A Reassurance of Life

Revelation 1:4-8

John 20:19-31

            The story of Thomas is a wonderful story about God’s coming to be in relationship with us where we are.  I have preached before on what an amazing gift it is that when Thomas doubts, Jesus does not leave him or abandon him there, but goes to him, brings to Thomas his very self for Thomas to touch, reconnect with and believe in.  But today I want to focus on the other disciples, on what they were doing, what their lives were like following this revelation of Jesus’ resurrection. 

Today’s story from John immediately follows the announcement from Mary to the disciples that Jesus is alive, that she has seen him, that Jesus has sent her to them.  And yet, despite this announcement, where are the disciples?  They are hiding, we are told, from the Jewish authorities.  They are behind locked or closed doors (the Greek word is actually “closed” but I think many of the translators use the word “locked” to indicate that it was a way of shutting others out) out of fear.  Jesus has arisen, which tells us that there is nothing more to fear – everything can be overcome, even death itself.  And yet, even though the disciples have heard this news, they remain terrified to the point of hiding.  It isn’t just Thomas who is doubting because he hasn’t seen.  As a matter of fact, Thomas is an interesting contrast to these other disciples who are hiding.  Because Thomas, we are told, was not hiding with the other disciples.  He was out and about, not in the locked room!  He is the one who has reentered the world, continued living, refused to be trapped behind in fear, while the others, though they have all heard the news, remain in hiding.

            So, Jesus comes and shows himself to the hiding disciples, those who cannot yet believe, those who have heard the good news but remain afraid.  He shows himself and they believe….maybe.  Except that then we are told that eight days later they are still, or maybe again, in the same house, again with the doors closed or locked.  In other words, now after having seen Jesus, they are still hiding!!  And this time Thomas is with them.  Jesus comes again.  And this time when Jesus comes to them, he says something very interesting.  He says, “Do you believe because you see me?”  I think most of us have always heard this phrase to mean – “oh, so now you, Thomas, believe in the resurrection because you see me?”  But I heard this differently this week.  This time, I heard the phrase this way, “Do you actually believe? - because you have seen me.”  And I don’t think it was just aimed at Thomas.  The disciples are not behaving as people who believe.  They are not LIVING into the good news!  They are not so excited about the Good News that Jesus is alive that they are out preaching the word and sharing it!  They are not living as a people filled with joy and released from fear.  So he is asking them, “now that you have seen, NOW do you believe?”  He has come to see them a second time, and yet, they still have not understood the message.  And then he continues, speaking, again, to ALL of the disciples – “Happy are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

            As we know, and as we see through all of this, belief is not as simple, even, as seeing.  Even seeing does not guarantee belief, not real belief, in the meaning behind what is being seen.  Many believe who have not seen, and many see who do not believe.  No, it is not seeing that causes belief.  So, what does create belief in us?

I’ve shared with you before what Frederick Buechner has to say about faith.

“…Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession.  It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all.  Faith is not being sure where you’re going but going anyway.  A journey without maps.”

            He goes on to say that we can’t test what we believe, like, for example, we can’t test the friendships of our friends, without damaging those very relationships.  But we trust our friendships because we are engaged in them.        

And what this says to me is, again, that faith does not come about through seeing.  Faith, real faith, comes about through our relationships.  We believe in our friends when they ACT like friends.  And we believe in God when we experience a relationship with God. 

            We are called to live in the faith of the Good news.  The Good News, Jesus’ resurrection, tells us that even death will be overcome, that the last enemy has been defeated, and that because of that, we have nothing to fear, and can really live and can be free to work for life for all people, too, without fear of the consequences.  But, I repeat what I said, many who have seen do not yet believe, whereas many who have not seen, do believe and live out their faith.

            I think about the story in Mitch Albom’s book Have a Little Faith, in which we learn that the Rabbi lost his young daughter to illness.  When he returned to the pulpit he shared with the congregation that he’d yelled at God, screamed for an answer.  There was nothing in being a Rabbi that had kept him from the tears and misery of never connecting with his young daughter again.  But he also said that his faith was the only thing that soothed him.  It was a reminder that we are all part of something bigger.  And he believed that he would see her again.  But I also believe from what I read that it was the relationship he had with God that got him through the crisis.  It was a relationship that was strong enough that it allowed him to express his anger at God, and held him in the belief that God’s love was big enough to be able to handle that anger.

The thing is, belief, faith, is an act of will, and not a feeling.  And as much as we would want it to, seeing does not guarantee that belief.  I think about the movie, The Polar Express.  One of my favorite scenes in that movie is when the main character, a young boy who is struggling with faith in Santa Claus, is walking across the top of the moving Polar Express Train, looking for a friend of his whom he believes had also walked across the top of the train.  He finds on the top of the train a man who appears to be a Hobo, playing music next to a fire while he heats coffee and dries his socks over the fire.  And he has an interaction with the man where the man says, “You want to believe but you don’t want to be hoodwinked, bamboozled, scammed!”  We, the viewers of the movie, know that the man, the hobo is a spirit, or a ghost. But what is most interesting to me is that he says to the boy, “you want to believe, but seeing is believing, right?  So just one more question…do you believe in ghosts?”  The kid shakes his head “no” to which the ghost responds, “interesting,” and we are left, again, to ponder the reality that seeing is not always believing.  Even in the Polar Express we experience that the child’s faith (in Santa Clause in this case) comes about through his relationships and his experiences, and not through his seeing.  And we understand that child’s faith, we come to understand his faith change when his relationships with others change. 

            There is another part of Mitch Album’s book Have a Little Faith (p.47) that I want to share with you:

Mitch asks his Rabbi, “How do you not get cynical?” And from the book:

            “There is no room for cynicism in this line of work.”

            But people are so flawed.  They ignore ritual, they ignore faith – they even ignore you.  Don’t you get tired of trying?

            … “let me answer with a story,” he said.  “There’s this salesman, see?  And he knocks on a door. The man who answers says, ‘I don’t need anything today.’

            “The next day the salesman returns.

            “ ‘Stay away,’ he is told.

            “The next day, the salesman is back.

            “The man yells, ‘you again!  I warned you!’ He gets so angry, he spits in the salesman’s face.

            “The salesman smiles, wipes the spit with a handkerchief, then looks to the sky and says, ‘Must be raining.’

            “Mitch, that’s what faith is.  If they spit in your face, you say it must be raining.  But you still come back tomorrow.”

            To me, this story is talking more about what really makes faith happen: and that is, again, relationships.  You stay engaged, just as God will stay engaged with you every single time.  You also step out of your fear and choose to be in the world, no matter what the world is handing back to you.  That is faith.  Choosing to act “as if” even when we can’t feel it.  Faith is a choice.  It is a decision.  It is a way to be in the world that says, “I will not act on my fear.  But I will act on my faith, even when I don’t feel it.  I will choose to believe into seeing even when I cannot believe because of what I see.”

It is easy to be like the disciples, like Albom in his tendency towards cynicism, - seeing and still not believing.  The good news for us is that Jesus keeps coming, again and again, until we really do believe.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t times for all of us of struggle with faith, of doubt about who God is, that the love is really there, that it is enough.  I think about the book Life of Pi.  One of my favorite quotes: “Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love.  Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up….Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out.  It was a hell beyond expression.  I thank God it always passed…The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart.  I would go on loving.” (p209) 

Jesus didn’t leave the disciples alone.  He didn’t leave Thomas alone.  He showed up again and again and by doing so he rebuilt his relationship with them until their faith was strong enough that he could leave and trust them to live in the Good News.  God does the same for us.  God will show up again and again for us as well, until we, too, finally find that, because of our relationship with God, not because of what we have heard, and not even because of what we have seen, but because of our relationship with God, we, too can have the faith that moves into true belief and therefore into action. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

If there is anything worthy of praise, Live in the Joy.

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Philippians 4:1-13

Luke 3:7-18

            The Advent candle that we light for today is the candle of joy.  As we read today’s passages, each one of them touches on the subject of joy in different ways.

            Starting with the passage from Zephaniah, we see a community of people that have experienced deepest darkness.  They have been taken from their homes and sent into exile, they have lost everything they valued and no longer have a home, a center, a temple.  It seems that God has abandoned them, left them, forsaken them.  And the reason God gives for this is that they have been acting unjustly.  They have oppressed their poor, their widows, those already in pain and grief they have injured more.  According to the prophet it is their own behavior that has led them to this place, this place of exile and alienation from God.  They are at rock bottom, and there is nothing more to lose, nothing more to grieve.  All is gone.

Still, it is from that bottom, from that place of despair and absolute loss that the light begins to shine.  There was nowhere to go but up, and when the Israelites hit that bottom, only then was there room to finally make the changes they needed to be able to return home, to reclaim their lives, to begin again and to live into joy.  Only then could they look at their own oppressive, hurtful actions.  Only from that place of themselves experiencing some of the pain they had inflicted on others could they begin to change. Only then could they really look and see the way that they held power and wealth at the expense of those who had little.  Only then could they choose to be faithful to God’s call for their lives, and in that faithfulness be answered by God with the promise of return to new life.  It is after the weeping, after the exile, after the horribleness, after the dark night that Israel is able to repent, to change and find herself then with the promise of restoration, light in the darkness, and new life.  That recommitment to God, that recommitment to living the Godly life, to answering the call for justice and compassion, that look towards what God is doing, towards the light that God is shining, only that will bring the joy that God promises, that will bring the joy of new life. 

Next we heard the passage today from Philippians.  This passage contains the direction, the admonition, to “rejoice in the Lord always.”  ALWAYS.  But committing ourselves to joy, fully, and at all times is frankly not an easy task.  When we reflect on our own lives we know this, but also as we reflect on the Biblical stories, like the one from Zephaniah we know this to be true.  We all go through struggles, we all go through times when we feel God’s absence, when it feels that there is little or nothing to rejoice about.  Our challenge is to remember in those times that joy is not the same thing as happiness.  Also, joy comes to us as grace from God.  It is a God-given gift.  We still have the responsibility to claim it or reject it, but it is a gift from God, not something we can create in ourselves or by ourselves.  My friend and colleague, pastor James Lumsden, said it this way, “I start to realize that while God continually offers me the gift of joy, I have to make room for it – if there’s no room in the inn of my heart for Christ’s blessings – then the Spirit of Jesus is going to be born someplace else and I’ll be the poorer for it.”  JOY takes practice, and it takes discipline.  It is a gift of grace – God offers us this joy, but unlike the “happiness” that comes with Christmas, Advent joy, the preparing for Christ’s coming joy, requires effort on our part, it requires us to make room for that joy.  And that takes work.  It does take looking at our lives, repenting our lives, striking out in a new direction and choosing to follow God’s call.  That makes room for joy.

Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of this commitment to joy in this way.  He says, “I have committed myself to JOY. I have come to realize that those who make space for JOY, those who prefer nothing to JOY, those who desire the utter reality of JOY, will most assuredly have it. We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets: now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. For in the prison of now - in this cynical and sophisticated are - someone must believe in JOY.”

What does that mean practically?  It goes back both to the Zephaniah text, but also to the passage we read today from Luke.  We cannot claim joy, real joy, unless we are doing God’s work, are part of ushering in the kingdom to earth, are part of making the valleys rise and the hills lower.  We do this, as John tells us today, by giving our second coat to the one who has none, by sharing our food with those who do not have.  These aren’t really choices for Christians.  John says we MUST share our coat if we have more than one.  We MUST share our food if we have more than enough.  That is following our call, and that is how we claim the joy of God.  Sister Joan Chittister says, joy is  the deep-down awareness of what it means to live well, to live productively and to live righteously (that is for justice and compassion).  In other words, Joy is God- centered, not us centered.  Joy requires looking beyond ourselves, and looking beyond the moment of our own pain or struggles or thoughts, even beyond our own happiness.  Instead, Joy is centered in doing God’s will, doing God’s work, seeing beyond pain and death and into the awe and wonder and amazing gift that is God.

In Ben Mikaelsen's book, Touching Spirit Bear, a 15 year old juvenile delinquent named Cole has been given the opportunity to change his life, change his path, change his future by spending a year on an island by himself rather than the rest of his life in jail.  At first he is not ready to change, but he, too, hits “bottom,” like the Israelites, when he is attacked by a bear and faces the real possibility of his own death.  He then comes to a place where he really is ready to repent, to change, but there is much he has to learn in order to do that.  He goes back to the island after his physical recovery from the bear attack, accompanied by two men, Garvey and Edwin, Native American men who try to help him see his world differently.  They tell him that his first step that evening is to cook them dinner.  This is what follows.

“What would you guys do if I refused to cook anything?” Cole asked with a wry smile, as he sharpened a sapling for a hot-dog stick.

Garvey crouched beside the fire and reached his palms toward the flames to warm up.  “First, we’d get hungry.  Then we’d take you back to Minneapolis (and to jail).”

“What’s the big deal if I fix a hot dog or not?”  Cole asked.  “It’s not the end of the world.”

“The whole world is a hot dog,” Garvey said.

“What does that mean?”

“Go ahead, eat a hot dog and I’ll show you.”

Cole poked a raw hot dog onto the stick and held it over the fire.  He hadn’t realized how hungry he was, so he held the hot dog in the flames to cook faster.  All the while, Edwin and Garvey stared patiently.  When the hot dog was charred, Cole placed it on a bun.  “Now what?” he asked.

“Eat it.”

Cole squirted on a glob of ketchup, then devoured the hot dog.  Edwin and Garvey kept watching.  “There,” Cole said, finishing.  “I ate the hot dog.  Now what?”

“How was it?” Garvey asked.

Cole shrugged.  “Okay, I guess.  Why?”

“That hot dog did exactly what you asked it to do.  You asked it to feed you, and it fed you.  No more, no less.”  Garvey held out his hand.  “Pass me a hot dog.”

Cole pulled another one from the cooler and handed it across the flames.  Garvey took the hot dog carefully in his hands and examined it.  “This is a fine hot dog,” he said.  “The finest I’ve seen all day.”  Carefully he slid it onto the stick.  He started humming.  Soon Edwin hummed along.  For ten minutes they hummed the melody over and over.  All the while Garvey patiently turned the hot dog over the coals, careful not to burn it.  Finally, when the hot dog was a glistening, crispy brown, Garvey drew the stick back from the fire.  “The song we hummed is a song of friendship,” he explained.

“What are the words?” Cole asked.

“There are no words because each person makes up his own.  That’s how friendship is.”  As Garvey spoke, he rummaged through the cooler, pulling out salt and pepper, cheese, a plate, cups and a tomato.  He leaned a bun against a rock near the coals to let it toast lightly, then wrapped it around the hot dog.

“You going to eat that thing, or play with it all day?”  Cole asked.

Garvey smiled and kept working.  He cut the hot dog into three pieces on a plate and lightly shook on salt and pepper.  Next he cut slices of cheese and tomato and put them on top.  With a flair, he added a small circle of ketchup to each.  Last he poured three glasses of water.  He handed one to Cole and one to Edwin.  “This is a toast to friendship,” he said, raising his glass.

After taking a drink, he handed Cole and Edwin each a piece of the hot dog he had prepared.

“That’s your hot dog,” said Cole.

“Yes, it is, and I choose to share it,” said Garvey.  He began eating, savoring each bite.  “Eat slowly,” he said, raising his cup again to toast.  “Here’s to the future.”  After each bite, he raised his cup for a different toast.  “Here’s to good health.”  “Here’s to the sun and the rain.”  “Here’s to the earth and the sky.”

When everybody had finished eating, Garvey turned to Cole.  “How was my hot dog different from yours?”

Cole shrugged.  “You shared yours and acted like it was a big deal.”

Garvey nodded.  “Yes, it was a big deal.  It was a party.  It was a feast.  It was a sharing and a celebration.  All because that is what I made it.  Yours was simply food, because that is all you chose for it to be.  All of life is a hot dog.  Make of it what you will.  I suggest you make your time here on the island a celebration.”

Cole scuffed at the dirt with his shoe.  “What is there to celebrate?”  he asked.

“Discover yourself,” Edwin said.  “Celebrate being alive!” (2001: New York. Harper Collins. p145)

Celebrating being alive is choosing joy.  Looking at things not with eyes of every day cynicism or pain, but with eyes to see where God is moving, where God is acting, where God is calling us to be, that is choosing joy.  It sometimes takes hitting bottom, going into and through the darkness to come to the place where we are ready to repent enough to be open to God’s joy.  But when we do that, when we can take our experiences as launching places into new life, then we become ready to do the work of repentance and opening ourselves to God’s joy.  Thanks be to God that the gift of that joy, the grace of that joy is offered in every day and in every moment!  Amen.

Sermon - for All the Saints/ Pre-election

Psalm 149

Luke 6:20-31

            Today we celebrate All Saints day.  And in that, it is a time of remembering, it is a joint, church-wide celebration of the lives of those who have gone before, a rejoicing that those who have passed are with God, a reminder of the vast gifts their lives have given and passed to us, and, honestly, an invitation to be open once more with our grief at the loss of those we have loved.  But most of all, All Saints Day is a reminder that in God, we have nothing to fear.  Even death has been overcome, our Saints, our loved ones live on.  We celebrate their continued living with God this day.  And we celebrate that as we are called to live bravely, with only love and faith as our shield and fortress, we will follow God’s will most closely when we can let go of our fear. For as Yoda said it, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.  We’ve seen exactly how true that is over the last few months and as we edge towards Tuesday.  This is the most fear driven election I have ever witnessed.  And in that, in that it is a fear driven election, it is also the least Godly that I have ever witnessed. 

            But it is in the midst of this angst that we are experiencing as a country, this fear that we feel as Tuesday approaches, that we are reminded that we have nothing to fear, not only by the declarations of the angels, “Be not afraid!” but by the celebration of All Saints Day itself.  I don’t say this with levity.  I need to be clear about that.  I am not saying it is an easy thing to put aside our fear and choose love.  It isn’t.  It’s the hardest thing in the world to do, especially when it comes to the fear of death.  As part of my job I have had the deep privilege and honor of walking with people in their last weeks and last days.  And it is common for even people of the deepest faith to have fear as they approach the unknown that is death.  We feel that fear from both places: both feeling afraid of our own deaths, but also the place of fearing the loss of those we love.  Last night at the Chromatica concert that took place here, there were two pieces that really “got” to me in the way of moving me to have a hard time not weeping as I listened.  The first was one of the “Children’s Letters to God” in which the child asked what it was like when you die and then said he/she didn’t want to.  In the middle of it was the noise of the question coming from many voices all being raised to God at the same time (or at least that was my interpretation).  And I felt it.  I felt the fear that even our children, perhaps especially our children, have of death.  A fear that is so intense, so real, so DEEP that it influences and guides so many of our decisions.  The second was Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven, which I had never before known was written for his child who had died at the age of four.  Just that realization was beyond me.  I know some of you have lost children.  And I tell you, the fact that you continue on each day shows to me an amazing strength.  I’ve been through a lot, but I do not know how a person walks through the loss of a child.  And the terror of that, the terror of my children dying is overwhelming for me. The terror of my kids being hurt and in particular right now, honestly, of my girls being treated as less than fully human, of being molested, attacked, abused because of their gender terrifies me. I will own that many of my decisions, therefore also come from a fear that stems out of very specific love for very specific people, rather than being based on the love for all people that we are told must be the heart of all we are, including our decisions.

            But again, here we are on All Saints Day.  And we are called to remember that those who pass are with God.  We stand on the angels proclamation to “do not be afraid” again and again.  We lean on scriptures that tell us that the only thing we are called to do: the great commandments we are called to live by are loving God and loving all those we encounter.  ALL those we encounter.  The heart of what I am saying is this: Love is supposed to make our decisions for us, not fear. 

            Today’s passage from Luke reminds us that in the face of all of our loss and grief there is comfort.  We are also reminded that what we believe to be true will be turned on its head.  Once more we are told it is the poor who are rich, the hungry who will be made full, the grieving who will be comforted, and the weeping who will laugh.  When we rest in God, even when we are in pain, even when we are struggling, we will find what we need, we will find the hope, the peace, the laughter, the comfort.  Therefore we do not have to fear doing what God asks us to do: loving others, giving to others, sharing with others, welcoming others.  Because it is in our sharing and giving only that we will find we have enough.  It is in our loving that we will find ourselves loved.  It is in our seeing each other human being as a child of God that we will come to know ourselves as children of God.  We know that nothing stays the same, and that God is the God of change.  We also know that our faith boosts us up and keeps us strong no matter what we are going through, what we are feeling.  God stands with us when we are down, and God strengthens us for the times to come when we are joyful.

Death is scary.  Death creates loss and pain for us.  But this year especially as we look at the election about to take place in two days, as we see a country torn with fear, anger, and hatred, we must, as we look at death, the most feared thing there is, especially, rest in the truth that our faith teaches us we do not have to be afraid.  The bottom line in everything is to choose love over hate, choose hope over fear, and choose compassion over judgment.  We are never called to see others as anything besides our brothers and sisters.  We are called to love even those we consider enemies.  Always.

So on this, All Saints Day, and also “two days before election” day, I have two charges for you. First, be of comfort.  Know that God is with the Saints and that God is with you.  Know that as we rest in God, our fears will be eased, our struggles will be made into something good, and our pain will be transformed into life.

But second, do not vote out of fear, or anger or, worst of all, hate. Do not live out of fear, anger or hate.  If All Saints day is about anything, it is about trusting that as the Saints live on, we, too can live as God calls us to live, with love, with trust, with hope and with compassion. 

I want to share with you two writings. 

The first is a poem by W.H. Auden called “Better Fears”

O God

it is so easy

to be afraid

to be made afraid.

Demagogues of every sort

have always counted on our fears

to scare us into submission.

Politicians and preachers

commissars and evangelists

make people afraid—

afraid of what will happen to them

afraid of death

and therefore of life

afraid of differences

strangers

joy.

The fearmongers are so successful

because they find in us

such willing subjects.

But the gospel of perfect love

comes to us

to cast out fear—

from our beginning.

Some of us

have never affirmed

our first birth—

have never said 'Good!' to our emergence

'Very good!' to our creation.

Be midwife to our self-respect

and mother to our growth.

Perfect love

will cast out fear

and when You are through with us

we will be fearless.

  

in the mean time

at least help us

to move from petty fears

to better ones;

from fears of hell

to admissions of joylessness;

from quaking before opinions and modes and fashions

to fearing

loss of our integrity

and untruth in our very souls.

We would say 'Bravo!'

to

our birth

our re-birth

Your will that created us

our choice to be

and to become.

amen.

Let go of fear.  Remember that the thing that is most feared, death, ends with life.  God is with us, making those we have loved, those we love still, into the Saints that remind us of the value of living but also the value of remembering what they have been, what they have given us, who we are called to be.

This second poem I want to share with you is called “life Unbroken”. It was written by Harry Scott-Holland in 1910.

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room. 

Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

We can feel safe in the assurance that our loved ones still exist, that they are with God, that our love for them still matters, and their love for us is endless.  We honor the Saints by living in the love God calls us to extend to all creation.  Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - What Comes Out

What Comes

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

James 1:17-27

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

8/30/15

         “Nothing outside of a person can enter and contaminate a person in God’s sight; rather, the things that come out of a person contaminate the person.”  I found myself thinking about this passage a great deal over the last few weeks, especially as I was confronted, again and again, with values that are different than what our faith teaches. 

I began thinking around this when I noticed a magazine cover in the grocery store that said this, “Hair, sex, money, happiness” and then under all of that in bold letters it said “Goals”.  And as I stared at this magazine cover, as I reflected on the popular TV programs and the ads that sprinkle through those TV programs, as I thought about conversations overheard in the parent night at the kids’ schools and in the grocery store, I realized those really are the goals for so many in our society.  Hair (or appearance), Sex (or physical pleasure of any kind), Money and Happiness - maybe even in that order.  Some people believe that the first three lead to the last – happiness.  But I’m no longer convinced that even Happiness is the goal our faith sets for ourselves.  Jesus never said, “Do whatever it takes to be happy.”  Instead he said, “Pick up your cross and follow me.”  Picking up one’s cross does not make one happy.  It may bring joy, the joy of meaning, the joy of connecting with God.  But happy?  No.  Being willing to die out of love for our neighbors is not about being happy.

The truth is, being happy is an American value.  It is not a Christian one.  I want to repeat that.  Happiness is not a Christian goal.  Still, I want to be clear.  This doesn’t mean that we won’t find happiness or that we shouldn’t be grateful for life.  But the fact is that setting happiness as the goal often has the reverse result of the one we want it to have.  When we think we should be happy, when we think being happy is the goal, it is in fact harder to be happy.  I’ve shared this before in a blog post for those who read my blog, but a good friend of mine was born and raised in Holland.  And one of the things that she pointed out to me years ago was that people in other countries tend to be much more content, much more joyful, much happier than people in the United States.  And one of the reasons for this is simply that we who were raised here tend to expect life to be happy and easy and fair.  My friend told me that in other countries people don’t expect ease or justice or happiness.  They expect that life will be hard.  But because of that, they take the gifts of life, the good things that happen to them, each one, as exactly that – an unexpected gift that they then enjoy and appreciate with much greater depth.  When things go wrong, they just expect that so they shrug it off.  It’s life.  That’s what life is, no big deal.  But when things go right?  That’s unexpected and amazing and wondrous and to be celebrated.  In contrast, here in the United States we are constantly bombarded with the messages, “you deserve this!”  “Claim your happiness!”  “It’s all there right for you!”  “If you think positively, it will be yours!”  “You deserve to be pampered and spoiled and happy.”  And as a result, when things go wrong, which they will because that is life, we can’t handle it.  We think it’s unfair and not right.  And when things go well, since we believe that’s is how it is supposed, we don’t appreciate it. 

               But the point I want to make here is that whatever it is that we value, those values truly define what we become, who we are and how we act.      Thomas Merton put it this way, “a life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all.  No one can serve two masters.  Your life is shaped by the end you live for.  You are made in the image of what you desire.”  Thomas Merton was really quoting Jesus when Jesus said it like this, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

So, if what you desire is, like the magazine declared, “hair, sex, money and happiness,” your life will demonstrate those values.  Your resources will be aimed towards achieving and obtaining those things, and therefore that is how you will spend your time, your money, your energy. 

             But as I said at the beginning, these are not the things that Jesus calls us to value.  We know what Jesus calls us to value:  The passage in James put it like this, “True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Parent is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.”  Micah said it this way, “What does the Lord require of you but to love kindness, to do justice and to walk humbly with God.”  In John, Jesus said it like this, “Love one another.  By this you will be known to be my disciples, if you love one another.”  And in the other three gospels Jesus said it more simply still:  “Two commandments I give you: to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. And to love your neighbor as yourself.” 

When we fail to do those things, that is when we “defile” ourselves.  It is not what goes in, it is what comes out of a person.  It is what a person says, it is what a person does, it is how a person behaves, which says everything about who we ultimately are.  The Pharisees had a lot of rules, they were good at following those rules.  But when it came to actually caring for the people who were most in need, they did not follow God’s will or obey what God asked them to do.  Their lives reflected their values.  They valued church authority.  They valued the rules.  They valued a hierarchy and a ranking of people that allowed them to appear superior, righteous, above others.  And in turn, they treated those who they did not “rank” as equal with disdain and without compassion.  Their behavior defiled them.  If you really want to know what a person’s like, what they value and therefore who they really are, take a good look at how they treat those they consider inferior, not those they consider equals.  That poor treatment of those who have less, those who appear inferior, that is what defiles.

               I have a story to tell you that is really more about education and educators than about being a good follower of Christ.  But I think it is appropriate since we just began school this week, and also because I think it, too illustrates the point I’m trying to make:

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided her best option in life was to become a teacher?" To stress his point he said to another guest; "You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?"

Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began...)

"Well, I make students work harder than they ever thought they could. I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor winner.  I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 without an IPod, Xbox or netflicks.

You want to know what I make? (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table). I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.  I make them care about serving other people.  They use their God given brain, and they learn that their brain was made to love and grow in understanding. I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe and respected.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts God gave them, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life…

(Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)

Then, when people try to judge me by what kind of salary I make, with me knowing money isn’t everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because. …. You want to know what I make?  I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.”

--

               What do we value?  Do we value the things we are taught by our culture to value?  Appearance, popularity, money, things?  Getting what is best only for me and for mine?  Or do we value service, meaning, purpose, caring – love for God and God’s people?  Our lives tell.  Our lives show.  It is what comes out that defiles, not what goes in.  And similarly, it is what comes out that makes a difference for the better and can change the world.  Not what goes in.  Amen.