode where Murdock's wife was arguing with their boss about her right to do something.  She turned to Murdock expecting him to defend her, but he did not.  Afterwards she confronted him angrily that he had not stood up for her.  But his response was, "You did not need me to do that for you!  I knew that you were a strong enough woman that you did not need to be ‘rescued’ or ‘saved’ by the big powerful man.   If I had jumped in, the police chief never would have come to respect YOUR strength and your ability to speak for yourself as a full human being.” 

        I wonder how often we think we are rescuing or helping someone when in fact we are disempowering them from becoming the best, most whole people they could be.  

A Deep Dive

           It was suggested to me recently that perhaps I am not self-reflective enough.  Perhaps that is true.  After all, as I say repeatedly, we tend to project out onto others that which is our own issue and then condemn it.  And I can honestly say the thing that bothers me the most in other people is the hypocrisy of those who condemn something in another that is a huge problem in themselves (failing to take the log out of their own eyes as they attack the speck in someone else's).  So, if I am listening to myself here, it would make sense that that which bothers me in others is the thing that I am struggling with most in myself.  So the fact that I condemn an inability to be self-reflective in others may indeed be a sign to myself that this is something I am deeply needing to work on.

    Additionally, I remember very clearly a situation several years ago (one I wrote about here) in which I was on a retreat where we were all asked to put together a "life plan" that looked at what in five areas in our lives we needed to work on (physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, vocational).  Once I had done my piece of this, I told my group that I saw no connection between the five areas for me and the group was able to show me in what ways they all intersected.  I had not seen it.  I had even been using the same phrase to describe each area of needed growth but somehow had failed to hear myself repeating that phrase and had not seen the connections.

    All that being said, I spend a great deal of time in self-reflection.  I do this because I don't want my own "stuff" being dumped on my parishioners or my children.  I don't want to be a person who is unaware or blind to my own issues.  I am more than okay naming, recognizing, and working on those areas in myself where I fall short.  I want to be the most whole I can be and I don't know another way to get there except by being willing to look at, name, confront and work to change my own shortcomings.  From a faith perspective, I deeply want to be the person I believe God is calling me to be and I don't know how to be that person without doing the work.  I also am deeply aware that there are areas within each of us that are frankly very hard to see.  We need the reflection, the mirroring of others to be able to see those areas.  Sometimes the logs in our own eyes truly blind us even to seeing the logs themselves.  We cannot get there on our own.  For that reason I have worked with counselors and spiritual directors over the years, too, as well as meditating, journaling and doing the work on my own.  When people accuse me of being too "intense" I often think what they mean is that I spend too much of my time trying to look, see, do the work, and go deep.  

    Still, the truth remains that each person in our lives will see us differently.  Each person will see things that maybe we can't because each person comes from a slightly different perspective, with different experiences of their own.  It is also true that each person brings their own issues that also will necessarily skew how they see every other person.  That means that the judgments and "insights" of others into anyone else will always be flawed and inaccurate as well.  So for today I am simply sitting with the accusation that I am not self-reflective enough.  I will ask for more understanding of what that person believes they are seeing that they believe I am missing.  And I will take it to God in prayer and meditation to listen for what is truly mine, and what is truly theirs (again, we project our own stuff out, so at least a part of this belongs to that person).  It is part of the journey and commitment to growth to do so, and I will take it for the gift that it is.

Meet the Scapegoat...

     In one of those annoying middle of the night brain attack sessions I woke up thinking about a situation that I experienced 21 years ago now.  At that point in time I had been ordained for almost four years, I was pregnant with my first child and I was working for two different congregations as "music minister".  One of the congregations had Sunday morning pretty traditional services and I was their organist and music director as well as parish associate.  The other church I was serving also had a morning traditional service, but I was hired to lead their evening praise service, so I played piano, directed their praise team and the music we sang and played was mostly Christian rock.  This evening service had been pretty successful, a service for younger adults, in their 20s and 30s, lead by a young charismatic preacher who had been a seminary colleague of mine.  But after I had been there about three years, 21 years ago, the charismatic young pastor had decided to resign and to begin his own congregation.  There were a number of reasons for this, but I think a lot of it had to do with conflict in the congregation.

    Without that pastor there, then, the conflict changed focus and took the form of deciding that they no longer wanted to have two services anymore, but wanted us to all join in for one service.  Two men from session met with myself and the organist/music director who played for the more traditional service with a plan of action.  They told us that their plan was that their organist would continue to be the organist and music director, but that they wanted to hire me as the assistant music director, which meant that I could come and "help" their regular music director, maybe bringing some of the praise music from the evening service to the morning services.  I explained that I had a job Sunday mornings as an organist/music director for another church.  It would not be possible for me to be at their church Sunday mornings.  But these two men (and the male organist) would not listen to me.  "Oh, it's fine!  You can just come to choir rehearsals and you can have Sunday's off from your other job to play for us occasionally!"  

    "No, I can't.  I get two Sundays a year off from my other job.  I cannot come over and play for you occasionally."

    "Oh, it's fine!  We'll just switch and our organist can go play for them while you play for us!"

    "No.  I have a contract with that other church that does not include bringing in substitutes on Sunday mornings.  They have hired ME, not this other person and you cannot assume they will be okay with me sending someone else to lead them."

    "Oh it's fine!  You will just be helping our organist anyway!  It's not a problem at all!"

    I finally just sat there quietly, saying nothing.  They weren't listening.  And several things were very, very obvious to me:

    1.  Their current organist/music director had absolutely no need for an assistant.

    2.  The only reason they were pushing this agenda is that they knew that if they fired me in order to unite the two services, probably all the young people they were hoping to have leave the evening service to join in the morning service would also leave the church.

    I could see the manipulation, but I didn't know what to do about it.  They had no intention of listening to me at all.  

    But about a week later, a young, female member of session who attended the evening services approached me and asked for my opinion on it.  I explained to her exactly what I had tried to explain to these three men: I have a Sunday morning job where I am the music director/organist.  I am also parish associate there which means I get to preach on occasion and am recognized for being an ordained pastor.  I cannot give up a job where I am valued and have meaningful work, a job I have had as long as this one, for a new job as an "assistant" to a man who doesn't need an assistant simply because it feels politically expedient to the session to retain me as an employee.

    Two weeks later at a public meeting discussing the future of the church, the congregation was told that any division in the church was my fault.  The woman speaking explained that I had told the three men (the two session members and the music director) one thing, while going behind their back to talk to another session member with another story all together.  It was MY fault if all the young people left the church because I was not willing to work with them.  I was an evil, destructive person for not doing their bidding, and staying on as assistant to the music director.

    I was shocked.  So shocked that I became speechless.  I was never good in confrontive situations with being able to speak my truth.  I never was.  And in this case, the shock of what they were saying left me absolutely speechless.

    Afterwards a special session meeting was called and I was "invited" to share my story.  I went to the meeting and tried to explain again that I had a Sunday morning job already, at which I was organist and parish associate.  I explained once again that I only got two weeks off from that job and that it was clear to me that I was not actually needed to be the assistant to the music director at this church.

    But my "persecutors" (as I came to think of them) were masters at turning the questions around and making it appear, once again, that I was the bad guy in this situation.  "So, you are unwilling to be an 'assistant'" one said.  "You feel you are too good to work under anyone else."

    "No!" I said.  "At the church where I work in the mornings, I am just parish associate.  That means I work under the pastors of the church.  At my last church I was an Associate Pastor.  I had no trouble working under someone else.  But you are asking me to quit a job I love where I am the music director, organist, and parish associate to start what is basically a new job as an unneeded assistant."

    "Yep! She thinks she is too good for us!"  the response came back.

    I was dumbfounded.  If I had been a man, no one would ever have questioned the choice to stay in a job where I had more responsibility, more consistency, was needed, was valued, to take a new position as an unneeded, unnecessary assistant to someone else!  No one would have questioned that.  But once again, their comments and attacks left me inarticulate, unable to speak my truth, unable to defend myself.   All I could do was say, "I'm sorry.  I cannot take this job."  

    As I woke in the middle of last night I found myself moving, though, from anger to compassion.  This little group of folk had just lost their pastor.  They were about to also lose most of the young people that that pastor had nurtured: a whole congregation of younger folk that had been brought together into a thriving community.  Without those young people, eventually the church would close, as it did a few years later.  They did not have the vision to make different choices.  And they needed someone to blame.  It no longer served them to blame the pastor who had left.  The decisions they were making now were their own to make.  I was an easy scape-goat.  I didn't know most of them and they didn't know me because none of these folk except the one female session member who had talked to me, had ever attended the evening service that I had played and directed the music for.  Self-reflection in this situation would simply have been too painful.  Thinking of solutions outside of the box was too much a stretch for them when they were stressed and grieving.  And they couldn't do these things.  

    These memories also led me to think about the many ways in which people manipulate truth.  As we've watched over the years, but especially in the fairly recent past, people believe what will most validate their already held beliefs.  They will even deny their senses, proclaiming things didn't happen that they saw with their own eyes if doing so will help them to uphold their old beliefs and values.  I was stunned to hear, the other day, that some people are now denying the attack on the capitol that happened in January.  But I shouldn't have been.  Despite the video coverage, despite the fact that it was caught live and we all saw it, when threatened with a truth that will make people have to re-evaluate their stance, many will choose to ignore their own senses and own experiences.  And again, it comes back to the reality that self-reflection for many folk is simply too painful.  It's just too hard for many people to have to change their ideas, their understandings, their beliefs.  They'd rather deny their senses than have to change ideas that have grounded them for so long.  

    None the less, I think the pursuit of truth is a valuable endeavor, even if it is painful, even if it is hard.  I don't want to live a lie, personally.  I don't believe it ultimately serves me to hang on to things that are not real, just so I can tell myself I was right in my former opinions.  Why are we here if not to grow?  And that growth requires looking deep, being willing to change, being open to learning that we were wrong and may have to evaluate situations differently.  

    I still strive for compassion for those who cannot see, who choose not to see.  I would wish for them something better.  But that is each person's decision to make.  For myself, I will take the reminder of what I experienced 21 years ago as a call to listen and a call to look with honesty.  I will take it as a gentle push to be willing to self-reflect and to not scape-goat others when I have fault in a situation that is hard or painful.  I will use it to remind myself that not one of us has the whole story, the whole truth.  There is always more to learn, more ways to grow, and more hope for bridging.  

The Controversies that Surround Us

 

                                                            Luke 23:33-34a, 46

Acts 6:1—7:2a, 44-60

            Today we continue with the narrative lectionary which moves into a study of the book of Acts, which is a book we usually do not spend a great deal of time on.  There are really important lessons in today’s reading, especially for our country and our culture at this very moment.

            At that time, there was a huge debate between Hebrew disciples and immigrant Greek-speaking disciples.  The Hebrew disciples had felt that they were the true disciples.  They were the ones who grew up in or near Jerusalem, they understood the laws, the practices, the rituals.  There was no room for these Greek-speaking immigrants into Jerusalem.  The Greek speaking followers recognized that their authority was not being honored, they were not being respected, they were not being treated as full human beings, let alone full members of the church of Jesus.  Their widows weren’t being cared for.  So they ordained another group of Greeks whose primary job was to care for the poor, etc., allowing the original disciples to focus on speaking and leadership, etc.  The resolution was finally reached to this conflict when seven of the Greek, immigrant leaders were chosen to be ordained into the diaconate.  As part of the diaconate, then, they would primary do the caring for the poor.  It was a resolution.  Or rather, people THOUGHT that a resolution had been reached.  After all, some parity had been officially stated between the two groups.

            But then we come to today’s reading. Stephen was one of those immigrant Greek-speaking disciples.  And he was not only good at caring for others, but he was wise, a good speaker.  He was doing amazing things as a leader of the people.  And he was falsely accused by the Hebrew speaking Jews from Jerusalem of betraying and denying Abraham, the laws, and in particular the centrality of the temple.  We don’t know why he was accused, but we can guess.  We can guess that it was because he was Greek, or because though he joined their ranks, he did not give up who he had been previously.  I want you to think about that.  He joined them, but he still remained himself, a Greek-speaking immigrant into the faith.  And he dared to do what some of the other leaders saw as their job alone. 

            We see this in the church.  White churches yearn for people of color to join them.  But they don’t want those who join to join as themselves.  They want them to CHANGE in order to join.  To speak the “right” language, both literally and metaphorically, to behave in the ways that we have decided are acceptable, are right, are appropriate.  We do this with children too.  Of course we want more children in the church!  But we expect them to behave according to the rules we have set up: no talking in church, dress appropriately, use the language we want you to use, even if you don’t understand it and it has no meaning for you.  We do this too.  And so we can understand their anger with Stephen.  They “welcome” him, but only in so much as they expect him to become like them rather than welcoming him truly as he was: a Greek-speaking immigrant to their community. 

            Well Stephen isn’t putting up with it.  So when he is hauled in front of the authorities, he has the audacity to speak truth.  He gives an entire history of the Jewish people, of God’s actions among them (this part is skipped in today’s reading) and then he ends with his own condemnation of the practices of the Hebrew or Aramaic speaking disciples – he says they are not following the laws!  And then he accuses them of crucifying Jesus.  They accuse him of not following Moses.  He accuses them of killing Jesus.

            Different sides, each accusing the other of destroying what matters most deeply to each side.  Attacking, accusing.  In today’s story that ended with Stephen’s death.  On January 6, 2021 that ended in five deaths.  These accusations, these attacks from both sides: when we cannot hear one another, when we cannot listen to one another, when we cannot tolerate truths that don’t agree with what we want to believe, people die.  We know, we understand that there are different versions of the truth.  And people feel so strongly over what is “true” that they are willing to kill, to fight with violent measures.  That was the case then and it is the case now.  Stephen is speaking truth but it is not what they want to believe so they kill him. 

            (as a side note, in Stephen’s case, his death in many ways also mirrored Jesus’ death: Jesus experience of being accused, killed and then from the cross asking forgiveness for those who were killing him.  Stephen did the same.) 

Much of this conflict between Stephen and the other Christians centered around the understanding of the temple.  It had been a source of conflict for a very long time: where is the correct place to worship?  Does it have to be in the temple in Jerusalem?  Many Jews at the time believed so.  The Samaritans were another group with the same beliefs, the exception being they believed God could be worshiped in other sanctuaries.  Jesus’ answer to them all?  “You Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. …But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship…  in spirit and truth…. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:22-26)

We know that during this Covid time, that debate has come back.  Is it necessary to worship God in a building?  Or is God really and truly bigger than that and so can be worshiped and loved and served wherever we are?  There are all of these rules about being back in a building to worship.  But the worship of God happens in spirit and truth.  It’s interesting that this argument keeps coming back when the truth was that the early Christian church, for the first few centuries, only met in people’s homes.  They did not meet in cathedrals or special synagogue buildings at all until Constantinople.  To this day, the Seder, the Passover meal, the meal that we celebrate as the Lord’s Supper was always done in homes, in people’s houses.  But we have made it a “special building” thing and in doing so, we’ve lost so much of the original meaning – of connection with family, with intimacy in sharing that sacred meal of remembering.

As always, the good news is that conflict is an opportunity to change.  It is a gift if we use it as such.  It is an opportunity to be intentional as move forward, to be intentional about how we listen, how we respond when we don’t like or don’t want what we are hearing. All of these arguing people were only willing to look outward, to attack the other, to blame the other.  They covered their ears and did not want to hear what they did not want to hear.  None of them were willing to look at themselves, to look inward.  And none of them were also looking at the resurrection.  None of them were using the gift of imagination and vision that God gives to all of us to see where the new life was being born this time. 

But again, conflict is an opportunity for change.  Do you know why Latin is considered a dead language?  It’s not that it’s not used.  It is used.  We use it in music, we still use it in some religious liturgy.  We use it in scientific names.  The reason it’s considered dead is NOT that it is no longer used.  It’s dead because it isn’t CHANGING.  And in that is great wisdom.  Conflict is an invitation to imagine differently, to envision differently, to do things differently!

I’ve been reading a number of books recently.  One called Women Peacemakers by Barbe Chambliss, a friend of Ruth’s.  Another called Jan’s Story, that my father passed on to me.  A third called Love is the Way, by Bishop Michael Curry.  What is interesting is that in all of them there is at least one section that is talking about hope, and about the possibilities inherent in crisis.  They also, though, point out that the realization of those possibilities and that hope: that these are dependent on a choice to step forward into the new life that is being offered.  It is a choice.  Do we choose to get bogged down by the traumas and crises of our lives?  Or do we take the invitations inherent in each scenario, and do we use the gift of imagination that God has given us to us to see the possibilities inherent in the crisis, the trauma.  One of the women in the book Ruth lent to me, Connie Ning, gives microcredit, and microloans to women in Vietnam and Guatemala.  These loans are allowing women to begin many things: to start their own businesses, to finance their children’s education, to send girls back into their communities with new ideas, new visions, and new strength.  Connie Ning’s program is funding all of this.  But because it is empowering the girls and women to develop their own programs, it is exponential in its impact on not just individuals but communities as well.

I want to end by sharing with you a story that Lyle, once again passed on to me.  Apparently, there was at one point in Russia a professor who spent an hour lecturing his community on how religion was all ridiculous superstition.  He was very verbose, very articulate and at the end of his hour, his students were all nodding their heads and even applauded in agreement.  At the end of the hour he called up on old Russian Orthodox priest and told him he could give a ten minute rebuttal.  The old priest stood up and simply said, “Christos Anesti!” which means Christ has risen.  I’m certain you know what came next.  We’ll try it here in English.  When I say here loudly and with joy, “Christ has risen”  what happens here?  Well, let’s try it out.  “Christ has risen!”  yes.  He is risen indeed.  And even after this hour long lecture, when the priest stood up and said simply, “Christos anesti!”  The students all said with resounding shouts of joy, “Alithos anesti!”  He is Risen, INDEED.  No matter what our minds say, our hearts experience God, and our hearts remember the experience of God.  All the arguments, all the conflicts, all the debates, all the differences in the world cannot remove that experience of the risen Christ. 

Conflict, crisis, different view points, different visions, different understandings: these are invitations and opportunities to see God anew.  But we have a choice.  Do we take the launching points of crisis mixed with God’s gift of imagination to look, to see, to learn, to hear, to begin anew?  That is the invitation.  To see where Christ is risen.  To live the new possibilities God is given us. 

Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed!

Gender Pronouns And The Challenges of These Days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Your children are not your children.

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

    They come through you but not from you,

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

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

    For they have their own thoughts.

    You may house their bodies but not their souls,

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

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

    For life goes not backward nor tarries from yesterday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mistakes, growing, learning, forgiving.

     As this New Year begins, I find myself reflecting on events in my own life from years ago.  I've been taking a webinar on forgiveness and I think that it, too, is prompting this reflection.  My biggest challenge in terms of forgiveness, as I think is the case for many people, is learning to forgive myself.  I think that these arising memories of things that happened as far back as my childhood are opportunities to step more fully into self-forgiveness as well.

   Today I found myself reflecting on my first call.  When I was in seminary, and frankly my years as a young adult before going to seminary, I felt pretty clear that my primary call into ministry was primarily "prophetic".  What I mean by that is that I knew that while ministers are called to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" that my call was very much on the "afflict the comfortable" end of things.  I regularly stood up against injustices, taking concrete actions to confront oppressive government behaviors, to organize rallies and non-violent protests, to preach and speak and organize on behalf of the "least of these" - those who are often overseen, neglected, abused, oppressed and worse.  I didn't care who I angered by these actions - seeing their anger, if anything, as a sign that I was on the right track.  After all, we know that Jesus angered people enough with his standing up against the legalists and the hypocrites that they killed him.  I felt if people were angry that I was standing up for the poor and oppressed, then I must be doing something right.  At my ordination, the friend I had invited to preach spoke about this.  He said that I rattled cages, but that this was the gift, this was the call that I clearly had been given: to confront the oppressor, to challenge the apathetic into truly learning to love those others would disregard.

    But then I went to my first church call.  I went in roaring and pushing for the church to take strong stands on justice issues.  And instead of being able to make those changes, I found that I got the ire and suspicions up from those who saw me as an inexperienced upstart who didn't really understand my position or my place.  Instead of making the changes I knew I was called to make, I was disregarded and discounted more and more.  My voice, which had carried weight and value in college, at seminary, and even during my internship, was pushed aside.  I was effectively limited in voice as well as in action.  I was an associate pastor, so people weren't leaving the church, but they were closing off the work I could do, tightening the reigns on my options, and closing doors to relationships.  I left that position after only a year.  And while much of my leaving had to do with a difficult senior pastor who simply did not "play well with women," I'm certain that my decision to leave was exacerbated by my own sense of not doing well in that call.

    Fortunately, I didn't leave without learning and growing.  I learned that relationships must be built, trust must be gained, people must know that you love them, and not just because you've said it but because you've shown it, before they will be able to hear things that challenge their thinking, that encourage them to look at things differently, that then call them to different actions.  I learned that pushing too hard leads only to anger and separation, not growth in others.  I learned that listening first is extremely important.  I also learned that first impressions are sometimes the only impressions you will be allowed to give.  And that once we have alienated someone, rebuilding those relationships can be extremely hard to do.  While apologies are important, the "other" may not always accept them, so being thoughtful from the start is important.

    When we talk about "repentance" in the church, we are talking about taking another path, choosing a different way to go, to walk; turning from one direction to another.  And we take this seriously.  But my experience tells me that most of the time while we can see our own growth, and we can celebrate the steps we've made to become different people, more loving people, more faithful people, people who are more whole, we don't always trust or see that others are also growing.  Part of our failure to forgive other people is an inability to see or accept that the other may have genuinely changed, grown and moved from wherever it was that caused them to do damage to us or to someone else that we care about.  When it comes to self-forgiveness, I think that I struggle with actions that may have hurt or upset others in part because I believe that THEY don't understand that I, too, have changed, moved, grown, "repented", chosen a different path, seen where I've erred and strived to do better.  My fear that they can't see that in me, and that they can't forgive me in part encourages me to not forgive myself.  It shouldn't be that way.  I can't control what others see, feel or think.  And I should not allow what others judge in me to determine my own behaviors or the ways in which I view myself.  But this is easier said than done...

    I'm still learning.  I'm still growing.  I'm still making mistakes.  And there are people who cannot or will not forgive me.  There are people who will not accept that I change and grow, too.  There are people who will choose judgment and rejection over an open-heart when it comes to relationships with me.  When you are in a leadership position, it sometimes is easier for people to simply write you off then work through the hard and painful process of reconciliation.  I understand this.  I don't like it, but I understand it.  So today my goals are two fold: first, I will work more on self-forgiveness.  I find that self-forgiveness leads more deeply into a change in behavior than any intense self-judgment can possibly do, anyway.  So I do this for the "others" in my life as well, so that I may have the grace and compassion to truly grow in my actions, to be more loving, to be more aware, to listen more deeply.  My second goal is to remember how it feels when others box me into "that's just the way she is" kind of thinking and to be more open about the possibilities that others are growing too. These are my goals for this day.  I invite you into deeper self-forgiveness as well. And I encourage you to remember that just as you are growing and changing, others are too.  Perhaps we can be better at giving all people the benefit of the doubt: both ourselves and others.  

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.

Growing, Learning

     A wise man once said to me, "When I graduated from high school, I knew everything.  When I finished college, I realized there were a few things I didn't really know anything about.  By the time I received my master's, I realized there were only one or two areas in which I was really an expert.  But when I finished my doctorate, I finally realized that I really knew nothing about anything."

    I think I was in my first year of college when he said this to me.  And so, as someone who was still feeling pretty smart, pretty learned, pretty on top of the world, I could only nod in my own sense of "understanding this" as just one more sign that I did, in fact, know all that was necessary for me to know.  But, while education certainly has been part of teaching me in the fact that I really know precious little about anything, I actually think my greater teacher has been time and experience.  The longer I am on this planet, the more I realize how little I truly understand about pretty much anything.

    I write as a way to deal with all that I don't understand, as a way to try to process through the many levels and layers of non-understanding that I experience.  As William Faulkner once said, “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”

    But this morning I simply found myself aware of how little I understand of other people: their motives, their decisions, their beliefs, even.  

    Still, rather than seeing this as a failing, I'm seeing it more as an invitation.  I want to learn, I want to grow.  And I find that in my learning, there is also growing.  In my exploring and talking to others, especially, perhaps, others who see the world very differently than I do, I do grow.  

    A small group in my church is taking the Brownicity Course: What Lies Between Us.  While our group had been reading a number of wonderful books on Racism in the United States, I have to say, this course that we are now taking is absolutely incredible.  It covers so much material and backs all of it with resources, readings, podcasts, videos, etc.  It is a very inexpensive course that has far more information and data in it than I could have expected and it far exceeds my expectations in terms of both quantity and quality of what is being offered.  While the history of this country is disturbing, shocking, upsetting in so many ways as we look at how we have harmed people of color and frankly anyone that we chose at different points in time to identify as "different" or "other", I deeply believe that we will never be able to make the changes we want to see, the changes that are necessary on our journey to "love one another as we love ourselves" until we truly understand our history.  

    But in the midst of this, my understanding of the continued racism, anger, and hatred that we see has baffled me at so many levels.  This course is helping me in that, as well.  One of the videos we were given to watch was a Ted talk on the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives.  Taking the time to look at the base differences in values was very helpful, as well as why those differences in values exist in the first place.  

    I still find myself feeling very frustrated that we are so divided as a country that we hear different news, invest in different beliefs about what is real, and most of all, are given radically different "facts" that simply cannot be reconciled together.  Of course, where you stand on the spectrum determines which facts you believe and which you decide are lies.  And while I do think that there are always multiple ways of interpreting the same facts, there are things that actually happened and things that really didn't; there are truths about what is happening and there are lies.  And while my perspective tells me a certain group of news is lies, I know that others who disagree with me believe that what I am hearing is lies.  I believe more and more strongly that the role of our leaders is to tell the truth, to not make up stories that confuse, alienate, and divide us as a people, as a country.  But my strong belief in this will not affect leaders, will not change the fact that "truths" and "lies" have become a currency in our country that is more valuable to those buying and selling it than human relationships and human lives.  While I will do my part to promote honesty in reporting and in leadership, I am coming to the belief that it will take a conversion that only God can bring about to convince people, and perhaps to convince us as a nation, of the profound importance of truth-telling, and the huge individual responsibility in being careful about what you choose to accept as "facts".  

    In the meantime, I will continue to read, continue to learn, and continue to try to grow both in my own commitment to loving my neighbors, ALL my neighbors, as myself and in my commitment to working to understand even those who are so radically different from myself.

    Blessings and hope for a new year.