Come and See

 John 9:1-41

In the gospel of John, Jesus’ first words of his ministry are those we hear today. The first words we hear from his mouth in the gospel of John are “What are you looking for?” followed by “Come and see.”  They are the first words in his ministry according to the gospel of John and so we know they are important.  So I ask you today, “What is it that you are looking for?”  When you come to this place, when you come to God in prayer, when you come forward for communion or to be baptized or to join the church or serve as a leader in this church in some capacity or other, what are you looking for?

             Whatever it is that you are looking for, Jesus’ response is “come and see.”  And so we are invited to read the rest of the gospel, we are invited to look at his life, a life of service to God’s people, we are invited to see how God acts in the world through Jesus.  This is more than just an abstract idea and it is more than just looking with our eyes.  We are invited to “come” and to “see.”  The coming means stepping forward, stepping out, following Jesus.  That begins with the action of understanding what Jesus did with his life, but it also involves following Jesus in his ministry, doing what he did, serving God with all of our being.  It is only through that following of him that we will see, that we will be witnesses to God’s presence in this place.  We follow Jesus through healing and offering compassion for the sick, for the oppressed, for the poor; we follow Jesus by feeding the hungry.  We follow Jesus by lifting up and offering the good news to God’s people.  In following Jesus, we will experience God hear and now.  We will see through those around us, and through the act of following, we will find what we are looking for.

             Today we celebrate epiphany where we remember the visit of the magi bringing their gifts to Jesus.  The beauty in this story is that they came: they stepped forward on this long journey to find the Christ child, the promised king.  They did the work of taking the long, arduous journey.  They came.  And then they saw.  We change this story in our heads.  We make them powerful kings, but they weren’t.  They had to “return a different way” and avoid Herod because they were NOT powerful kings.  They saw that the Christ child was not what they expected, and they were convicted by their seeing him to avoid Herod, to not return in the same way, to not betray the child or give away his whereabouts.  They came, they saw, and then they followed the call to protect, to hide, to save this baby.

This month we also celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..  And we see in him a man who embodied this message of following Jesus, of coming to see where God is in the world and what God offers to us.  In looking at his life, we remember that a life of service to God is not easy.  We also remember that no servant of God is perfect, and that this is okay.  It is the journey of following and looking that will lead us forward into those things that we are looking for.  For each of us this will look a little different as we discern in what ways God is calling us to follow.  But we are invited to respond with a “yes” to Jesus’ call for us to “come and see,” knowing that what we will see will be God and God’s action in our lives.

In the movie, Keeping the Faith, there is a wonderful conversation between a young priest and an older priest.  The young priest doubts his call into the priesthood after falling in love with a woman who is his friend.  Nothing happened between the two, but he found that the very fact of falling in love made him doubt a call that included celibacy.  He said to his older priest mentor, “If she had kissed me back, I would have given it all up.  She didn’t, but I keep thinking about what you said in the seminary that the life of a priest is hard and if you can see yourself doing anything else you should do that.”

The older priest responded, “Well that’s my recruitment speech which is good when you are starting out because it makes you feel like a marine!  But the truth is you can never tell yourself there is only one that you could be.  If you’re a priest or if you marry a woman, it is the same challenge.  You cannot make a real commitment unless you accept that it is a choice that you make again and again and again.  I’ve been a priest over 40 years, and I fall in love at least once every decade.”

             Following Christ is not easy.  And it is a choice we are called to make every day, sometimes every hour.  How will we respond to the call?  How will we choose to serve God today?  How will we be a Godly presence in the world?

Today’s Isaiah passage says, “And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant ….I will also make you a light” 

These are words for and from Isaiah.  They are also words spoken, again, to us.  God has formed you, each of you to be God’s action in the world, to be God’s light in the world, to be God’s child.  You are called.  Choosing to follow Jesus, choosing to “come and see,” that will lead you into whatever it is you are seeking, that will lead you to life.

             And there is more good news.  Because God will make that call clear by what God puts in front of us each day.  I love the words to Amy Grant’s song “All I ever have to be” and I’d like to read those words for you now:

When the weight of all my dreams
Is resting heavy on my head,
And the thoughtful words of health and hope
Have all been nicely said.

But I'm still hurting,
Wondering if I'll ever be
The one I think I am.

I think I am.

Then you gently re-remind me
That you've made me from the first,
And the more I try to be the best
The more I get the worst.

And I realize the good in me,
Is only there because of who you are.

Who you are...

And all I ever have to be
Is what you've made me.
Any more or less would be a step
Out of your plan.

As you daily recreate me,
Help me always keep in mind
That I only have to do
What I can find.

And all I ever have to be
All I have to be
All I ever have to be
Is what you've made me.

 

In one episode of Joan of Arcadia, Joan comes to a point at which she feels she is being asked by God to save another, very lost, person.  Joan realizes that she can’t do it, she can’t save this other person, and she confronts God, saying, “But I’m no hero.  I’m just me.” The response of the God character in the episode is very, very simply, “Yes.  Maybe that is enough.”

             Jesus tells us, “Come and see”, and so we are invited to follow in the way of Jesus, to act with love and compassion to all we meet, to answer the call for our lives to be God’s people.  But as with the Magi, as with MLK, as with all people who truly follow the star that God creates to guide us, it all begins with those first verbs that Jesus utters in the book of John, “Come and see”.  We are called to start by taking the first step forward.  To answer the call as Moses did when he saw the burning bush and chose to step aside to see.  “Come and see”.  Have curiosity about what God puts in front of you.  Have curiosity about the challenges that are there.  Have curiosity and then see.  Come and see, my friends.  For God has amazing plans laid out for you.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

God in Our Doubts

  1 Kings 19:1-18

John 20:24-29

Mark 12:38-44

 

               In today’s Old Testament story we hear Elijah going through a spiritual crisis.  While in chapter 18 he had no problem standing up to the politics of the time, standing up to Queen Jezebel and her mandates on religion, here in chapter 19, he has fallen out of that place of confidence.  He is terrified, he is running away, he is hiding in a cave.  He is in a spiritual crisis.  He is in a time of doubt, a dark night of the soul.  And as a result he is lost in purpose, in meaning.  He is depressed, saying he’d rather die than face what is coming.  He has lost his sense of self.

               I think this is an almost universal feeling at some point: the feeling of being alone, unsure, scared, out of energy, out of meaning, confused in purpose, and yet still required to go on with your life: a place of having challenges that are overwhelming and don’t seem to be shared by those around us, but still needing to continue.  That feeling of depression and a sense of being lost as a person: wondering what you have done, or failed to do with your life; what you have or have not accomplished. A place of thinking through what has brought you to THIS point and being unsure how to move beyond or through it, a time of deep struggle.  I think about when our family went through its very hardest time and the fact that I often felt completely alone with all the work that was before me: taking care of three children and a congregation on my own in the midst of deep personal loss and grief, stress, humiliation and judgment.  But, unlike Elijah, I didn’t have the option to run away into the wilderness: I could not see any other option than to continue, to keep going.  Those moments can call one into a deep feeling of self-pity, or they can call us into being the best, the strongest, that we can be.  For Elijah this was a time of self-pity.  A cry for help.  A time of despair.  And that blinded Elijah to the truth.  As Paul Tilich once said it, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.”  But Elijah could not see that, so in his doubt he felt nothing but despair.

               And he believed himself, mistakenly, to be alone.  He was not alone.  There were many others in Israel who still followed, believed and were serving Yhwh.  We are told there were 7000 that were with him in vision, understanding and belief.  And at the end of the passage he anoints Jehu as king and Elisha as a prophet.  It was a temptation of Elijah to feel that he was alone, to believe he had to walk his path in isolation and without support.  It was an illusion to believe that he was being called on, the only one, to alone do this impossible task.  It was a place of self-indulgence to feel that self-pity and to hide in his cave of angst, despair and inaction.

               But what he found when he ran away from the frenetic activity of his life, when he escaped into the wilderness was not judgment or condemnation.  Instead, he was fed there.  How profound is that?  God did not yell at him for running away.  God recognizes that these times of doubt, of struggle and the need for retreat: these are part of being human.  These are necessary times of growth and regrouping in our lives.  And so God did not get angry or abandon Elijah.  Instead, God fed Elijah.  I believe this to be at two levels: physically and spiritually he was fed there.  His sense of inadequacy and his activity were keeping him from his relationship with God, but there in the wilderness, where he was alone with his self-pity and his thoughts, God’s response is first and foremost to FEED him.  We all need those times of reprieve, of break, and he took it and found he was fed.  He then continued on his journey and he came to the cave.  And there, too, God did not leave him alone.  First, he is confronted by his choices, “What are you doing here?” God asked.  It was not an attack, it was a question: why are you here rather than in Israel doing the work I call you do to?  Elijah responded by continuing in his complaint: I’ve done it all, all on my own, all that I was asked to do and now they are going to kill me!

               But even in that time of doubt, of self-pity, of fear, when he feels separated from God and wants to give up on his call, on his ministry, on his work, God is there.  Feeding him, calling him, present with him.  Because God is the one who pulls us out of that doubt.  We are called to be open to God’s presence, but it is God’s strength that enables us to move beyond those times.

               God speaks to Elijah, but not in the way he probably expected.  God does not speak to him in a flash of wondrous awe, God does not speak to him by shaking the ground and flipping the world upside down, God does not take charge and route the enemy for him.  Instead, God came to him in the way he least expected: in the silence.  This passage is not meant to suggest that this is the only way God approaches us or that God is mostly or only present in silence.  Rather this passage tells us that God often, if not always, comes in the ways that are not expected, in the least suspected places and times God shows up.  God is not always obvious.  God’s presence is not always clear.  While we like to know what to expect, while we like to have things outlined and clear, that’s just not how God functions.  There’s no map for us about where and how we will find God.  But God is there if we choose to pay attention. 

When Elijah finally does pay attention, God’s speaking here to Elijah is clear: go out and do what I am calling you to do.  Go and be who I am calling you to be.  Be done with the self-pity.  I want to point out again that God does not chastise or get upset with Elijah’s doubt: for doubt is a part of the journey.  Retreat is part of the journey.  Taking time away, time off is part of the journey.  Sabbath and Sabbatical are necessary parts of our faith.  But God does call him out of staying stuck in that place.  “You’ve been fed, you’ve had your time away, your time apart, your time off.  You’ve had your time of doubt, your time of anxiety, your dark-night of the soul.  But now it is time to live again: to be your full and complete self: the one I created and called you to be.” 

Today is Stewardship Sunday.  And I have to admit, at first I felt that to tie all of this into stewardship was going to be a real stretch.  But the reality is for all of us, our call is multifaceted, as well as a growing, living, active thing.  When we are young, we might be called to build houses for habitat, to earn money so that we have more resources to share, or to be a person who does things like bike for Bike Aid.  As we grow, that call maybe change: we are called to be the wise person serving on session or on deacons, listening, teaching, guiding; the comforter, the person who provides foods.  As we become even older, our call may change even more: we are called to less active pursuits, but still called to be the voice of truth, the voice or reason, the mediator, the bridge, and still generous.  Our calls change throughout our lives.  But in the midst of all of that change, our call to being present with God, loving to one another; and our call to be generous with whatever our times, our talents, and our resources are in that moment does not change.  That is not to say that there won’t be times of scarcity and times of plenty.  These, too, are part of the changing calls in our lives.  But we are universally called to give, not out of our abundance, but out of our scarcity as well.  The passage from Mark that was read today talked about the widow’s giving out of her poverty.  And what that means is that we give, even from the places where we feel “limited”.  This goes for finances, but for other things as well.  For example, we use the phrase, “putting in my two cents worth”.  Do we sometimes feel that we have nothing to contribute to a conversation?  That we are poor in our thoughts, in our ideas?  We are still called to give of them: God has an amazing way of speaking through our own ignorance or poverty of thought.  Do we say we have no talent in a certain way?  God has an amazing way of calling us to give even in areas where we feel we have no skills.  I never would have signed up to spend a summer building houses in Alabama, but when I signed up for a mission year, that is where I was sent.  That area: my lack of ability to do construction, was called upon.  I was called to give out of my poverty: out of my area where I felt I had no skills.  And in terms of finances, this also applies.

I preach this to myself as well.  There will be times for all of us that feel “tight”.  This year as I have two kids in college is one of those.  But the call of those in need, the call of our brothers and sisters who hunger and thirst at so many levels: physically, emotionally, spiritually: their need should be more important that our luxuries.  And what I find, consistently, is that the more I give, the more abundance returns to me.  This is the constant of my life, the consistent presence of God.  This is true at every possible level.  When I give more of my time, I find I have more time to give.  When I give more of my energy, I have more energy to share.  When I listen more fully to others, I find that they listen more fully to me as well.  And when I give more of my resources, such as money, they return to me in amazing, and unexpected ways! 

The truth is that our budgets say more about what we value than any mission statements we may have.  This is true personally as well as institutionally.  Where we put our money, where we put our resources: our time, our talents: this says everything about what we really value.  Do we value our buildings?  Or do we value our service to the poor?  Do we value our personnel?  Or do we value feeding people?  I realize I say this at my own risk, but this is true.  Where do we put our money?  That tells us, without exception, where are hearts really lie.

I want to return to the story of Elijah and point out that, again, as with everything, there are ebbs and flows, always.  Elijah needed that retreat time.  That time of doubt, that time of withdrawing: this is a normal and natural part of the faith journey.  God understands this.  God accepts this reality as part of what it is to be human.  When Jesus was in the garden at Gethsemane, he, too, expressed that doubt, that struggle, that fear and lack of confidence, and God did not criticize, judge or condemn it.  God understood that as well.  Finally in the passage from John we hear of Thomas’ doubt.  And it too was not condemned, critiqued or judged.

In every case, God allows it to be, and then God responds to that pain, that struggle, that choice to withdraw, to doubt, to fear, to be in pain: God responds to it by showing up.  God responds to it by being present.  God responds to it by restoring the trust that was broken, addressing the doubt with presence, calling attention to the relationship that grounds each of them in their faith, their love for God, their connection to God.  Just like with the story of Thomas.  Jesus did not withdraw from Thomas in Thomas’ doubt.  Instead, he came forward, presented himself, showed himself; restored the trust and the relationship.  Jesus understood and accepted where Thomas was.

But then Jesus called him into something new.  And then God calls us, too, into something new.  We can have our time of retreat: those times are necessary.  Sabbaticals, times away that are longer than the weekly Sabbath are deeply important.  We each need them.  But then we are called back into our callings, into our actions, and into our giving. 

On this Stewardship Sunday I want you to think about all the ways in which you give: your time, your talents, your BEING to God and to the service of God’s people.  How do you answer your call?  In what ways are you not answering the call fully?  In what areas are you afraid to answer or give in the way God calls you to answer or give?  In what areas do you feel poor?  In what ways are you avoiding the call you may be feeling?  In what areas have you retreated from your call and in what areas are you needing a break but have failed to claim it?  Where is God calling you in this moment?  With your giving of all that you are?  These are the questions of stewardship.  These are the questions of call.  These are the questions that these three passages, with their themes of retreat and return, doubt and faith, withdrawal and reengagement, fear and hope – these are the questions that they ask of us. 

So, as always, I invite you into a time of self-reflection, of asking and answering the questions for yourself.  Where is God with me today?  Where is God calling me to be today?  What parts of my call need my attention today?  And in what way can I respond to that call, to give of myself back to God and to one another with more honesty, integrity, commitment, generosity and truth? 

Peace be with you this day and on this journey of discernment.

Waters Shall Break Forth in the Wilderness

 

Isaiah 35:4-7a

Mark 7:24-37

 

Over and over, people were told not to bother Jesus.  The children were told to go away, Jairus was told not to bother the teacher, women were scorned for talking to him and despised for trying, others who were “less desirable” were told to go away. 

At some level I think we understand this.  Jesus was seen as very important.  And his time was understood to be, therefore, very valuable.  The disciples understood that he had a mission and they didn’t’ want Jesus to be bothered with those who were “beneath” him.  They didn’t want him distracted or his precious time used up by people whom they didn’t see as valuable or important to Jesus’ work or mission.  It’s like people keeping homeless folk from talking to the President.  The same idea: he is important, they are seen as “less so”.

In this case, the woman we only know as a “Greek” woman, “Syrophoenician by birth” approaches Jesus and even Jesus seems to want to send her away.  And he doesn’t just tell her that he only came to serve the Jews, which is what he was intending to communicate, he also insults her in one of the worse possible ways.  Today being called a dog or being called a female dog is highly insulting.  It was not any less so in Jesus’ time.  To tell her that he is there to feed the children, the Jews, and it isn’t right to throw the food to the dogs, is highly insulting.  Even Jesus, it would seem from this comment, had moments where he couldn’t seem to escape the pervasive humanness of ranking people. 

               We all rank people.  All of us do.  Years ago now, I remember going to visit a parishioner who was in an extended care facility and when I walked into the room, I saw an older person in a wheel chair sitting next to the parishioner.  I had no problem joining them in conversation, interrupting their time together because I made assumptions – she was either a family member, or maybe another patient who had wandered in to talk.  I felt okay entering their group for a few minutes as long as I could “rank” them in this way.  But when it turned out that she was actually the physical therapist, then I felt that I had imposed on her time.  And I excused myself.  She “ranked higher” as one of the staff at the hospital, and my time with the patient took a back seat.  But as I left, it caused me to think for a few minutes about how I rank people. 

I experienced this from the other side when my last congregation housed families for a couple weeks at a time in a program very similar to our “Winter’s Nights” program.  I learned to avoid telling our guests that I was the pastor because my experience had been that once they knew that, they would often treat me differently.  And while that different treatment tended to be greater respect, I still didn’t want it.  Life sometimes separates us into the haves and have-nots, but I’m all too aware that that line can be all too easily crossed.  My being the pastor there, and someone with a home and income did not and does not make me “better” or more worthy of respect, attention, or care than any of the guests or helpers who were here.  And that singling out, that difference in treatment made me uneasy.  We are all children of God.  I am not more deserving of respect because of my status here. 

Another pastor friend of mine told me of a time when he was mopping the floor in the church kitchen when several of the church deacons came in.  “Oh no, pastor!  That is not for YOU to do!” they exclaimed, again with the same “You are too good for this work!” attitude, one he worked actively to eradicate, but one that was extremely hard to stamp out. 

When I lived in Ohio, I was part of a small ecumenical pastors’ group that met once a month (this is a different group from my weekly lectionary group).  Our churches were all within the same small town in the Cleveland suburbs and we worked on mission projects in the community together: feeding, summer children’s camps, etc..  One time when we met I remembered talking about what an amazing group of pastors we had in this area, who worked so very well together and were really and truly colleagues and friends to one another.  One of the other pastors commented that yes, in other ministerial groups of which he had been a part, there had often been a lot of “posturing” between the pastors, with some trying to claim an upper hand, or more prominence based on things like the size of their congregations, the work their churches did, or how long they had been in ministry.  I frankly do not understand that choice.  We should all have the humility to see that we are all children of God.  That posturing is an arrogance that is unbefitting to those who would serve God. 

Our own Anti-Racism group recently finished reading the book, Caste, in which the author, Isabel Wilkerson talks about the cultural ranking of people that we have in this society.  We know these ranks because we are taught them in extremely covert ways throughout our lives by our communities: These are not innate rankings, but socially prescribed and socially created rankings that have become entrenched in our society.  Women are ranked under men, children are ranked under adults, people with money are ranked higher than those without, people who have white collar jobs tend to be ranked above blue collar jobs, the homeless are ranked extremely low.  And people of color are often on the very bottom of our ranking systems.

But Jesus shows us a different way.  Jesus stepped in time and time again when the disciples would push someone away, send someone away, and tell them to leave Jesus alone.  Again and again Jesus had to stop that action on the part of his disciples, “let the little children come to me” he said, and “leave her alone.  She is doing a good thing for me.”  Those who were outcast, considered unclean because of illness and infirmity were given his special attention.  Those who were ranked on the bottom of the culture at the time, those assumed to be damaged because they deserved to be damaged were not beneath his notice but were the targets of his notice.  The second story in the gospel today, about the deaf man is one such story.  He, too would have been seen as “less than” and would have been pushed away: it would have been assumed that his infirmity was a sign that he was less worthy.  But Jesus took the time to heal him, not only restoring his physical disability, but also restoring him to right relationship within his community.  He specifically and intentionally chose to give attention and care to those everyone else in the culture ranked lower.  Also notice that he confronted a basic idea of what it meant to be “deserving”.  Jairus and his daughter and the women with the hemorrhage may not have been “deserving” of Jesus’ healing according to the codes of the time, or by any other ranking.  But we are told very little about them.  We don’t know if they were “deserving” or not.  What we do know is that Jesus didn’t ask.  He offered the gifts he had, of healing, of time, of attention and care, to all of them despite knowing or not knowing whether or not they deserved it. 

I love this story of the Syrophoenician woman, even though it was a hard conversation, a painful conversation that he had with this woman.  I love it because it is through that conversation that we hear clearly that Jesus’ mission was now to everyone,  not just the Jews, and that the last “rank” -in this case the differences in religion, geography and even ethnicity, were destroyed.  They no longer applied.  “Rank” or “Caste” were thrown out.

In today’s passage from Isaiah we hear another passage of reversals.  “The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be cleared.  The lame will leap like the deer, and the tongue of the speechless will sing.  Waters will spring up in the desert and streams in the wilderness.  The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground, fountains of water.”  Those things that are harmed or damaged will be healed.  And that expands beyond the physical.  Those who have been held down will be raised up, and those who have been ranked lower will be found to be equally respected and valued children of God. 

We are called to be part of this new ordering of our world.  We, too, are called to bring healing, reconciliation, and to do away with the rankings that separate us and which leave some better off than others.  So what does that look like for us? 

Well, what are your gifts?  What are your resources?  And to whom do you offer them?  If you have the gift of music, do you play for those who can’t afford the cost of a ticket to come see you perform?  If you have the gift of resources, do you share them, with those who are ranked as less, on the bottom according to society?  If you have the gift of healing, do you offer to heal even those who can’t pay the usual doctor’s fee?  The list goes on.  The confrontation to our own choices and behaviors goes on as well.

I have shared with you before that at another church where I served, our congregation had become very close to an unhoused man who at one point fell and was put in the hospital with serious damage.  We found that because he could not pay, most of the hospital staff ignored him unless church members were there to push for his care. 

In one of the congregations where I served I also remember a person who was very socially awkward being treated very subtly but consistently as a second class citizen.  He was ranked as “less than” and he was treated as “less than” by the other members of the congregation.

We are called to confront that kind of treatment and to remind the world that we are all loved children of God, none valued more than another despite the way we would treat and value people differently.

I am so grateful for this community of people who treat each other, despite our differences, as people deserving of respect and care.  I am so deeply appreciative of your kindness to one another, the respect you show one another.  We are called to continue that in every place that we go with everyone that we encounter.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

              

Choice

Ephesians 1:1-14

Mark 6:14-29

               Today in the narrative lectionary we begin a look at the book of Ephesians.  And for today what I want to say about this passage is simply that it is in many ways the elevator version of Christianity.  It talks about our being chosen first by God, our adoption, redemption, forgiveness, grace, mystery; the pleasure and plan of God for all to be gathered in, inheritance, the seal of the Holy Spirit.  But to be honest, as I looked over the passages for today, I felt much more called to focus on this very disturbing passage from Mark.  So, we will be discussing that today.  And what I want to look at in particular is this idea that Herod had, this belief that Herod had no choice but to behead John the Baptist. 

We know this story.  He imprisoned John the Baptist, and according to this story in Mark, it was because John had told him that he had acted unlawfully when he had married his son’s wife.  But at the same time as he had imprisoned him, it was also clear that he valued John the Baptist.  Herod was getting something from that relationship, it was freeing for him, it was teaching him, it was touching him.  He respected John.   

Then we come to the second part of the story.  His daughter, Herodius, dances for Herod and his guests.  Herod is so pleased that he says to her “ask me for anything and I will give it to you.”  Herodius asked her mother and her mother asked for John the Baptist’s head.  Now here is the interesting part.  The story says, “although the king was upset, because of his solemn pledge and his guests, he didn’t want to refuse her.  So he ordered a guard to bring John’s head. The guard went to the prison, cut off John’s head, brought his head on a plate, and gave it to the young woman, and she gave it to her mother.”

Herod believed that he had no choice.  He had no choice but to take a man’s life, an innocent life; a life, furthermore, that he greatly valued.  Now we can go into the specifics of why he felt this way.  We can talk about shame culture and the huge consequences he would have faced if he had done anything differently.  We can talk about what it means to have choice in this situation.  But regardless of whether you feel he did the right thing or the wrong thing for his place in that time and in that situation, the fact still remains that he had a choice to make and he made it, despite the things he told himself about lack of choice.

As I read this story, a Joan of Arcadia scene came to mind in which God asks Joan to play chess.  She joins the chess club at school and ends up beating the school chess champion though she really does not understand how to play the game.  Other disasters happen in which she is a part and finally she ends up in a chess game against God.  She still doesn’t really know how to play chess, but she sits down to begin.  She says,

“I don’t really know how to play chess.”

God responds, “Well, that’s fairly obvious.” 

“You know, God, for once I’m very glad to see you…  Because my life is completely unravelling.  I’m up to my eyeballs in the drama of the high school mating ritual and now, thanks to you, I’ve been mistaken as the high school chess champion.  How did this happen to me?”

“Which part?”

“How did I beat that kid at chess?”

“He was using logic.  You weren’t.  it’s impossible to guard against chaos.  It’s rare but it happens. Black’s move.”

“I don’t want to.” But even as she says this, she picks up her pawn and moves it.  “I don’t know how to play this game,” she says again.

“And yet you play the game.”

“Because I’m forced to!”

“Forced to!  Your friends make a suggestion which you follow up on and then you are surprised at the outcome!  It’s a causal universe.” He says as he moves his piece.   “Your move.”

“Wait a minute.  I’m being punished because I made a tiny little effort to fit in?”

“It’s not about punishment.  It’s that actions have consequences.  And to be in denial of that is to be disengaged from the laws of the universe which renders you powerless, and vulnerable to an inordinate amount of pain. Other than that, it’s no big deal. Move. ” Joan picks up a piece then puts it back down and reaches for another.

“Noooo,” God said.   “It’s a rule called touch move.  Once you’ve touched a piece you have to move that piece.”

“I’m not allowed to change my mind?  What kind of universe is that?”

“Oh, you can change your mind, but you still have to play that piece.  So you should think before you move.”

“Wait a minute.  This is a metaphor, right?”  She stares at the board for a few more minutes, mumbling under her breath and finally moves her piece.  “I took the bait so now I’m in the game.  How do I get out?”

“There are many ways to get out.  Surrender is one.  Losing is another.  Winning.  Cheating, which I don’t recommend.  But you have to do something.  You have to have a strategy.  You see, the number one rule of chess is this: whatever you do, don’t play the other person’s game.  Play your own.  Your move.”

-- 

Herod was playing the other person’s game.  Herod allowed the rules of a shame society to tell him that he had no choice but to have John the Baptist beheaded.  He played the other person’s game, and one man lost his life, and Herod lost his grounding.

I’m reminded of the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”.  The movie’s main character, Andi, starts as a person with goals and integrity.  She wants to be a journalist, and she has written about injustices such as poor work conditions.  She is in a committed relationship and values her time with her friends.  She enjoys her life, and has a cause or meaning, a purpose in her future.  Her values do not include shallow things like appearance, being thin, high fashion, owning expensive purses, clothing, things.  She puts work in its proper place as one aspect of who she is.  She is down-to-earth, centered, and knows where she is heading and what she wants.  When she first applies for the job as Assistant to the Director of Runway Magazine, she is appalled by the value system that surrounds her – the emphasis on accessories that make no real difference to one’s well-being, the insistence on being thin, on looking “right,” on dressing “right.”  But when she takes the job, she finds her values and her identity being slowly challenged, slowly and subtly being undermined and eroded.  She finds herself giving up more and more of her time with her friends and significant other in order to work.  She finds herself being pulled into the drama and the appeal of a fast-paced career with models and glamour and eventually into valuing the entire system of clothing and accessories and being thin and owning purses that cost thousands of dollars – all things she didn’t used to care about.  The choices she is faced with – to choose depth, meaning and relationships, or to choose appearance, glamour, fame and achievement are subtle choices, but she finds herself choosing for the latter again and again, and she finds herself saying to those who would challenge those choices, “well, I didn’t have a choice!” She chooses to do what her boss asks her to do, even when it means that she ends up deeply hurting a colleague who was becoming a friend.  And the entire time she is slipping she repeats that phrase, “I didn’t have a choice.”

What made her descent, her decline into a life that the movie, and I imagine many of us, would consider sinful so easy for her was that she didn’t realize she was playing by the rules of the other person.  Like Joan in the Joan of Arcadia episode, she kept saying to everyone, but especially herself, “I didn’t have a choice.” But that lie that she told herself, that she didn’t have a choice meant that she lost her friends, she lost her significant other, she lost her sense of self and her values.  As her boyfriend breaks up with her, she receives a phone call from her boss, and she says, “I’m sorry.  I have to answer this,” STILL not realizing she is making a choice.  As her boyfriend walks away he says to her, “You know, in case you were wondering?  The person whose calls you always take – that’s the relationship you’re in.”  Even after all of those losses she still didn’t realize the choices that she was making or that she had a choice to make, until her boss, Miranda, in the film pointed it out to her by comparing Andi’s choices with her own.  Andi could see that Miranda’s choices were hurtful, were harmful, were devastating.  But until Miranda pointed out that Andi had made the same choices, Andi couldn’t see. She could not see the choice she was making, or even THAT she was making a choice.

                In the movie, “You’ve Got Mail”  the main character’s book store has lost all kinds of business when a huge Barnes and Noble type store moves in across the street.  She tries everything to get her store to succeed, but it cannot compete against a Costco-like enterprise.  Finally she meets with her employees and says, “I’ve decided to close the store.”  Her dearest and longest employee responds, “closing the store is the brave thing to do!”  Meg Ryan’s character says, “What bull!”  To which Bertie responds, “It is!  You are envisioning a new future.  One you never expected and stepping into it boldly.”

               She did not have a choice about responding or not to the competition from across the street.  But she did have a choice about how she would respond.  And she made a choice that was her own game, her own step forward.  As sad as it made her, it also was a choice of hope.   

               As Dumbledore said in the Harry Potter series, “It is our choices that show who we are.  Not our abilities.”

I think about the stories I heard from a prisoner of seeing other prisoners saving food from their lunches and then calling the skunks. “Here, kitty, kitty!” they’d say and leave food for the skunks and other wildlife in the area.  They are in a situation over which they have very limited control, and certainly very few choices.  But this is a choice they can make: eat their food, or save it to share with the creatures around the prison.

Finally, I want to share with you one more movie story.  In the movie, Keeping the Faith, there is a wonderful conversation between a young priest and an older priest.  The young priest doubts his call into the priesthood after falling in love with a woman who is his friend.  Nothing happened between the two, but he found that the very fact of falling in love made him doubt a call that included celibacy.  He said to his older priest mentor, “If she had kissed me back, I would have given it all up.  She didn’t, but I keep thinking about what you said in the seminary that the life of a priest is hard and if you can see yourself doing anything else you should do that.”

The older priest responded, “Well that’s my recruitment speech which is good when you are starting out because it makes you feel like a marine!  But the truth is you can never tell yourself there is only one that you could be.  If you’re a priest or if you marry a woman, it is the same challenge.  You cannot make a real commitment unless you accept that it is a choice that you make again and again and again.  I’ve been a priest over 40 years, and I fall in love at least once every decade.”

The thing is, in every situation there are choices to be made. EVERY situation.  We choose how we see things, we choose how we act.  Sometimes we are making decisions between two terrible things.  Sometimes we are deciding between two wonderful things.  Sometimes it feels we don’t have a choice, but we still choose how we understand a situation, where we put our focus, whether we find gratitude or pain.  We choose whether we grow and learn, or whether we become bitter. And we choose whether we see God, whether we see the grace that is offered in every moment.  We choose whether or not to take the grace that is offered in each moment.  No matter how terrible a moment is, we still can choose to see the gift in having each breath we have to breathe.  In every single moment grace is offered.  But it is a choice we make whether we see it or not.  As Rick Warren said it, “I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.   Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.   No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:   If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.”

Grace is offered to everyone in every moment.  But that doesn’t mean it is always easy to accept.  It also doesn’t mean that grace is always happy or even painless.  Sometimes the very breath we breathe is painful.  That grace, ruach, spirit, wind, breath that we are offered in each and every moment does not always come wrapped in a pretty package.  And sometimes that very breath itself is painful.   We know that sometimes wind becomes so strong it destroys things.  We know that sometimes the Spirit’s words to us are hard to take.  I think about at the end of Harry Potter, when the evil Voldemort was given a choice.  He could choose remorse, have his soul healed and live, or he could continue along his path of destruction that would lead to his ultimate destruction too.  He chose the latter because the pain of remorse was too much.  He chose to turn away from the Grace that was offered.  But that did not change the fact that it was being offered in that very moment.

In the story of Herod, we see that Herod’s inability to see his choices, to think beyond what he felt he had to do ended badly for John, and ultimately for Herod, too, who became obsessed with worrying that John’s ghost was haunting him.  He thought Jesus himself was John.  “But when Herod heard these rumors, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised to life.””.  But his inability to see did not mean that he did not have choice.  He could have pointed out to the girl that this request she made was really what her mother wanted and not what she, herself wanted.  He could have reasoned with her, talked to her.  After all, she was HIS daughter too.  But instead he felt bound by a blind, spur of the moment commitment he made.  And that feeling of being bound left him feeling impotent and blind to his choices.  He played her game, did not choose the grace of other options that were before him, and everyone suffered.

We have those same choices.  And my prayer is for us to see God’s grace, to choose God’s grace and to play the game the way God calls us to play it, for ourselves and for the world.  Amen.

When Can We Be Set Free - Sunday's sermon

 

Luke 13:10-17

Jeremiah 1:4-17

       “We worshipping Jesus instead of following him on his same path.  We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey toward union with God and everything else.  This shift made us into a religion of ‘belonging and believing’ instead of a religion of transformation.” – Richard Rohr.

        The work of transformation is the work of the church: the work of healing people, and communities, and the world.  But the reality is that while God may use us to help, the transformation of people, the deep conversion and heart-changing work is really God’s alone.  When change happens, when transformation happens, it is God at work.  When God comes to prophets like Jeremiah, a prophet too young to think he could be influential, to think he could be called or that he could do God’s work, it is God who works through him and therefore transforms those who hear Jeremiah’s words.  When a woman who had been crippled for 18 years passed Jesus by, he came to her, not because she called on him, not because someone else called on him to help her, not because of her amazing faith, but because Jesus, God, is about healing and caring for all people.  Jesus transformed her – not because of anything special about her, but because of something amazing about God.  God chooses to transform, to bring new life, to do something creative and beautiful and good.  That is who God is, and that is what God does.  The difficult part of this for us is that we don’t have a lot of choice about whom God picks, and God seems to pick the most unlikely candidates to be God’s people, to serve God, to be agents of God’s action in the world, to be transformed, to demonstrate and embody God’s love and grace.  God picks a child to be God’s prophet.  And God picks a woman who is not even asking for help, not being cured by her faith, not someone who was able to be part of the community to demonstrate God’s love and healing and care.

               But it’s not just that we have no choice over whom God calls, whom God picks for healing, for transformation, for God’s work in the world, we also have no choice over when God will do God’s work.

        The Pharisees were really upset that Jesus chose to heal the woman on the Sabbath.  And I think it is critical to our understanding of this passage to look at WHY Jesus did heal her that day.  The laws were strict about what could and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath.  And the reality is that surely Jesus could have waited one more day to heal this woman.  After all, she had been crippled for 18 years.  In the span of 18 years, what is one more day?  But Jesus did not wait a day, or even an hour.  He chose to heal her then, breaking laws to do so.  And it is important to understand why.

There are two answers to this.  First of all, Jesus stood by the second Old Testament understanding of Sabbath.  The first understanding of Sabbath comes from Genesis 2:2-3 in which God rested on the final day.  In this understanding, we are to do the same – rest, completely, as God rested from the work of creation.  As Exodus 20:-8-11 puts it, “therefore the people of Israel shall not work on the Sabbath”.  However, there is another Old Testament understanding of Sabbath that comes from Deuteronomy 5:12-15.  In Deuteronomy 5:14, when Moses reiterates the Ten Commandments, he notes the second thing that we must remember on the Sabbath:  "remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD, your God brought you forth from there with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day".

(from a web-site on Jewish orthodoxy): “What does the Exodus have to do with resting on the seventh day?  It is all about freedom.   In those times, leisure was confined to certain classes; slaves did not get days off.  Thus, by resting on the Sabbath, we are reminded that we are free.  But in a more general sense, Sabbath frees us from our weekday concerns, from our deadlines and schedules and commitments.  During the week, we are slaves to our jobs, to our creditors, to our need to provide for ourselves; on Sabbath, we are freed from these concerns, much as our ancestors were freed from slavery in Egypt.”

In this understanding of Sabbath, the Sabbath practice or observance is not just about resting – it is a day of doing a holy work, and especially a holy work that is all about freedom.  What could be more holy than healing, or freeing a person from their infirmity, from a crippling condition, from a life of estrangement, alienation and isolation from their communities (since they were considered “unclean” and could not be touched or enter many places, including the temple)?  What could be more holy than honoring God and God’s people by transforming them from the physical slavery of infirmity into life?  For Jesus this was absolutely vital, absolutely important that the healings he did BE done on the Sabbath, on that holy day, on the day when holy works and acts of freeing and freedom are to be done.  Yes, he could have waited one more day.  But Sabbath was the right day, the appropriate day, for him to do a holy work.  Just as the Israelites were freed from slavery, in remembering that, the woman was to be freed from her affliction.  As the animals of the Pharisees were freed, even on the Sabbath, to drink, this daughter off Abraham was freed in the kingdom of God to receive life.  Jesus transformed Sabbath, even as he transformed the woman.  Jesus focused on freedom, even as he freed the woman.

Additionally, after 18 years, for God, that one day mattered, that one hour mattered.  Laws be put aside, or as Jesus said it, “The Sabbath was made for humans, NOT humans for the Sabbath.”  Therefore, if the day of rest is not serving the needs of the people, then it is not observed in the way the Pharisees understood it needed to be.  God’s timing is not our timing.   God’s creative, transforming love comes every day because every day is holy for God.  God’s understanding of law is always to be surpassed by God’s commitment to love.  And on this particular holy day, Jesus would not and could not wait to heal this woman whom God loved.

               The Pharisees hated this.  They hated it for many reasons.  But I want to read you a quote from one of my favorite commentaries, “Feasting on the Word” about the Pharisaic understanding in all of this.:

The desire to control Sabbath observance is critical for maintaining another social order as well. The slavocracy of the American South was in part maintained by the restriction of "doing good" on the Sabbath. Reflecting on religious practices in the slaveholding South, Frederick Douglass notes:

It was necessary to keep our religious masters at St. Michael's unacquainted with the fact that, instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky, we were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings.

While enslaved Africans desired to worship God and to educate themselves, literally to "do good," they were prevented because their improvement represented a threat to the social system that circumscribed their lives. Although the plantation setting is clearly not a direct parallel to the situation Jesus faces, similar issues of power, control, and order are present in both cases. The control of Sabbath practice in both instances represents a convenient way of maintaining an oppressive system whereby some people are forced to endure perpetual suffering by others who are more concerned with sustaining a system that benefits them than alleviating the burdens of those it cripples.

(Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16).

             For the Pharisees control of religious laws and rules was very important.  But God cannot be controlled.  God cannot be contained by our rules and laws and even our understanding of who God is or what God is about, who God can use, when God can use them and why.  None of this can be controlled.  I’m reminded of the quote from C.S. Lewis’ the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, in reference to Aslan who is the Jesus character, “He is not a TAME lion, you know.  He is very good, but he is not Tame.”  We want God to be tame – or rather contained.  We want to be able to understand, to expect certain things and to count on them.  But that is not who God is.  God is not TAME.  God can’t be controlled by our prayers, our thoughts, our wishes, our hopes, or even our ideas of who God really is.  And the truth is that ultimately I’m not sure we would want a God who could be because that God would not be big enough for all of who we are, all of our needs, all of our hopes, and all of our lives.  God’s dreams for us are bigger than our own, and that is VERY good news.  Just as the woman in today’s story could not look up, hunched over for 18 years, she could only see the dirt in front of her and could not imagine a life free from her infirmity, Jesus had bigger plans for her, bigger dreams for her. 

            Again, from ‘Feasting on the Word,’  “We are like the woman bent over and unable to look up and see the sun. We know only the dust and dirt underneath our feet. We struggle to see the path before us by straining and twisting, because we cannot look straight ahead. To ask for healing helps us step into Jesus' invitation to mend our souls as we mend creation. There will be times when we will "know" this in ways that are too profound for words or reason. There will also be times when God seems far off and the pathway unclear, but seek healing we must.”  Yes, we must.  We must seek freedom from all that binds us, whether it be physical, emotional, social, psychological or even political.  But again, we have to remember that God is not a tame lion – and therefore God’s plans for us and God’s timing for those plans will remain in God’s hands, even as we are called to seek healing.  The good news is, though, again, that God’s dreams are bigger than our own.  And God’s call for us to find life is more insistent and immediate than we could even hope.  It comes down to this…”Where Jesus is, things begin to be made right…. In the reign of God, the world will be repaired.”  That is a promise we can count on.  That is the good news.  The challenge then for us is two fold – one to take the Sabbath seriously as both a time for rest and a time to do a holy work towards the freedom of all God’s people.  And second, to trust that God is the force and power behind any transformation towards freedom.  But that God will use us, no matter what our condition, our age, our situation, if we are open to God’s calling.  Amen.

The Rules no Longer Apply

                                           Luke 1:68-79

Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29

               This week we continue our journey through the book of Galatians.  Just as we witnessed with our study of the book of Acts, the early church in Galatia is also struggling and dealing with conflict.  Today’s conflict has to do with how the Spirit is received.  It was a conflict then, and it remains a conflict now.

               “How did your new life start?”  Paul asks.  As we discussed last week, this continues the struggle about whether or not you have to DO something to be given or to find this new life.  And Paul is angry here as he writes to the Galatians.  He starts with these really strong phrases: in The Message version: “Did someone put a spell on you?  Have you taken leave of your senses?  … it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Christ in clear focus in your lives.”    In the Common English translation it says “You irrational Galatians!  Who put a spell on you?”  And the NIV translates it, “You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you!”  Regardless of which of these translations you prefer, these are really strong words.  Paul is mad because people are trying to insist on certain things being done in order to be admitted into the faith.  They are fighting about who is doing what, and if they are doing enough, and if they are following the Mosaic law perfectly so that they can be admitted into the faith.  And he is emphasizing once again that it is not action that will save them, but grace.  There is nothing that you need to do or be to be invited in, nothing that you have to fix or follow to be loved and accepted by God.

               People were being foolish because they’d been a part of God working through them, they’d seen these amazing things taking place, these communities of deep faith being formed, these incredible connections with life and the Divine, and yet they’ve forgotten that this had very little to do with them, with their actions, with their behavior.  It happened all around them, it happened without them, it happened despite them.  They did nothing to earn it, they did nothing to bring it, it was all grace.  But they had quickly, very quickly forgotten this. 

               This was hard then and it is hard now.  My lectionary friend told me that she and a friend went to watch a baptism at the local Pentecostal church when she was a kid.  They did a full emersion baptism and then they apparently told the person baptized to pray until the Spirit “descended” by which they meant that they recognized a baptism by the Spirit as one that would cause the person to speak in tongues.  The person would have to pray for as long as it took for that “spirit baptism” to happen, whether it was 30 seconds or 5 hours.  They believed this to be the only “real” baptism and that if it did not happen for a person this way, their baptism was not legitimate.  While this was not something they had to “do” to earn grace, it was a sign that they had received that grace of the Spirit.  Without that specific outward sign, they would not believe grace and the spirit were given.  But you can’t force the Spirit.  It happens when it happens.  It comes when it comes.  And it comes in the way that it comes, regardless of what you do, what you want, the signs you seek, the demands you put on the Spirit.  You can listen for it, you can wait for it, but you can’t push it or earn it, you can’t control it, demand it, or expect it to manifest in particular ways.

We still struggle with this.  We don’t want “cheap grace” by which we mean, we feel better about the things we get if we’ve worked hard for them.  If we’ve done something to deserve them.  And when gifts come to us through grace despite what we have done or failed to do, we quickly re-write that story, claiming credit for what we have, forgetting that it was by the grace of God that we met that person, or were touched by this person; that we fell into that place, that job, that situation, that relationship.  We forget that grace abounds despite and not because of anything that we could do or fail to do.   

We hear in this story that the Spirit manifests most fully when people take the time to listen, to see, to sit and wait.  As the scripture we read from Acts 15 a couple weeks back said, “once Peter spoke, the whole assembly fell silent.”  That is a taking in of the Spirit, a listening and accepting of the Spirit offered.  That Spirit then inspired them to tell their stories of The Holy Spirit comes to us predominantly through LISTENING: the one thing that is so very, very hard for us to do.  And that takes place in so many ways.  Quakers services are all about simply listening, resting in the silence of God until insight or wisdom is given that one feels called to share.  For Presbyterians we believe that the holy Spirit manifests in community.  We listen at session meetings, at Presbytery meetings and at the General Assembly meetings for the Holy Spirit as it moves between and among people, understanding that it is the diverse voices TOGETHER that manifest the Spirit for us.  We believe deeply that “call” is discerned in community as well, which is why when a person wants to be a pastor, they must go to their church community for affirmation of that call, then the Presbytery as well. 

Whenever I think about this, I remember the Presbytery meeting I attended in Ohio where the pastor was saying that seminary students should be allowed to attend whatever seminary they wanted, without guidance from the Committee on the Preparation for Ministry.  He gave a long speech about how he was called to attend a different seminary, but that the Committee on the Preparation for Ministry had insisted that he take a couple classes at least at a Presbyterian Seminary.  He kept saying they were wrong to push that and he had defied them because that was not his call.  But to all the rest of us it was clear that he had actually not understood at all what it meant to be Presbyterian and that his very speech, declaring a call that was in great contrast to the call discerned by the larger BODY, was proof of his lack of understanding.  In fact, two years later he left the denomination completely.

The thing is that people can use “spirit language” pretty manipulatively, as we know.  “God said to me” or “The Holy Spirit spoke to me” and then they usually say whatever it is they want to believe, or whatever it is that they want others to believe.  This is why we believe that the Spirit is recognized, manifested, understood, and heard in community.  It helps us to stay accountable for what we believe we have “heard” from the Spirit.  It helps us to stay accountable for what we believe the Spirit is trying to tell us.   The Holy spirit is against the personality cult.  The spirit can touch us personally, it can move within each individual, but it is never private: call is discerned together, the Spirit is made manifest in community. 

As my lectionary group discussed these passages and the showing up of the Holy Spirit, we all talked about the many times parishioners have approached each of us and said, “Thank you so very much for saying x today” and then went on to say something that we had never, ever said.  I can’t tell you how many times that has happened for me, personally, and as we discussed it, we found that all of us had had this experience multiple times.  But in those moments, we recognize that sometimes the Spirit can help people to hear what they need to hear in a moment, even if it is NOT actually what has been said at all!  In those moments it is personal, but again, not private.  The messages heard are always messages of caring for one another, of loving one another, of connection and community.

Barb George forwarded to me a YouTube video this week, one that I had seen before but which is really very appropriate for today’s focus as well.  The video is called “shoulder taps”  and in it Bill Hart says this:

Toni and I were having lunch at California Pizza kitchen the other day and I noticed this elderly woman who’s dressed nicely sitting down at a large table by herself for about five minutes.  And then after a while her daughter and three or so grandkids show up.  And they are looking spectacular and like they are getting ready for a nice meal.  About that time a voice in my head says “You need to go and tell her how pretty she looks.”  Then our food arrives, the check arrives and we’re going to go down this walkway in this strip center and on to the next thing that we are going to move to.  So…  on my way out, I kneel down put myself down at her level where she is in her chair and I say, ‘if no one else has told you this today I just wanted to say how lovely you are.’  And she looks at me with a look I’ve never seen before and she says, ‘I know you.’  And I said, ‘no, we’ve never met each other.’ And she says, ‘I know your spirit.’  And it gets really quiet between us and she says, “my husband died a year ago and that is something he would have said to me.’  And at that moment I can’t talk.  I’m overcome by emotion and I just hug her, smile at her through tears and I leave.  But here’s what I know and why I’m telling you this.  I believe God taps us on the shoulders and uses us at just the right moment.  And what I know for sure is that she was blessed and I was enormously blessed.  So I’ve learned in my life to listen to these shoulder taps because they do happen.  And the more we listen to them, the more in alignment we are with God.  And that’s an awesome place to be.”

 

               Those are moments where the Spirit reaches out and touches us with grace.  But, as Bill Hart said, we have to be listening for it.  We have to be open to it. 

               I was given a song a couple months back, called “Speak Now” from “one Night in Miami”

 

Listen, listen, While the storm in your heart is raging, Listen, listen, listen

Listen, listen, To the echoes of martyrs praying. Listen, listen, listen

Listen, Brothers and sisters, Listen, listen, listen

I swear we'll never find a way to where we're going, all alone

Don't take your eyes off the road

 

Can you hear the bells ring out? Speak now,  Speak now

Can you hear the angels sing loud? Speak now. Speak now

 

Listen, listen, To the message of hope in the whispers of ghosts, Listen, listen

 

Listen, For the children will grow on the seeds that we sow; They listen, they listen

 

Oh, listen, Brothers and sisters

Listen, listen, I swear we'll never find a way to where we're going, all alone

Don't take your eyes off the road

 

Can you hear the bells ring out? Speak now, Speak now

Can you hear the angels cry out? Speak now, Speak now

Don't you hold your tongue

Speak now (speak now)

Speak now (speak now)

Speak now (speak now)

Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-ooh-oh

Can you hear the angels? Speak now (speak now)

Speak now

 

               Growth happens, change happens because grace abounds.  And grace abounds when we listen and are open for the movement of the Holy Spirit.  But, just as the Galatians who were struggling to remember, struggling to be quiet enough to listen and be moved by the Spirit, we struggle too.

               One of my pastor friends in Ohio began a project there known as “the Phoenix Project”.  It was a church community that met in a store front in one of the more urban, poorer areas of Cleveland.  And it attracted young people.  Young people who were lost, most of them, struggling with many issues: poverty, drug addiction, rejection for sexual orientation or gender identity.  It attracted these young people who built an amazing community of support and care.  The Presbytery funded it initially, but we generally have rules in our Presbyteries that church communities have to be financially self-supportive within a five year period from their start.  There was no way that this community of very young, mostly homeless and extremely vulnerable young people would ever be able to support themselves and eventually the Phoenix project shut down.  The larger community of the Presbytery did not listen deeply enough for the movement of the Spirit that goes beyond finances and “what we’ve always done”.  It was a tragedy. 

But as we discussed it this week, I also heard that listening has to go both ways.  When we bring a new project, or a new idea; one that we have learned to hear, learned to accept, learned to support as a calling of the Spirit, we have to remember that when we present it to others, what may have rattled around in our own brains for 20 years or so may be completely new to those who are hearing of it for the first time.  The idea may need time to grow, to develop, to plant as a seed that will grow into a tree.  Our listening has to go in both directions.  The pain of change, or lack of change goes both ways.  It is not easy for us, but it invites us to listen deeply to one another as we all listen for the Spirit’s movement.  The UCC slogan of “I’m not done yet” – the idea of a comma instead of a period, it crucial.  In Presbyterian churches we say “reformed and always reforming”.  Same idea: the Spirit is not done with us yet. 

The Spirit continues to move, to grow, to have new things to tell us.  We can’t do anything to earn that.  We can’t do anything to deserve that.  We can’t force it, we can’t expect it.  But it is there through grace.  It is there inviting us to do one thing and one thing only: to listen.

I want to end by inviting you to hear the song I quoted above and to open your ears and hearts to listen for where God’s Spirit is speaking to you today.