Challenges of the times

        Thursday evening was my daughter's back to school night.  This was a different back to school night because it was all on-line.  It was set up so that every 15 minutes we were invited to "move" from one period of study to the next by closing a zoom group meeting that was hosted by the teacher for that particular period at school, and opening the next zoom meeting for the next period's teacher.  We were sent a list of the zoom links for each of our child's classes.  Unfortunately the links to the zoom rooms that the parents were sent all required passcodes, none of which were sent.  

      To say the least, then, it was an interesting evening.  We had been invited to start the evening with a zoom meeting with the principal.  That room was accessible and did not require passcodes.  So, as each parent discovered that they were unable to get into their child's zoom classrooms, they returned to this zoom room.  The principal's zoom room had all of us permanently muted.  So different parents were writing signs and holding them up for all of us to read.  The signs said things like, "This is what our kids are experiencing every day" and "This is why our kids need to actually be on campus".  Personally, I disagree with that second sign and I don't understand this perspective.  I would much rather have my child struggling to learn in a new way (after all, that is learning, too and isn't that what school is about?) than to risk my child being exposed to a deadly and highly contagious disease.  But I seem to be in the minority in this perspective.

       Of course, the school was on top of the problem fairly quickly.  And so we were able to connect to most of my daughter's classes.  The school immediately sent out emails to all the parents apologizing and begging for our compassion and patience.  That was not hard for me to give.  These are hard times, we are all struggling to make our way through new ways of doing things, new ways of connecting.  We are learning new technology and sometimes it doesn't work for us in the ways we expect or hope.  I know how to contact my child's teachers and if there is an issue, I can just reach out directly.  While I was unable then to hear a couple teacher presentations, I do not feel that I have missed vital information that will change the course of my daughter's future irrevocably for the worse.  This was a small inconvenience and the school dealt with it as quickly and as efficiently as could be expected.  Mistakes happen.  We all make them.

       But I have since heard that not all parents were as compassionate or as patient.  While this, too, baffles me at some level, I again have been made aware that this shouldn't surprise me at all since the anger, rage and attacks are happening in so many different situations and places.  We know that one of the real problems of social media is that people feel emboldened to say cruel and hateful things through social media that they would never dare to say to others in person.  People are not held accountable and they rant and rave on social media in ways that would be seen as extremely childish, unthoughtful, and simply inappropriate if it were done in person.  Relationships are permanently damaged then because of the things people feel free to type, things that they would be prevented from saying to a person's face because they would see the hurt, see the pain they were causing which would then push most people to find gentler and better ways to speak their truth if they chose to speak at all.  

       But now, we only have these distant ways of communicating.  We are no longer talking directly to people, no longer seeing the faces of those we are injuring in person, no longer forced to talk to those with whom we disagree because it is so much easier to just refuse to answer the phone, to choose to ignore the email, to pretend the other doesn't exist, or to choose to speak about others rather than TO others directly.  We could never do this if we were in the same places at the same time.  But we can and do do this now.  90% of communication is non-verbal.  But we no longer have these non-verbal cues to help us to be the sane, kind, compassionate adults we are called to be.  And as a result, people's daily behavior is deteriorating at a rapid rate.

       As always then, my question is where do we go from here?  I remind all of us to work a little harder for compassion.  Try to remember that we are all struggling, all finding our way.  Mistakes happen.  Work harder to forgive.  Additionally, reach out, especially to those it would be easier to avoid.  Our call is always towards reconciliation, bridge-building, healing relationships.  We do not and cannot do that by refusing to speak to each other, by gossiping, or by attacking each other rather than listening with compassion.  

      And, as I have also said often before, remember that we have a choice about how we walk through each day.  We have a choice about our perspective.  Do we see these times as struggles?  Or as opportunities to grow and learn?  Do we see these times as nothing but hardships with people who are simply difficult?  Or do we see this time as providing us the opportunity to be brave, to reach out to those with whom we disagree or are struggling and to find a new way to be in community together?  I know that these dualisms are not realistic always.  We will usually see both the bad and hopefully some of the good.  We will recognize that there are hardships and gifts in this time.  But I encourage all of us to focus on the good in our own lives so that we have the strength to deal with the challenges that we all face.  Listen for God's call to you today.  Listen to the ways in which we are being challenged to grow in our understanding of the connectionality, the interdependence of all things.  We need each other.  As we can remember this, it will help us to choose kindness.

       My prayers are with us all as we continue to navigate these troubling waters.  May you find a place to breathe, a space to be.  May you be held by your love for one another.  And may you be emboldened to speak from places of love, compassion and forgiveness rather than from places of rage and pain.

The Work of Praying Hard - 10/20/19

                                                               Jeremiah 31:27-34

Luke 18:1-8

In a small Texas town, Drummond's Bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.  The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise in its reply to the court.  As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, 'I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.' 

               But prayer is a complicated thing.  There is a very powerful story in the book, Leaving Northaven (Michael Lindvall. New York: Crossroads Publishing Company, 2002) that I would like to share with you.  The backdrop of the story is a woman struggling with Parkinson’s who is being told by everyone to pray for God and trust that God will heal her.  She is speaking with her pastor, named David, at this point. 

“On the 12^th of March, 1918, a prairie wolf followed me home from school.  I was walking the righthand rut of a two-rut road, alongside our cornfield, just stubble in March, of course.  I remember the snow was lying only in the furrows, blown in there by the wind.  It was like black and white stripes.  I saw him in the woods on the other side of the field.  Every once and again, he would move out of the woods, and I would see him moving along with me; he was watching me.  He kept up with me for maybe half an hour.  He was all bone, he was.  Sometimes he would stop and lower his head and just look at me.  I was scared, but I was afraid to run, like running would let him know I was alive.  So, I just walked real steady and watched him without turning to look.  And David, I prayed.  I prayed like I never prayed in my life….  It was 1918.  The Spanish Influenza.  I ran the last hundred yards and burst through the door glad to be alive.  My parents and brother looked up at me from the kitchen table.  Their eyes were red, I remember how their eyes were red.  I’ll never forget it, the three of them sitting there, looking at me.  My father got up and came to me.  I can still see him.  He took me by both shoulders and looked down at me and told me that Gert had just died, not ten minutes ago.  They had just come downstairs from our room.  Then he held me tight, so tight it almost hurt.  I remember that especially, how tight he held me.  And then he sobbed.  Not for the whole of your life do you forget it when you see your parents weep.  That was the only time I ever saw him cry.  I don’t know that my mother ever did.  Gertrude was my older sister.  She was fourteen.  I never even told them about the wolf.  Never told anybody till now….It was like God had answered my prayers when the wolf was following me home.  So the wolf let me go, but he came for Gertrude.  That’s what I thought.  For years, I thought it must have been my fault.  It was like my prayers had caused it.  I know other families had it worse in the influenza, but I adored her, David.  Why didn’t God answer all those prayers for Gert?…  I stopped praying that Parkinson’s would leave me alone because I remembered the wolf, the wolf and Gertrude and the Spanish Influenza.  I was afraid of what my prayers might do.  I didn’t pray for two, three years.  I ached to, but the old words wouldn’t come.  And then finally, after all these years, I finally decided that it wasn’t my fault.  I decided it was never Gertrude instead of me.  I prayed again, but I said bigger prayers.  I just tell [God] what I think and how I feel.  I don’t much tell [God] what to do.  I just tell Him I’m afraid, afraid for me and afraid for the boys and afraid for that old fool of a husband.  I suppose He knows it all already, but words make it solid.  I always whispered them at night when I was awake.”…

(The pastor continued,), I had no quick words in the face of her transparency, but knew only candor would do.  “I do think God answers prayer,” I answered.  “But I’m not sure anymore just what it means.  I’ve watched too many people pray their hearts out and get nothing that looked like an answer.  And then I’ve watched folks pray for miracles and get them.  I don’t know.”

“Well Pastor, don’t worry.  This old lady’s prayers have been answered.”  Minnie MacDowell suddenly switched to the formalities of Protestant address to preach her sermon, “Not the answers I wanted, though.  God didn’t take away the Parkinson’s but he did take away the fear.” (p 116) 

               I believe that prayer “works” but I don’t believe it works by manipulating God, in the way that so many people believe that it does.  About 20 years ago one of the big storms that so often hit the East coast blew through the Eastern Seaboard.  A prominent televangelist took a group of about 12 people down to the coast and they formed a tight prayer circle as the storm approached.  They prayed that the storm would not hit the coast where they were.  Sure enough, the storm went around them.  Instead, it hit the coast a few miles north of where they stood and killed many, many people.  This particular televangelist went on TV spouting his proof that prayer worked, and it surely seemed to for those 12 people.  But what about for those who were also surely praying, further north?  I recently saw a story about a man who insisted that all the climate problems were a result of God responding to the prayers of anti- LGBTQ people by punishing the country.  Then his house was destroyed in one of the hurricanes.  But somehow he did not see THAT as an answer to prayer or as punishment from God or as a message from God.  I feel that prayer used in this way, comments about God’s will as determined by what happens around us – that these are dangerous, and shows a very poor theology.

               Every time someone tells me that someone received healing after being prayed for, I find myself cringing a bit because every single time I remember all of those who were also prayed for who did not survive, did not heal.  Did those other people just not pray hard enough?  Was their faith not strong enough?  I don’t believe that.  Was God just saying “yes” to some and “no” to others?  I struggle with that, especially when it is a child who has suffered.  Does God “need” certain people to be in heaven?  No, I can’t see that either.  God gave us life and wants us to have it in fullness.  I struggle with the idea that there is a God who answers prayers for some but allows the Holocaust to take place, slavery to go on in different places and in different ways, throughout history and even now,  and who is not preventing the damaging of the earth or the extinction of whole species of animals due to Climate Change.  I think we have to understand prayer differently if we are to believe in a good and loving God. 

In the book, Tattoos on the Heart (New York: Free Press, 2010), Father Gregory Boyle tells this story:

              

               Willy crept up on me from the driver’s side.  I had just locked the office and was ready to head home at 8:00pm. 

                              “Shit, Willy,” I say, “Don’t be doin’ that.”

               “Spensa, G”, he says, “My bad.  It’s just.. well my stomach’s on echale.  Kick me down with twenty bones, yeah?”

               “God, my wallet’s on echale,” I tell him.  A “dog” is the one upon whom you can rely – the role-dog, the person who has your back.  “But get in.  Let’s see if I can trick any funds outta the ATM.”

               Willy hops on board.  He is a life force of braggadocio and posturing – a thoroughly good soul – but his confidence is out-size, that of a lion wanting you to know he just swallowed a man whole.  A gang member, but a peripheral one at best – he wants more to regale you with his exploits than to actually be in the midst of any.  In his mid-twenties, Willy is a charmer, a quintessential homie con man who’s apt to coax money out of your ATM if you let him.  This night, I’m tired and I want to go home.

               It’s easier not to resist.  The Food 4 Less on Fourth and Soto has the closest ATM.  I tell Willy to stay in the car, in case we run into one of Willy’s rivals inside.

               “Stay here, dog,” I tell him, “I’ll be right back.”

               I’m not ten feet away when I hear a muffled, “hey.”

               It’s Willy and he’s miming, “the keys,” from the passenger seat of my car.  He’s making over-the-top, key-in-the-ignition senales. 

               “The radio,” he mouths, as he holds a hand, cupping his ear.

               I wag a finger, “No, chale.”  Then it’s my turn to mime.  I hold both my hands together and enunciate exaggeratedly, “Pray.”

               Willy sighs and levitates his eyeballs.  But he’s putty.  He assumes the praying hands pose and looks heavenward – cara santucha.  I proceed on my quest to the ATM but feel the need to check in on Willy only ten yards later.

               I turn and find him still in the prayer position, seeming to be only half-aware that I’m looking in on him.

               I return to the car, twenty dollars in hand, and get in.  Something has happened here.  Willy is quiet, reflective, and there is a palpable sense of peace in the vehicle.  I look at Willy and say, “you prayed, didn’t you?”

               He doesn’t look at me.  He’s still and quiet.  “Yeah, I did.”

               I start the car.

               “Well, what did God say to you?”  I ask him.

               “Well, first He said, ‘Shut up and listen.’”

               “So, what d’ya do?”

               “Come on, G,” he says, “What am I s’posed ta do?  I shut up and listened.”

               I begin to drive him home to the barrio.  I’ve never seen Willy like this.  He’s quiet and humble – no need to convince me of anything or talk me out of something else.

               “So, son, tell me something, “ I ask.  “How do you see God?”

               “God?” he says, “That’s my dog right there.”

               “And God?” I ask, “How does God see you?”

               Willy doesn’t answer at first.  So I turn and watch as he rests his head on the recliner, staring at the ceiling of my car.  A tear falls down his cheek.  Heart full, eyes overflowing.  “God… thinks… I’m… firme.”

               To the homies, firme means, “could not be one bit better.”

               Not only does God think we’re firme, it is God’s joy to have us marinate in that. (p23)

And in that is the truth of prayer.  And yet, there is something deeper here.  I heard someone say once that God doesn’t answer our prayers, God answers US.  Someone else told me, we keep asking for answers, but God keeps sending us people.  Under all of this is what C.S. Lewis says about prayer, “I do not pray to change God.  I pray so that God might change me.”   We open ourselves up to God through praying, through speaking our truth and then listening.  We learn about ourselves through our honest communication with God, and we allow for growth and change to become possibilities as we listen for God’s voice and look for God in our experiences, in other people, in the world and life around us.  I believe that God is more present in our prayers than we can even imagine.  God begins the conversation and we respond to it by praying.  God begins the conversation by creating us, by calling us, by choosing us and by inviting us into relationship with God.  We join that conversation through our prayers, and then, hopefully, by our actions of love and care as well. 

That doesn’t let us off the hook for praying.  I was given a wonderful article by Edward Hayes, written last year I believe called “Thanksgiving Thoughts.”  He wrote ‘friendship takes time, education takes time, meals that are truly holy and wholesome take time – and so does prayer.  We Americans are a people who suffer from a great poverty of time.  We are always short of time: to write letters to visit old friends, to enjoy life.  And the near future, especially for middle-class Americans, will find our clocks running faster and faster.  With husbands and wives both working, numerous commitments to the parish, school and community and with children involved in numerous extracurricular activities, we are left with less and less quality time within the family.  Consequently, we can expect to see, in the coming years, more instant foods and quick worship services.  But just as a 19 ½ pound turkey baked only for a minute will be a disaster dinner, so will prayers dashed off “on the run.”  The soul, like the body, knows hunger, and it will not easily be able to digest even a half-baked prayer, let alone some kind of ‘minute meditation.”   Hayes goes on to describe the different steps of basting, preheating, stuffing and finally cooking for a long time our prayers just as we would cook a turkey.  His point is that relationships with God take the same time that any relationships take. 

Prayer is important, but not because we control God with it.  It’s important because it helps us build a relationship with God, and if that seems meaningless to you, prayer is important because it helps you to hear your own thoughts, wishes, fears, what you are grateful for, who you are becoming, who you have been.  Prayer opens us up to hearing God, to being moved by God, to changing and growing.  Prayer takes time, but it is very well spent and should be a priority for all of us.  The good news in this?  Well, prayer is where we meet God.  And more, where God meets us.  Amen.

Habakkuk

               Habakkuk is one of the prophets whose words are written as poetry.  But unlike many other prophets, Habakkuk is a prayer to God.  More than that, it follows the format of many of our psalms of lament.  Next lent I expect us to focus on the different types of psalms.  We haven’t done that yet, so to give a preview, there are many different types of psalms, and like with hymns or other kinds of poetry, the different genres of psalms follow different formats.  Psalms of lament usually include most of the following components:

               Intimate Address to God

               Complaint

               Petition

               Argument in favor of the petition

               Vengeance

               Rejoicing and praise

               The main difference between Habakkuk and another writer of a psalm of lament is that unlike the psalms, which usually offer the complaints, petitions, etc. on behalf of the speaker, Habakkuk is speaking on behalf of the people.  He was one of the Southern prophets, speaking very close to the time of the Babylonian exile, anticipating the exile, and pleading for God to intervene, to save the nation, to save the people. 

               As I listened to Habakkuk’s words, I am reminded of an exchange that I’ve seen several cartoonists recreate in which one person is complaining and loudly lamenting, “I want to yell at God and demand to know why God allows so much suffering, so much pain!  I just want to demand that God tell me why God hasn’t done anything and I want to scream at God that if God really cared, God would DO something.  I want to demand to know why God hasn’t done it!”  To which the listener to this rant asks, “Well, why don’t you?”  The original speaker responds, “Because I am certain God would ask me the same thing.”

I think this is summed up well in the words to one of my favorite praise songs, sung by Matthew West entitled “Do Something”:

I woke up this morning

Saw a world full of trouble now, thought

How’d we ever get so far down, and

How’s it ever gonna turn around?

So I turned my eyes to Heaven

I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”

Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of

People living in poverty

Children sold into slavery

The thought disgusted me

So, I shook my fist at Heaven

Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”

(God) said, “I did, I created YOU”

I’m so tired of talking about

How we are God’s hands and feet

But it’s easier to say than to be

We live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves

“It’s alright.  Somebody else will do something.”

Well, I don’t know about you

But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire

I don’t want a flame, I want a fire and

I wanna be the one who stands up and says

“I’m gonna do something”

We are the salt of the earth

We are a city on a hill

But we’re never gonna change the world

By standing still

No, we won’t stand still

If not us, then who

If not me and you

Right now

It’s time for us to do something

If not now, then when

Will we see an end

To all this pain

It’s not enough to do nothing

It’s time for us to do something

Habakkuk is speaking words that almost all, if not all, of us have felt at one time or another.  We, too, want God to fix the pain in the world - ideally in the way we think it ought to be fixed.  There are many times when we feel if God really loved us, really loved the world, God would surely step in and fix things.  For many this is reason enough to believe that God doesn’t exist at all.  After all, if there were a God, why wouldn’t he/she step in a fix everything?  But the response of God?  Well, according to Habakkuk, the response is, again and again, to throw it back at us.  We have been given this world, we have been blessed with unbelievable abundance, with good minds, and with each other.  We have been given all the tools we need to confront the pain in the world.  We’ve been given all the resources we need so that everyone could have enough, should have enough.  If they don’t have enough, we have no-one but ourselves to blame.  I’m reminded of the saying, “Pray as if everything were up to God.  Act as if everything were up to us.”

This is, indeed, the message of all the prophets.  A message that Jesus echoed every time he told us to love all people even our enemies, even those people we don’t understand, even those people we don’t like, as we love ourselves.   If we were experiencing hunger or oppression or pain, we would fight for better.  But we don’t do this for those among us who are, in fact, facing these things.  We don’t give to others to the same degree that we take care of ourselves.  Extremely few people do.  But that’s the call.  It’s the call of the prophets, it’s the call of Jesus.

And perhaps it is a hard message to hear.  I know it is for me.  I wonder how I can be better at not contributing to the pain and suffering of the world, how I can use my resources for the good of everyone.  None of us is wealthy by American standards.  But we are wealthy in comparison to most of the world.  How can we better use our resources to further God’s kingdom and to care for our brothers, sisters, siblings throughout the world?  How can we use our power for good?  To change the systems that oppress and keep resources from those who need them the most?

I remember in my Prophets class as a seminary student our professor telling us that all of the prophets were speaking to the elite of Israel and Judah: those who had both the power and the resources and were using it for their own gain to the great loss of those they were supposed to serve and love.  Our professor told us that while in some ways these words apply to us as well, there is a difference in that while we have many resources, most of us have very limited power. I shared with you a few weeks ago that a Princeton University study showed that public opinion has absolutely zero impact on the decisions made by our federal government.  The limited power we do have comes in the form of how we vote, and in the actions we take locally.  But still, our power is not that of the people being addressed by the prophets.  Their words were meant to convict the leadership.  Well, we know that that fails to happen.  Those in power STILL use their power to better their own positions and rarely, RARELY, consider the “least of these” as the people they most need to care for.  But as I said in my first sermon on this series, the prophets were extremely political.  They were speaking to those in power and condemning them for not caring for their own.  And while it may be a relief to know that we don’t carry that kind of power, normally, I think that we must consider that these words are being spoken to us as well.  As I was working on this sermon, my Facebook paged dinged at me and this quote popped up from the Lord of the Rings: “Some believe is it only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.” 

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn.  One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.  The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

None of us truly wins, until we all win!  None are whole if we are not all whole. 

I'm reminded again of the story of Ubuntu: I am because we are.  Some children were approached by an anthropologist who said whoever could run the fastest would win a bag of candy for himself.  He put the children all on a starting line, but when he said "go!", all the children took each other's hands and ran together so they would win together.  The confused anthropologist asked them why they had done this.  The children answered that they could not be happy if even one of them was unhappy.  They had to win together because then they would all be happy together.  They understood at a much deeper level than we do that we are all interdependent. I am who I am because of all the people who have gone before me as well as all the people I now know.  We create our future together.

Today we end our series on the prophets and so there is one other piece that I want to discuss with you this morning.  Several of you have asked me after hearing these fiery words from our prophets each week if I really believe that God punishes people in the way that the prophets believed happened when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon.  I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I do not believe this.  Just as I do not believe in a God who will step in and fix things because that God has already given us all we need to fix it ourselves, I also believe very deeply that God is not a wrathful being who will harm or hurt us.  God wants genuine relationship with us.  Genuine relationship means that there must be freedom to be who we choose to be, act how we choose to act, and either fail or succeed at bringing love, peace, and grace to a broken world.  That leaves us then, as we reflect on the prophets, perhaps to wonder if their words of threat actually mean anything.  While I do not believe that God brings wrath upon our heads, I do think that in life there are consequences for our actions.  Our behavior changes the world.  It affects the world.  And the world is then the one that we live in and live with.  If we want a world that is kind to us, we must create that world by being kind to others.  When we fail to seek justice for one another, all of us are lessened, deeply and truly.  The call of the prophets, and the call of Jesus to love all – all creation, as we love ourselves: that is not just for the “other”.  That is for our well-being as well.  The prophets threat is real: if we do not care for one another, all will be lost.  If we do not take care of our poor, our marginalized, those we don’t want, those we don’t like, those we fear, those we ‘hate” – if we cannot learn to see them as the brothers and sisters that they are, the threat to us is real.  I don’t believe it’s because God will harm us.  God’s love for us is genuine, deep and sincere.  But if we continue to create a world in which others live in terrible ways, if we accept this as okay, as the norm: if we continue to think in terms of “us and them”  then at some point, we will be the “them” who are hurting as well.  Maybe not in our lifetimes.  Maybe it will come for our grandchildren or their grandchildren.  But it will happen.

The call of the prophets, as I have said, is the same as the call of Jesus: love God, love yourself, and love each other with all that you are and all that you have.  It’s not easy at all.  But it is simple.  

Connecting with God

1 Sam. 3:1-10

1 Cor. 6:12-20

John 1:43-51

Today we have three passages that all talk about recognizing or hearing God in different ways.  In the 1^st Samuel passage, Samuel is learning to recognize the voice of God when it calls him.  It takes him time and the words of his mentor/teacher to realize that the voice that is calling him is coming from God, but he does eventually learn to hear and recognize God’s voice.  In the John passage Nathanael is challenged to recognize Jesus as the Messiah or Emmanuel, God with us.  Nathanael recognizes Jesus because Jesus can tell Nathanael what he was doing when Jesus wasn’t there.  The Corinthians’ passage is perhaps the hardest to understand.  But even there the Corinthians are being challenged to recognize where God is in our actions, in our behavior: what is Godly behavior.  The Corinthians had been arguing over the necessity of obeying Jewish law, Biblical law: whether or not they needed to be circumcised, whether or not they needed to follow the food laws that are outlined in books such as Deuteronomy.  And Paul basically told them that no, they did not need to follow these laws.  Their faith in Christ gave them freedom from Law for the sake of law.  But, he added, out of their love for God, they were stilled called to do what was right – or in other words what showed love to God, neighbor and self.  And while we might argue about how to do that, as obviously the early Christians were, hence the argument between Paul and the Corinthians, the message is important.  We are called to discern what is most loving to God, self and other, and we are called to do our best to behave in ways that express that care for all three.

These three passages, then, represent three challenges that are really part of the same.  The challenge to recognize what is Godly behavior, the challenge to recognize the Godly person and the challenge to recognize the voice of God when it speaks.  In today’s world some might say that these challenges are easy – we know that Jesus is the Godly person, we hear the voice of God in scripture, and the Biblical instructions help us to know what is Godly behavior.  But in other ways, I think that all three of these remain very challenging.  How do we hear God’s voice in the world around us?  How do we discern it from the voices of so many others around us?  How do we see who is leading us in God’s path and who might be pushing us into a path that may not be what God calls us to?  And there are times when it is not clear what is the most loving path to take.  Also, and what is harder, there are times when we have to choose between what is most loving to one person over another person or even what is most loving to others vs ourselves.  Those challenges confront us regularly, and can make living a Godly life very difficult.

Sr. Joan Chittister told this story: once, the ancients say, a seeker asked a group of disciples: "Does your God work miracles?" And they replied, "It depends on what you call a miracle. Some people say that a miracle is when God does the will of people. We say that a miracle is when people do the will of God."  If discerning the will of God were easy, this parable would not make sense.  But it does.  It rings true to us because living the life that God calls us to live is a miracle, and part of the reason it is so hard is that discerning the voice, the will, and the presence of God can be a real challenge.

I have heard it said that life can be understood by looking backwards but must be lived going forward.  How do we do that, how do we live life going forward when we can really only see where God’s hand guides us by looking back on our lives?

A while ago for Film and Faith night we watched the movie, “The Help”.   In it, an African American maid named Abileen in Jackson Mississippi in 1962 is asked by a white woman to help her write a book about the experiences of black maids working for white women in the South.  Abileen knows how dangerous it would be to tell her story – that she would be risking everything, including her very life, to share her experiences.  She refuses, therefore, to do so.  But then she goes to church, as she always does, one Sunday when the preacher is talking about the call to be brave.  And he says, “Courage isn’t just about being brave.  It’s about overcoming fear and daring to do what is right for your fellow humans.  It’s about being willing to speak the truth.” As Abileen sits there and listens, she hears God’s voice calling her to do what she knows to be risky, but what she hopes will begin to make some changes as people come to understand her experience and the experiences of other African Americans in the South during the 60s.

In early 2013 the Pope resigned.  The last time that had happened had been in 1415.  He read from a statement that said, “Both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.  For this reason and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter, entrusted to me by the cardinals on 19 April 2005.”  It takes a strong person to give up power, to acknowledge ones limits.  It took incredible strength to recognize his time was over.  It took courage.

I found myself reflecting on a poem written by Ken Untener, later bishop of Saginaw, called, “Prophets of a Future that is not our own.”  Sometimes attributed to Archbishop Romero.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. 

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,

it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction

of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete:

            which is another way of saying

            that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that should be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

 No set of goals or objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water the seeds already planted,

            knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects

            far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything

            and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,

            a step along the way, an opportunity for

            God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,

            but that is the difference between the master builder

            and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,

            ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Once again I believe that through prayer, through gathering together in worship, through time with God, through building our relationships with God, but also by weighing everything against the central call and message of Christ – to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves  – that is how we learn to hear God’s voice when it speaks to us.  In that relationship to God, we learn to recognize God’s presence and God’s call for us.  Samuel was just a boy at the time that God first called him.  But through his mentor and teacher, Eli, Samuel began to learn to discern when it was God’s voice calling him.  Nathanael began as a doubter, but when confronted by the Jesus who looked into his eyes and knew him, he believed.  The Corinthians came to know the will of God through conversations, and sometimes arguments, with other Christians.  We come to hear, to see, to recognize God’s voice, God in our midst, God’s call for our lives by spending time with God.  When our hearts are open, God does come in. When our minds are open, sometimes we are given the grace to hear the call, to recognize the voice, and to see God in our midst. 

Sunday's Sermon - spreading the light

Genesis 1:1-5

Matthew 2:1-12

Mark 1:4-11

John 2:1-11

I’ve been thinking about the passing of William Christopher, the man who played Father Mulcahy on MASH.  And I was reflecting on two scenes in MASH in which he played a very central role.  In the first scene, he ends up acting as nurse for a surgery Hawkeye is doing because there just aren’t enough personnel available. In the middle of the operation, Father Mulcahy closes his eyes and begins to pray for the healing of the patient when Hawkeye suddenly yells at him “retraction!” and so he does what Hawkeye says and doesn’t finish the prayer.  Hawkeye apologizes but Father Mulcahy’s response is, “Well, God knew what I meant anyway.”  Which was more important?  Which of his two actions were more Godly?  Helping with the surgery or praying?

I want you to think about that while I share with you another scene from a different episode.  Father Mulcahy is giving a boy laid out on a stretcher with a toe-tag on his big toe his last rites.  The Father is praying over him when he thinks he sees a sudden movement of the boy’s toe.  He looks up and sees a single tear falling from the boys closed eyelid and realizes the boy with the toe tag is NOT in fact dead.  As a result of seeing this, he is able to call for a doctor’s help and the boy’s life is saved.  Still, I ask you, which was more important: the Father blessing the boy and giving him last rites?  Or his recognizing that the boy was still alive?

I invite you to think about that as we reflect for a few minutes on Epiphany.  How many of you remember what the word “Epiphany” means?  The word “Epiphany” means “manifestation”.  For us in the church, Epiphany is the Manifestation of Jesus, or the marking of God’s manifestation in Jesus: the pronouncement and revealing of who Jesus is.  There are three events that we consider “Epiphanal” in the scriptures.  Do you know what these are?

The three incidents are: the visit of the magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the miracle of turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana.  Before 1969 all three of these Scriptures were heard on successive Sundays. All three stories were considered to form a unit because they progressively reveal first the identity of Jesus (from the visit of the Magi who proclaim him to be the Messiah), second, the authority of Jesus (the Spirit descending and the voice declaring that Jesus was God’s son with whom God was pleased) and finally the power of Jesus (through his miracle of turning the water into wine). These three events also show Jesus’ Divinity as recognized or declared first by the Magi (those considered wise), second by God (the Spirit), and third by those around Jesus (who experienced the water becoming wine).

            Now, however, instead of having three weeks of epiphany which successively and progressively focus on these three events, we usually have the Magi and the Baptism stories read either together (like today), on successive Sundays, or only one of the two stories is read each year.  Additionally, the third story, the story of the wedding at Cana is only in our lectionary every third year.  Still all three are considered Epiphany, all three are important to our faith. 

           All three involve some form of communication with God, but the primary manifestation, as seen in all three of these events, of the Divine in Jesus is through action.  The Magi travel, following the star to worship the Christ and pay him homage.  The Spirit descends on Jesus after Jesus takes the action of seeking baptism.  And Jesus, himself, physically changes the water into wine.  The manifestations of the Christ – of God’s presence, authority and power in Jesus – all happen through these actions. These aren’t actions absent of prayer or absent of connection to God, but they are action none the less.  Faith is about doing.  You are how you act, which shows how you really believe, what really matters to you, what is really important and central to you. 

About 13 years ago I was having computer trouble and a friend recommended a computer expert to fix it.  He particularly recommended this man because he was a Christian computer technician.  The computer expert, after looking at the computer in my home for awhile, said that he would need to do a full system re-format.  He took my computer and discs of all my programs that he would need to re-load onto the computer to his home office.  When he returned the computer, it was obvious within the first hour or so that he had not fixed the problem and that the computer was as messed up as before.  I ended up having to buy a new computer.  When I did so and went to load on my programs, I noticed that one program had never been returned from the computer expert.  Ironically it was my Bible software.  He was a man of faith, so I was told, yet he had “stolen” my bible software.

Matthew 21: 28-31 reads:  ²⁸ “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

²⁹ “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

³⁰ “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

³¹ (Jesus continued…)“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

Saying that we have faith is not the same as acting like Jesus calls us to act – acting with love, acting with grace, living out that faith.  We, too, are called to manifest God’s presence – to make it known to others, to shine the light of the Christ into the lives of others – to follow in the footsteps of the Christ by physically manifesting the presence of Christ.  We do this in many ways.  But paying attention, like the Father in the MASH episodes, helping provide care when called on to do so, allowing ourselves to be called into action and responding to that call – these are the ways we manifest God’s presence.  Our faith doesn’t impress others, doesn’t touch others, doesn’t shine the light into their lives, unless it is manifest in the way we live our lives and live that out. 

Again, I’m not saying that the prayer part isn’t important.  Prayer is central.  It grounds us, it makes us into the people who can do the action.  Father Elias Chacour, archbishop of Israel said this: “Vision without action is just a daydream, but action without vision is a nightmare.”   I would change that, “to action without prayer is a nightmare.”  We can’t rely on our own desires or our own impulses to guide us into being the faithful people we are called to be, to lead us to do what’s “right” in God’s eyes.  We have to be guided by God and prayer, study, meditation, time with God allows us to hear, and to be centered in our relationship with God.

Still, people know us by the way we behave.  “They will know we are Christians by our love”.  So how do we behave?  You have probably all heard the story:  A driver did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman behind him went ballistic, pounding on her horn and screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to drive through the intersection with him. Still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.

The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed and placed in a cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm awfully sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

            I think about AA and other 12 step groups.  They have a saying which is “act as if.” The idea behind it is that we grow into being who we want to be by doing the behaviors of the ones we want to be.  We grow into being the kind of Christians we are called to be by practicing doing it.  This applies to any Christian actions including praying.  None of us are going to have it right from day one.  We have to just DO it.  It is not just our thoughts or our prayers but our actions make a difference in how people feel and if and how people heal.  AA is a doing, not just a thinking.  One of the proofs of that is that those who sponsor others are much more likely to stay sober themselves.  You have to give help in order to get helped.  We have to live our faith out in order to truly and fully experience belief and the grace that is offered to us.  We grasp and experience grace by living into it.

            Epiphany, the manifestation of God’s presence in Jesus – it is grounded in relationship with God, but it is experienced through action.  For us, too – we spread God’s light by being grounded in prayer – and by living out that faith through action.  Amen.

Silence

        It is the day after Christmas.  For many, I'm sure, it is a day of rest, of relaxing.  Not for me.  We had half the family over for Christmas yesterday and the other half is coming today.  I also have a memorial service in the early afternoon.  And since the house was full of folk yesterday, it requires cleaning again today, as well as cooking, before our guests arrive.  Another very full day, after an incredibly full week (a total of 6 worship services in the span of a week plus the preschool program, and regular scheduled activities.  I know other large churches may have this many services on a regular basis, but then they also have multiple pastors on staff...) which was just the last in an incredibly busy month.  And at the end of it all, I'll admit I'm tired.
       But right now, in this moment, before the kids are awake and before David comes over to help me with all that needs to be done; right now it is quiet.  I sit in my house, looking out my back window on a gorgeous sunny winter's morning.  And it is silent.  The beauty of the morning calls me to be outside, walking, and when I am done writing this I will probably accept that invitation.
        But as I sit in the quiet, I am aware of how many times and ways we are pulled out of the quiet. I'm aware that even my writing and even my desire to be out walking are ways to avoid being in the stillness by myself.  We flood ourselves and our lives with noise, with disturbances, with distractions on so many different levels.  There are those we are willing to name as a culture: TV, radio, videos, time with people, busyness.  But there are the ones we are less willing to own that are also distractions and ways to avoid the quiet: social media is a big one, but I would also add books, activity of any kind (including writing), music in any form, and yes, even walking, exercising, and being with our most intimate companions.  I heard a story this last week about a man who was struggling and told by his therapist that for a week he needed to go home after work each day and be just with himself.  At the end of the week he returned to his therapist and informed her that it had done no good.  She asked what it looked like for him to be with himself at the end of each day.  He said he went home and read and listened to music.  The therapist told him, "I told you to go home and be with yourself each day, not with the authors and composers of the books and music that filled your time."  I think there is so much wisdom in that story.  It reminds me frankly of something Martin Luther supposedly said, "I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours praying." I don't know what he meant by praying, but for me, the listening, the silence, the being is the most important part of praying.
            It is so hard to be with ourselves.  We escape constantly.  Even as I write this my mind is going a hundred different places into what I need to do today, what must be accomplished.  It escapes into thinking about relationships and situations and things needing to be done or fixed or righted or tried.  My mind goes to encounters I've had and analyzes them, picks them apart.  It is hard to just BE.  But I believe the more that we practice BEing, the more we find there is nothing to fear, there is nothing to escape, and that some of the moments that are most truly lived and experienced are those we find in solitude and in silence.  If nothing else, these moments of silence can ground us and help us remember that at the end of the day, little that we focus on in our constant busyness really matters. We are given the gift of living, of life, of being.  And in the end accepting the invitation into life is what it is all about.  I'm going to stop writing now and try to do what I'm urging the rest of you to do. Have a blessed day, whatever your faith tradition.  Take time to BE.  Peace to you all.

Sunday's Sermon - Prayer and Instruction

2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5

Psalm 119:97-104

Luke 18:1-8

10/16/16

A High-School English teacher was well known for being a fair, but hard, grader. One day Tim received a B minus on a theme paper. In hopes of bettering his grade and in the spirit of the valentine season, he sent her an extravagant heart-shaped box of chocolates with the pre-printed inscription: "Be Mine."  The following day, he received in return a valentine from the teacher. It read: "Thank you, but it's still Be Mine-Us."

               Instruction and persistent prayer.  Those are the focuses of today’s scriptures.  We need to follow God’s instructions.  And we need to be persistent in our praying.  But the question that all of this raises is simply, “why”?  Why do we need to follow God’s instruction?  And why do we need to be persistent in our praying?  Is it because God wants us to prove that we are faithful?  Is it because God needs to test our faith by seeing how often we are willing to think about, and engage God by following the Bible or by praying?  Is it because the instructions God gives are simply the right thing to do? 

               The psalm passage we read for today tells us that it is through following God’s instructions, doing what we learn to be right from scripture and study, that we come to know God, to understand God, who God is and God’s ways.  Reading scripture brings us into spending time with God, learning what God asks us to do and making an effort to follow that path, leads us closer to understanding God, praying opens our hearts and souls to hearing God and being led by God in new ways. 

               In 12-step programs people are encouraged to pray good things for those who have hurt them.  It is a hard practice, to pray everything good for someone who has hurt you, angered you, betrayed you.  A friend of mine, whom I will call Jane, grew up in an abusive household.  After several years in a 12-step group, she decided to undertake the very hard task of praying good things for her abusive mother in particular.  She found it so hard to do at first that she set herself the task to pray for 30 seconds a day for her mom good things.  At first, she did not feel the prayers she was praying.  She prayed for health for her mother and found anger rising within herself about her mother’s failure to care for Jane physically.  She prayed for her mother’s happiness, and found herself internally raging at her mother for making her childhood a living hell.  But she kept at it.  Within a week she found she could extend her prayer time for her mom to a minute, though she still didn’t really feel the prayers she was offering.  Within a month, she extended the prayer time to 10 minutes a day and actually began to genuinely wish good things for her mom.  By the end of six months, she found herself able to forgive her, to let go of her anger and pain, and even to find compassion within herself for what her mom had suffered that had caused her to be a less than ideal mother.

Jane found herself changed.  Changed enough that she was able to volunteer helping out with other abused children, not from a place of anger, but from a place of compassion and strength.  Her prayers changed her.  Taking time with God daily gave her the strength to deal with her pain with her mother, it gave her the courage to heal and face her childhood.  It gave her the power to do something about a situation dear to her heart, to be part of the solution for other children suffering abuse and neglect in their homes.  She has become God’s hands in a small corner of the world, affecting and caring for God’s children - because of her prayers and the commitment she made to spend that daily time with God.  C.S. Lewis says, “I do not pray so that I may change God.  I pray that God may change me.”

If we are serious about our prayers, about our study time with God, and about following God’s instruction, we have to allow those prayers, that study and that instruction to change us, to move us into action, to move us deeper into understanding to relating more fully to God.  I saw this bumper sticker once that said, “Nothing fails like prayer.”  And I found myself reflecting on it a great deal.  I believe prayers work for many, many reasons.  I believe that God does answer and respond to our prayers, though maybe not in the way we expect.  But I also think that if prayer for us is just one-directional talking to God and then waiting around for God to do what we ask, then we are not using prayer the way God calls us to.  God, after all, is not Santa Claus, there simply to fulfill our wishes if we are good.  If, on the other hand, we take seriously that praying, studying scripture, and following in God’s ways are all steps towards being in relationship with God, if we are open to allowing our study, our faithful devotion to God’s ways, and our prayers to change us and make us active agents for the changes in the world, then nothing succeeds like prayer.  As the psalmist tells us, it is through following in God’s ways, doing what God asks us to do, that we come to understand, relate to and see God. 

               Today’s passages all unite in this way.  The Psalms passage tells us that in following God’s instructions, we come to know God, to understand God.  The Timothy passage tells us that the lessons we learn from scripture equip us for doing God’s work.  And the Luke passage tells us that when we are in relationship with God, when we are persistent in our prayers, God will answer us because God loves us. 

               The bottom line in each of these is that God wants relationship with us.  Taking the time to read scripture, to work to follow God brings us into deeper relationship with God.  Taking time to pray, daily, to God takes us into deeper relationship with God.

The most important reasons to pray and to follow instruction have to do with our personal connection with God.  God does not just want for you to be in awe of God.  God does not just want for you to be treating God, again, like a big Santa Claus.  God does not just want you to be grateful and faithful and caring.  God does want you to be grateful, faithful and caring.  But not just that.  God wants to be in relationship with you.  Every relationship requires time together, requires communication, requires sharing.  God wants to know how you are, from you, in your words, with your intention of speaking with God.  God wants to hear from you your pain, your joys, your hopes, your fears and your thoughts.  God also wants to talk or communicate with you.  When our minds are filled with the noise and business of daily life, it can be hard to hear God’s voice.  Prayer and Bible study, reflection and spending time working to follow God’s instruction gives us time to talk, to be, to reflect.  It gives us time to listen.  It gives us time with God, focused on God and God’s will for our lives.

               A minister, responsible for the religious education in a school once visited one of the classes, to check out the education level. He asked the students: "Please tell me, who destroyed the walls of Jericho?"

One of the students stood up and said: "It was not me, Sir!"

The minister thought the kids were making fun of him, so he turned to the teacher and asked: "Is this the way students normally behave here?"

The teacher was puzzled and answered: "I think this student is very honest and I really don't believe he could do such a thing".

Confused, the minister went to his assistant and explained to him what had happened. The assistant replied: "I know this guy very well, as well as his teacher, so I am absolutely sure none of them is guilty of destroying that wall".

When the minister heard this, he made a formal complaint before the Christian Education Commission. The answer he received from them was the following:

"Dear Sir, let us not make a big issue out of this. We will pay for the damages caused, accounting for them as current school repairs. Whatever the losses are, our insurance will cover them."

               Do we know the stories?  Do we know who God is?  Do we know what God asks of us and do we make efforts to follow in God’s ways?  Do we pray and engage God in relationship?  Those are the things that matter.  Those are the actions that make life worthwhile.  Those are the choices that will fill us with understanding and connection to the Divine Being, and will lead us to LIFE, here and evermore.  Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - Faith and Lamentation

Lamentations 1:1-6
Psalm 137
Luke 17:5-10

           The Israelites with money and power, the elites of Israel were sent into exile because of the way they treated their poor and outcast, according to the prophets as well as books such as the psalms and lamentations.  In the first two of today’s passages then, the exiled are expressing deep sorrow and lament.  The passage from Lamentations says, “Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress….Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.”  In lamentations the pain of exile is expressed in the third person.  In the psalm, it is more personal – expressed in the first person, the psalmist laments, cries out, or expresses the pain of the exile.
          According to the psalmist, those who have captured and exiled the elite Israelites, the Babylonians, are now asking the exiled Israelites to share with the Babylonians their music, to entertain them with the songs that define who they are, their values, their beliefs, their culture, their heritage.  The psalmist is crying out that the very request is deeply painful for it shows how little understood is the depth of their despair at being taken from their home.  The pain is intense.  It is real.  It is deep and profound to the core. The Babylonians may have been mocking them in this very request. The Israelites have been uprooted, all that mattered to them demolished.  This destruction included the temple and because at that time it was believed that God resided in the temple, the destruction of the temple meant for the people that God had left, abandoned them, at least during this time while they are in exile.
         While the prophets declare that this exile is nothing more than justice for the way they have treated the poor and outcast in their midst, the Israelites in this psalm are not expressing guilt.  They are not repenting of their behavior.  They are also not living in the promise that God will return and then return them to their home.  In this psalm, and in the passage from lamentations, they are expressing the pure pain of being in exile, the pure hope for revenge, the pure anguish of lives changed, lost, uprooted.  They are expressing anger, stopping the circle of violence by not acting it out but sharing it with God.  They trust they can express all of their pain, anger and wish for revenge to God knowing God will still love them and that God will be the one to serve justice.  Through their expression, through this writing in the psalms and in lamentations, they have likewise given us permission to express our pain, our sense of loss, our anger, grief, and despair at times when we, too, have experienced this kind of pain.  So I want to start today be asking you, have any of you ever experienced this kind of pain?  This sense of being in exile?
         For African Americans and other people captured and enslaved, for refugees escaping for their lives, for people who feel they have no other choice but to leave, these passages of lament voice a deep and very real experience.  But most of us have not experienced exile in these ways.  Still, I would guess that some if not many of you have felt that you were uprooted in a way or to a place you had no desire to go – sent away or made to move from a place you loved?
          A friend of mine was sharing with a group of us about a time when her husband took a job overseas in a country in Asia.  This friend did not want to go, made it clear that she did not want to go, but there was no choice for her and for three years she lived, as she said, as one in exile.  One of the other members of our group confronted this perception saying to her that she could have chosen not to go with him, and that this is very different from the exiled Jews who had no choice but to go and who had lost everything in the going.  But for my friend, the choice felt extreme.  She could have chosen to stay behind and forfeit all the things in her life that were meaningful to her – her husband, her family, her financial support, or she could leave her home and go with her husband into what felt alien and distant and against her wishes.  She felt exiled.  And for her these passages of lament spoke to her of her experience.  While she could not attribute the exile to God’s justice or to a sense of prophetic fulfillment, she could feel the abandonment, the anger, the anguish of being a stranger in a foreign place in a way that felt against her will.
       For those of us to whom even this kind of exile is foreign, I imagine that still, we have, at one time or another, felt some kind of psychological exile: a time when we were in a group where we felt we did not belong, in a culture that was not our own and in which we felt completely “different” or other.  Maybe this takes you back to high school or even grade school and a time when you were left out or made fun of. If you have ever been the center of public critique, that, too, may feel like a place of exile, where those who would condemn you do not really know you but would judge you anyway.
           The theme of exile, being outcast and seeking restoration, reconnection, seeking to come home – this is one of the great meta-narratives or broad themes that speak to us throughout the Bible. There are three basic metanarratives in scripture:  Being a slave freed from slavery, being an exile returned home and being caught by sin and forgiven for it.  We don’t focus as much on this particular metanarrative but it is a very important theme throughout scripture. The story reflects a universal experience of being taken from home, of searching for home, of feeling that it is very hard, if not impossible to find home, to get home.   For many poets and theologians, exile and these passages have spoken to them of the experience of feeling that being here on earth is a kind of exile, a time of being away from a true and deep sense of home.
          While it may seem odd that we would focus on this theme on World Communion and Peacemaking Sunday, it is in fact not only appropriate but important that we look at this theme on such a day as today.  On World Communion Sunday we celebrate the universality of our human experience, which is one of brokenness seeking wholeness.  Today we focus on the universality of exile, of lament, of crying out to God.  This universal experience of depression, of being lost, of searching for home, is part of what makes us human.  We are united in the common experience of distance from home and even from God, and we are called in our unity to be part, through our peacemaking efforts, through our faith, of bringing every person home from exile, of bringing every person into community, of restoring right relationships both between all people, and between ourselves and God.
           This is not just a hypothetical or distant injunction.  We are called, we are commanded, to love neighbor and even enemy as self – to not be part of the exiling or exclusion of others, but to be part of the restoration, the bringing home of the exiled, the creating of community and “home” for all who are lost.  Part of the way in which we do this first and foremost is by eating with one another.  We, in this congregation, are a people who do not worry about where our next meal is coming from.  We know that we will eat, often, perhaps too often and enough, often more than enough.  So those words that Jesus spoke, “I am the bread of life… I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  These words promising bread that will enable Jesus’ hearers to eat, to not go hungry, to live – these words don’t have the same impact on we who are comfortable and who have enough to eat as they did for those who were not always assured of where their next meal was coming from.
For people who were hungry, these words were promising another day of living; but more, they were promising a life freed from the anxiety of worrying about their next meal, or the next or the next.  It promises a life that brings us home, a life of abundance, without hunger, without craving, without emptiness, without exile, and without fear.  We understand these words to be about something much bigger than fulfilling hunger. We understand that the life Jesus was promising was not the daily life that we live.  Still, in a place, within an experience, where life is so fragile, so precarious, so short, and so full of the fear, loneliness and reality of hunger, a promise of everlasting bread spoke to Jesus’ hearers so much more than it possibly could for any who have not suffered shortage of food.
         Sarah Miles, in her book Take this Bread, said, “it’s the really hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile away.  For those who know their need, God is immediate – not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body.”  That is what is offered in communion, in this last supper in the sacrament of this meal.  We are offered food, yes, but more we are offered life, we are offered Jesus himself – his body, his blood, his presence here in this meal.  Sarah Miles continued, “What Jesus offered was a radical…love that accompanied people in the most ordinary actions – eating, drinking, walking, and stayed with them, through fear, even past death.”  She connects all of this with Jesus call and command to Peter…She said, “I couldn’t stop thinking about another (Biblical) story: Jesus instructing his beloved, fallible disciple Peter exactly how to love him:  ‘Feed my sheep.’  Jesus asked, “Do you love me?”  Peter fussed, “Of course I love you.’  “Feed my sheep.”  Peter fussed some more.  “Do you love me?” asked Jesus again.  “Then feed my sheep.”  It seemed pretty clear.  If I wanted to see God, I could feed people.”
                      Feeding, eating together, these are ways in which we find home, in which we make home. Those who are fed by God, not by daily food, necessarily, but by God, those people, no matter how poor they are themselves, those people find within them the strength and gift of feeding others. Greg Mortensen begins his book, The Three Cups of Tea by recounting his story of finding himself in an impoverished Pakistan village after a failed attempt to climb K2.  He was exhausted, he was sick, and yet these poor strangers fed him, cared for him.  The story continues, “(Mortensen) took a bite of warm chapatti dunked in lassi, wolfed all that he’d been served, and washed it down with sugary tea.  Sakina laughed appreciatively and brought him more.  If Mortensen had known how scarce and precious sugar was to the Balti, how rarely they used it themselves, he would have refused the second cup of tea.”  The story goes on to explain how he had also been given by them their best blankets, their best food, their best everything, things they had so little of, things they did not use for themselves.  They found in the midst of their physical poverty, but their spiritual wealth, that they had this to share.  And they began it all with “communion” – with sharing the food of life with this stranger.  Those who find their fulfillment from God always find that they have something to share, no matter what they lack. We are called to serve in the same way.  But first to see those we are most called to serve.  And that must start with an understanding of what it is to be exiled, to feel cast away from home.
      On this world Communion and peacemaking Sunday, we are called first to remember the experience of being cast out, and to remember Jesus’ experience of exile and rejection, to remember that he, too, stood with the outcast and rejected even as he experienced being one of them.  Second, we are called to unite with the exiled, to eat together, to create home and community with all who would join together on this day, to eat together, to make food together.  The hymn that we will be singing in a moment calls us to remember and to experience again the universal sense of lament.  I invite you to allow yourself to sit with the words, to be in the words, and to hear God’s voice calling us to solidarity with those who are exiled, and to peacemaking as we remember our call to be with, beside and empowering those who are rejected.  Let us be in a spirit of prayer…