Another very personal self-reflection: on hope

     I was watching MASH yesterday with my son.  He loves MASH and is leaving to return to school on Saturday, so we spent some time last evening watching a few reruns of this wonderful, wise program.  One of the episodes we watched was Dear Sis in which Father Mulcahy is basically narrating some of his time in Korea through the writing of a reflection letter to his sister.  The episode starts with an altercation between a patient who is flailing and being horrible to Margaret, refusing to accept the help of the nurses or anyone else.  Margaret calls for Father Mulcahy's help.  When he tries to help, the patient acts out towards the Father, saying he is not qualified to help or even deal with the patient and he punches the Father, hard.  In an unexpected moment of both self-defense and anger, Father Mulcahy punches the man back!  He then spends much of the episode dealing with that instinctual response.  He apologizes to the man, he tries to explain, but the man is basically a jerk in this episode.  He continues to attack, verbally, the Father, saying he is in no way a holy man and must have gone to seminary at the YMCA.  The patient cannot see his own actions as having been part of the problem, and he has no ability to offer grace or forgiveness.  Father Mulcahy just accepts into himself all the attacks that come from this man.  He leaves the hospital room, goes outside where Hawkeye finds him and the interaction between the two is as follows:

Father: You know, I used to coach boxing at the CYO. I told my boys it built character.

Hawkeye: Father, why don’t you stop punching yourself on the chin.  Pick on someone your own size!

Father: I’m Christ’s representative. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.  Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it.

Hawkeye: All you’re supposed to do is the best you can.

Father: Some "best!"

Hawkeye: Best is best!  Look.  Suppose you were sitting here right now with somebody who had done his best and was feeling lousy about it.  You’d let ‘em off the hook, wouldn’t you?

Father (still reeling in feelings of guilt and shame): Sure I would.  And if the hook didn’t work, I’d probably try an uppercut.

Hawkeye: Father, get off your back.

Father: It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in.

Hawkeye: Look.  This place has made us all nuts.  Why should you be any different?   We don’t sleep. We don’t eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bloody bodies at our feet.  Okay so you hit someone.  We have to stand here and watch so much misery we’re lucky we don’t all join hands and walk into a chopper blade.

        I found myself struck deeply by this conversation both from a personal place, but also from a communal place. While we are not living through a literal war, in many ways we ARE living through a metaphoric one.  Our war is against this tiny little virus who has many tricks up its sleeve, and who appears to be using them all.  We are in a constant state of stress, of fear.  Will we be the ones to get it next?  How will it affect our families?  Our loved ones?  Our communities?  We think we see the end of the pandemic, and then something else happens and it goes on with more violence and damage than before.  At this point I think few of us have avoided losing a loved one to this disease.  Even fewer have remained unaffected by the illness.  As Hawkeye said, "We don't sleep.  We don't eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bodies at our feet." Holding on to hope right now is difficult.  Everyone remains tense, many are grieving, people are fearful and anxious, and everyone has moments when they are less able to act their best, to be their best.  We are all making mistakes and the results, because during this stress it is difficult to step back or to take things with the ease we otherwise might, are broken relationships, torn communities, and a fractured world.  

    We see this in so many places in our world: deepening anger, acting out, rage, violence.  We also see it, more personally, in the church.  There have been numerous articles written, including one in the Wall Street Journal (article) saying that church communities in general are experiencing a return of only about 50% - 70% of their people because of COVID.  Many of our churches are simply having to close as a result of this loss of membership.  Churches are learning to adapt, but pastors' burn-out level is extraordinary right now.  That, too, seems to be the subject of many articles crossing my desk recently: the mass exodus of pastors from church leadership.

    Why are they leaving?  There are many reasons.  One is that things are simply very stressful.  Pastors are having to learn and even create new ways of doing church during fluctuating, changing situations when we can meet, then can't meet, then can meet again but with differences, with limitations, with restrictions.  We are having to discover or create new ways to connect people and to stay connected to our people.  These new learnings take time and energy and most of us were already working more than full time at our jobs.  We are navigating a new world, one that changes monthly if not weekly and sometimes even by the day.  This is hard and we don't know where the next change will come, where we will need to adapt next.  Our congregants struggle with these changes too, so not only are we carrying our own stress, our own need to roll with the punches, but we are also called on, constantly, to be the face and voice of calm assurance, of hope, and of promise for our members.  We are called on to navigate the conflicts that are arising as we try to sort through these changes: some want masks, others don't.  Some are pro-vaccine, others aren't.  Some say we open to all, regardless; others say we need to limit who and how people can attend.  Not only do we need to be making these decisions, but we need to be reassuring and comforting those who would have wished we'd made different choices.  That in itself is exhausting.  Add to this that members are acting out their own fear, stress and anger by attacking those in leadership positions.  Pastors are easy targets and are receiving more than their fair-share of blame and anger.  

    But I think the story above about Father Mulcahy points to another reason why pastors are leaving.  We are not immune to the stress of this situation.  And we are not perfect.  I've written before about the unrealistic expectations that people have for their pastors, so I won't go into the details of this here again.  But the bottom line is we aren't more than human.  We are human.  In the Presbyterian church we recognize that pastors are not even more "holy" than other people.  All of us, every single person on this planet, has a call, and for all of us that call includes learning to be more loving, forgiving and gracious.  As Jesus said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  We are all on a learning curve, on a path of growth.  And that means all of us will fall, will stumble, will make mistakes.  But the expectations for pastors remain very high.  When you combine huge levels of stress with the expectations that we will somehow be better, navigate the struggles better, walk through this terrible time with more grace, more patience, more wisdom and insight than everyone else, the reality is that we will disappoint people.  We will make mistakes.  We will, at times, fail.  And when we fail, it is not just our parishioners who struggle to forgive us.  We struggle, deeply, to forgive ourselves.  As Father Mulcahy said, "Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it."  But sometimes in stress when someone hits us, we won't be able to step back and respond with grace.  Sometimes we will, instinctively and without thought, punch back.  And when our apologies are not "enough"?  When they are not accepted?  When, like Father Mulcahy, we are sneered at, accused of being "fakes" and told that we are simply horrible at what we do?  Well, we have a hard time not taking those comments in.  

       And then it goes even deeper.  Again, as Father Mulcahy said, "It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in."  There are times when it is hard to see that what we do makes a positive difference, especially in a time when affirmation is little and far between, and when the world around us continues to crumble, to tear, to struggle, no matter how hard we work.  We remember every time we have made a mistake.  We remember, with a voice that yells in our heads pretty constantly, every time we should have responded differently, should have seen things we didn't, should have acted when we failed to do so, should have, would have, could have...  It is hard, at times, to avoid focusing solely on the things we should have done and the things we shouldn't have done and to instead see any good we might have done.  It is hard, in these times, to hold on to a sense of purpose, of meaning, and most especially, of hope.

    I am grateful that when I have hit those lows, I feel that God has, every single time, stepped up and stepped in with reassurance and grace for me.  This weekend I hit one of those bottoms where my very career was in question for me once again.  It doesn't help that a member in my household is going  through the usual pastor's-kid, teenage rebellion thing and is telling me, with some regularity, that religion causes nothing but damage and that my job not only does no good, but is actually harmful to the world.  While I have my own arguments against this, it still hits hard and I do sit with their words, wondering how much is true.  Additionally, I'm coming off a very challenging month where we were struggling with family health crises and the demands on my time between family needs and my job during Advent and Christmas were frankly too much.  I was, like Father Mulcahy, very much in the "I don't seem to make a difference here... And when I do step in, I just seem to make mistakes" mentality.

      But three things happened for me, right in a row, all converging at the same time.  The first was seeing the MASH episode where Father Mulcahy's words resonated so deeply with my own feelings.  Seeing his struggle when the character does so much good in the series was a gift and reminder that we can't always see the good we do, we are simply called to do the best we can and trust that God will take our best and infuse it with grace.  Not everyone will be able to forgive our errors: the soldier in the MASH episode never did forgive Father Mulcahy.  But, as we know, that lack of forgiveness hurts the one hanging onto the grudge most of all.  That is a choice another can make.  One we cannot change.  All we can do is be aware of our own errors, apologize, and do our best not to repeat them. 

    The second thing that happened for me was that an individual took the time to tell me that something I had said to her had been life-changing and had put her on a different path forward, one with hope, joy and amazing possibility.  Without betraying this individual's confidence or situation, I see the change.  And I am grateful to have been allowed to be part of that.  

    The third thing that happened needs a little more explanation.  I've been feeling strongly that the most important part of my job right now has been and continues to be giving hope.  Even when I have not felt it myself, I have felt deeply called, impelled even, to be the bearer of hope during this time of extreme stress, confusion and pain.  In every bible study, every meeting of our anti-racism group, and in many of our committees and small group meetings, then, my voice has been the voice trumpeting hope in the face of anger, pain and despair.  That has been my job and my call for this last year and a half.  As times have darkened, I have felt this even more strongly.  Recently, then, I added into our worship services a "moment of hope" where I share a positive story, a story of someone doing good, being kind, making a beautiful difference, even in the face of these difficult and painful times.  Again, I feel the deep importance of being that voice of hope, even when I cannot summon it for myself.  With that back-drop in mind, every epiphany we do an exercise at my church where we pass out paper stars that have spiritual disciplines and gifts written on them.  No two stars are the same each year, and each person picks one out of a basket.  Out of all of the stars that I could have chosen, the one that I picked, the one that came to me, was "hope."  While I usually am a bit of a cynic when it comes to the chance that a word would come to each person that was exactly the right word at exactly the right time, I felt an electric shock run through me when I saw that word on my star.  Yes, my focus and my call has been centered on hope.  And that star was a reminder that that hope is there for me as well: offered to me, even when I am struggling, and even when I cannot see if what I do makes any difference at all.  The star was a both a reminder of my call right now, and a promise that hope is there for me, too.

    I would wish the same for all of you: that you would find and hold hope during this very difficult, very challenging time.  Practice kindness. And look for where God is: where there is light, joy, love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and, above all, hope.

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.

A Word of Comfort

 Jeremiah 29:1, 4-14, Psalm 23, Mark 4:35-41

As we continue our journey through the book of Jeremiah, we have now come to the part in the book where the Israelites have been exiled.  They have experienced the consequences of their behavior, and they are now in Babylon, away from their home against their will, separated from the temple, lost and unable to return home.  They are in the pain.  But in that place of pain, of suffering, or struggle, God’s word is still coming to them.  God is still with them, and now God’s word is one of great comfort.  But also, one that may not be exactly what they want to hear. 

         God promises the community, and again it is very important here that this is the community of Israelites, the people of Israel and Judah that God is talking to, not individuals, but the community, that things will be better.  God promises that they will return to their home.  This exile is not forever.  This time of alienation and struggle is not eternal.  There will be a time of renewal.  God also promises and reassures them that in the meantime, even in their exile, God is still present with them.

        But the other side of this is that this is a future promise.  God tells them "things will be better in 70 years.”  They will be able to return home in 70 years!!  70 years was a full generation.  It was a number that meant “completion” or wholeness.  And again, this is part of how we know this promise is not for individuals, but for the large community.  None of those to whom God is now speaking will be alive to experience this return home.  None of those in despair and pain will live to see their return.  God even goes so far as to tell them they must ignore their hopes, ignore their dreams,  ignore those who are prophesying for a return home to come in their life times. 

            And I think, post-COVID, we can relate to this in a tiny way.  When COVID first hit, we all hoped it would be over in a couple weeks.  We would shut down and then in a couple weeks we’d be able to get back to normal.  The kids would go on early spring break for school, but they would return, surely, after just a couple weeks!  When that didn’t happen, it was, “well, they’ll be able to go back in the fall.”  And then, “in the spring”.  We kept putting our hopes on tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.  But sometimes having those hopes for the near future makes the disappointment greater.  It is easier to fall into despair when our hopes are being continually dashed.  So, Jeremiah warns against that.  “No.  It won’t be tomorrow or even in your lifetime.” 

But perhaps an even bigger issue is that when we have hopes that are imminent for a major change, for the possibility of renewal and a return to what is familiar or comforting or what we believe was “whole” for us, we often forget to live now.  We put it off.  “We will do that when things get back to normal.”  We will fix this, or go there, or see that person, or call that person, or heal that relationship, or work on our issues “when things get back to normal.” 

           And God through Jeremiah challenges this.  Jeremiah tells us that God’s call for us is clear, “Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away.  Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.”  In other words, LIVE.  Don’t put off living until you are able to return home, or return “to normal”.  Live now.  Do the things of living in this place and in this time.  We are called to preach the Good News, to live in faith, to do the work of our lives whether we are “in season” or “out of season”.  This was a very long “out of season” for the Israelites.  And while God called them not to just be okay with where they were in life but instead to continue to hope and trust in a future that was better, even while they were doing that,  still they were called to live.

           I want you to try to picture this.  These exiles were “forced immigrants”.  They were forced to be in another culture, in another place, away from their home and in terrible circumstances.  Think about the Africans who were brought here against their will: forced immigrants in this place.  Generations later, do they feel at home here?  Are they still experiencing discrimination?  You can still be an exile in your own country, the country of your birth if you are not respected and treated equally.  And this was the experience of these Israelites for 70 years.  That is a hard, hard place to be.  And it is to all exiles that this message of a future hope is spoken, but also a message of “live your lives NOW.”

            In the Church, big C, as we look at the shrinking numbers of people who identify as Christian, we often talk about the church, especially perhaps mainstream or progressive Christianity, as being in a wilderness time.  But the reality is that it is much more accurate to say that we are in exile.  In the wilderness there aren’t established institutions, everyone is wandering around, without grounding, without a sense of direction.  But when you are in exile, you are in another culture’s space, story and institutions.  Those around you do have grounding, are “at home”, and do have a sense of meaning, purpose and direction.  We have moved into a time of exile, as progressive Church, a time when the predominant culture goes two ways: into either a rejection of faith all together, or into a more fundamentalist stance.  As people who fit into neither position, we are in exile.  Part of how we know this is that it is when you are in exile that those in the dominant positions of the culture are given permission and it is even seen as “normal” for them to define who others are.  The fundamentalists define us as not being “real” Christians, of getting it wrong.  And the atheists or those of other faiths, or even those who define themselves as “spiritual but not religious” assume that even we in this building are fundamentalists and treat us as such.  Neither group is open to hearing something different.  Those in power have the power to define, and to insist that their definitions are the only ones worth attending to.  And so we are in exile, boxed, labelled and in many ways rejected.

          This last weekend I was outside watering my plants when someone that I’m generally friendly with passed by.  She had a baby a year ago and I was telling her that I would like to buy some of my favorite child-books for her daughter.  Her response was “Well, we don’t want any religious books.”  I was stunned, to be honest.  I’m not good on my feet, but if I had been I would have asked if, since she’s a CPA, if all the books she gives her kids are all about taxes.  Later that same day, I had a second experience like that.  Someone who had asked me to teach their child some basic piano skills wanted to be sure that I wasn’t going to teach their child “Christian music”.  These are people who know that we are at THIS church, where we fly a flag of inclusion, where they hired ME, a divorced and remarried female as a pastor!  But part of being in exile is that people in the dominant culture do not bother to feel they have to get to know you.  They do not feel they need to understand you.  They can ascribe to you and put on you all kinds of assumptions and if you argue against those assumptions, they will, more likely than not, assume you are LYING or hiding the truth.

            I remember when we were in Canada and I was wearing a CVPC t-shirt.  A lesbian couple got into the elevator with us, saw my shirt and immediately began to talk loudly with one another about how horrible and judgmental Christians are.  We didn’t know them, I didn’t engage the conversation, I understand why they believed that, but it again showed that assumptions made about us are manifold.  And do not apply to the folk here at this church.

          This is what it is to be in exile: to be strangers in a culture that is not your own.  But we cannot go back.  And the myth of “the good old days” is exactly that: a great big myth.  I would hope that we don’t really want to return to a time of slavery, or Jim Crow laws.  I certainly don’t want to return to a time, not much more than 50 years ago, when women could not BE pastors.  That nostalgic glorifying of the past is never of the true story. 

            But like in the Mark passage for today, when things become difficult, when things become stormy and those waves of trouble and tribulation are threatening, people forget that they had goal of getting somewhere specific, of sailing to the other side, or traveling to a specific place with a specific hope and goal for the future.  Instead, they replace this goal with the goal of basic survival, of simply staying afloat.  We are not called to just survive.  We are not called, out of fear, to put down living until things can “return” to what they were.  We are called to remember that in our frantic running around, trying to “survive” as a church, that Jesus is still in the boat, probably “in the way” even – something that cannot be ignored or overlooked as we trip over him to try to trim the sails.  He is there, calling for our attention and our focus, asking us to remember our call to LIVE, no matter what the circumstances are that we may face.

           The Good News it manifold.  There will be a time when we will no longer be in exile.  God is with us no matter what is going on with us.  The journey is bigger and longer and more beautiful than we can imagine.  And we are called into life THIS day.  We are invited to live NOW.  None of that may be easy.  Living in exile is a challenge.  But it teaches us compassion and understanding for those of our brothers and sisters who are also in exile.  For those who are suffering, for those who are treated as less than, for those rejected and oppressed by society.  We are invited to learn in our exile, to live in our exile, to continue the journey and not just simply focus on survival.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

How Long, O Lord?

 Psalm 90, Matthew 22:34-36

Most people who preach on this passage stick with the two commandments part of this.  And this is a good topic to preach on because it is the grounding of our faith: these are the things Jesus tells us that God requires of us first, foremost, always and in all things - to love God and love one another. 

But today I’d like us to take a bigger look at today’s lectionary passage and especially focus on the part of this passage where Jesus turns the tables and asks the Pharisees a question that they cannot answer.  And I think we have to begin in our understanding of this passage to look at the scriptures that surround this story and especially those that proceed it. 

Do you remember the passage from last week?  The Pharisees were trying to entrap or trick Jesus by asking him questions that would anger a particular group in the crowd.  Last week they asked about paying taxes.  This is followed by a section in scripture that is not included in the lectionary in which the Sadducees try to trick or entrap Jesus by asking him about marriage.  They ask if a person has been married and widowed several times, to whom are they married after they die?  They are again attempting to get the crowds angry at Jesus and so they ask a question that

they believe will elicit an answer that will isolate either one group of Jews that does not believe in a resurrection at all, or another group that does.  But Jesus didn’t not fall into this trap, either.  Instead he simply says that they really don’t understand about the afterlife, they haven’t read scriptures carefully and he leaves it at that.  The final question, and their final attempt to trap him is presented in today’s scripture. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 

Read out of context, the question looks innocent enough.  But in fact they are still trying to trap him.  They are asking him to tell them who he “sides” with in the debates among the Jews, and they are again trying to set a crowd against him.  Which of the ten commandments is most important?  They are asking if Jesus is going to rank them or if he believes they are all of equal value.  For example, is it just as bad to lie as to kill someone?  Is it just as bad to worship idols as to covet?

How does Jesus deal with this trap?  He avoids this final trap as well by answering not with one of the ten commandments at all but with the Sh’ma.  The Sh’ma is even more central and calls us to an even clearer understanding, a summary really of the ten commandments.   The Sh’ma is a passage that every Jew of that time and even today is required to commit to heart as central to their faith.  To quote Deut. 6:5.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.”  He takes the second part about loving your neighbor as yourself again as a summary of all scripture.  But he also takes it directly from Leviticus 19:18b which says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  By quoting these even more central scriptures, he again shames those who would shame him.  He also avoids the whole ranking of the ten commandments by summarizing them: the first four of which are about loving God, the second six about loving your neighbor.  He calls his listeners back to the center of their faith and reminds them of what they should be remembering at all times - especially when they are trying to entrap a fellow Jew: “love the Lord your God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself - including JESUS whether you feel threatened by him, or not: whether you agree with him or not!”

This, then, is the context in which we find Jesus turning the tables and asking the Pharisees a question instead. As I read this I found myself thinking about the psalm that was also part of today’s lectionary.  Psalm 90, which we also read this morning as part of our lectionary scriptures, has this appeal in the middle of it, “Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!”  How difficult it must have been for Jesus to be tested again and again with the desire, with the hope, of entrapment by the people.  He must have felt with every new day and every new trial, how long must he endure this?  How long would he have to endure the “not getting it” of his own disciples?  How long would he have to endure the constant attempts at entrapment from the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees?  It must have been exhausting.  Utterly exhausting.

How many of you have felt that kind of tired?  Have any of you felt that kind of “how long, O Lord, must we endure this?”  How much longer can we stand being tested - either by someone who doesn’t like us or feels threatened by us, or just by the trials of life?  Sometimes I think when we are down it feels like the kicks just keep coming and coming and coming! 

I think about many of the homeless people I’ve met - who ended up homeless for exactly the reason that they had a series of bad luck things happen all at once: the loss of a job, followed by the loss of a house, followed often by the death of a close one, followed by depression which ends them up on the street.  Many times these tests or trials are all related: a person has a problem with alcohol which leads to loss of job, family, etc..  But other times they aren’t related - and yet these big stressors can fall together.  I have a close friend whose mother died and a week later her husband asked for a divorce.  I’ve been thinking about a friend of mine who lost her son three months ago and now her husband.  How hard to endure both of those losses.  How do we endure these extremely difficult times?  And again, the question has to be asked, whether it happens aloud or not, “How long, O Lord, must we endure this?”  Right now with all that is going on around us, the pandemic, the fires, the social unrest, the national stress around this election. And we as a country find ourselves asking “how long, O Lord, must we endure this?”  My father made the comment to me last week that my sermons are different now.  He said it has become obvious in these recorded services that I am highly stressed, that I am struggling. He is not the first person to have said this to me or named this for me.  So I name this as true though I also tell you there is nothing you need to do to take care of me around this.  This is just a reality of the times.  I am stressed, I am struggling.  I am a social being who is not handling this separation and staying at home well.  I don’t preach easily to an empty room but rather find it difficult, exhausting even, and extremely stressful.  I usually bounce off of your energy, I can tell by your reactions, though often subtle, if I have said enough or not.  I have no feedback in preaching in this space.  Connecting through zoom and through the phone can only go so far.  Add to that that when people are unhappy and choose to deal with it by ignoring or avoiding and there is no way to address it because we cannot get together, it weighs on me in a completely different way.  There is no “in person” contact to give me more positive feedback.  Again, you do not have to take care of me around this, but I want to say to you that your cries of “How long, O Lord!” are mirrored by my own.  “How long, O Lord, will we need to continue in this way?  How long will this go on?  How long can we sustain and endure and connect in these weirdly distant, detached ways?!”

This feeling can also make me impatient in other things, as I’ve seen with those around me.  The “how long” makes us want to reopen things too soon, taking the risk of a backwards step.  But it spills into other things too.  “how long” spills into impatience with lines at stores.  People are even nuttier in their driving now than before and I think their impatience on the road is a reflection of the pain they are experiencing in other areas.  Patience is not a part of our fast-paced, instant gratification society.  So when we cannot speed things up, everything can feel “how long?”

It is in the midst of these questions that we are given the scriptures and we are reminded, first by the psalmists that God can handle that anger, God can handle that pain, God can handle our questions.  The psalmist not only gives us permission to express those deep pains, but also gives us the words when sometimes they are hard to find to cry out to God.  It is a myth that says that God needs us to be “nice” all the time - especially with God.  God wants us to be real, God gave us the ability to feel ALL of our feelings and God has given you the very words to cry out in that pain – “how long, O lord.  How long?”

And then God gives us Jesus.  Through Jesus we can see that God has been there, too.  Jesus has experienced the “how long must we endure this?”  The testing kept coming.  The threats kept coming to Jesus.  He knows what we go through.  He has experienced it too.

Finally, Jesus shows us another way to handle it when we’ve hit that “how long” place.  How does Jesus finally deal with all of these tests and entrapments being sent his way?  Jesus deals with the tests finally by turning the tables and asking them a question - one they can’t answer. 

How do we turn the tables when life is full of trials and struggles?  How do we reclaim our power and our sense of living life when things are really difficult?  There isn’t always an easy answer to that.  Almost all of us are victimized at some point.  Some people have really awful things happen to them from which they cannot recover.  Some live with victimization on a daily basis, some had childhoods in which they were abused regularly, some live in situations from which it is almost impossible, if not impossible to recover.  There are some injustices from which people simply cannot recover, or can only recover with serious intervention, a great deal of time, and a great deal of support, love and professional help.  I am not speaking to those people right now, though I have the greatest sympathy and compassion for them and for their suffering.

Instead I am speaking to the majority of people in middle class America who at some point grow up and have to choose how we are going to deal with the many things that have victimized us.  Are we going to pass on those bad behaviors?  Are we going to be walking professional victims, telling everyone we meet how awfully we were treated and how unfair our life has been and how unfair it continues to be?  Or are we going to choose instead to be survivors and hopefully even thrivers - people who have not only survived the victimization and who choose not to be victims any longer but people who thrive, who live, who have learned from their victimization and who choose strength both for themselves and for those they encounter?  Are we going to use our experiences of injustice to insist on a better world for all?  Are we going to stand up for ourselves and others, helping to empower others to do the same?  I know it is not easy to choose to be survivors rather than victims.  And it is even harder to be thrivers.  But these are choices we can make.  I am reminded of a Curtis comic strip I saw some time ago (March 30, 2008). The father pointed out that many rap artists both in the past and in the present talk about (among other things) how terrible everyone has been to them, and then he suggested that maybe it would be better if instead they talked about how they could make different life choices and make things better.

Choosing to be a survivor may not be as “interesting” as complaining about the injustices that we’ve experienced.  It may not be as attractive.  It may not be as easy.  It involves feeling some hard feelings - grief, for example, must be felt, must be experienced, must be lived through to come out the other side.  But choosing to feel those feelings is part of turning the tables: not allowing the trials of life to defeat you - choosing instead to seize life and no longer be the target, the victim, the pursued.  Jesus did this by again, turning the tables on those who would entrap him, not attacking, but asking questions that required his listeners to make a choice between being genuine or being true to the image they were trying to put forward.  He forced them to look at themselves, look at their own theology, look at the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in their own faiths.  He used the same method as they did - asking questions, but he did so in a way that told them volumes about themselves and about him.  We may not have the same ability to do that, but chances are that our trials will not be the same as those Jesus faced either. 

            Today is reformation Sunday and in many ways, the Reformation was an answer to the question of “how Long”.  Martin Luther said, “enough.  No longer will I endure the injustices I am witnessing.  No longer will we walk in this way.  We must change or forge a new path”  And he did.  As an aside I want to point out that what Jesus shows in this passage is that confrontation is not the opposite of love.  Jesus is the embodiment of love, and he follows this passage about loving your neighbor with a confrontation.

            Sometimes we will endure.  Sometimes we will grieve and walk through.  And sometimes, we are called to make changes, to stand up against injustices and to answer the question of “how long” with “no longer.  It is time for this to change and that change will start with me.”

We can make a choice - are we going to be victims, survivors, or thrivers?  Are we going to go out of this life doing the work, healing, living and engaged?  Or are we going to let life plow us and other people over?  How do you want to run this race?  Do you want to live life so fully that you cross the finish line exhausted but fulfilled?  Or do you want to walk to the finish line - still whole, but without having lived?  Or do you want to limp along until you are finally called home?  Jesus calls you to live.  Jesus calls you to be engaged.  Jesus calls you to stand up for yourself and for those around you who suffer injustices.  Jesus calls you to love God and love your neighbor, all of your neighbors, as yourself, even when we are asking “how long”, even when we are struggling, even when we are tired.  “How long, O Lord?” we ask.  And answer is, “you do not know the time or the place”.  So live now, live today, in whatever way you can, in whatever ways are life-giving for you and for those around you.  Amen.

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.