And so it goes...

     As I've written before, I was unable to spend my time on the Camino, per my sabbatical plans.  Then, returning home, I've found that the last part of my sabbatical, which was supposed to be fixing up my own garden, has also been "sabotaged" in many ways.  First, the expense, even with dental insurance, of dealing with the infection in my tooth and jaw was extreme, which has made the buying of plants and mulch difficult.  Secondly, the excessive heat has also meant that while I can go outside for an hour or so in the morning, that really just allows me to do maintenance on what is already there.  Anything I would plant right now would have a hard time surviving, and my time outside is limited by my ability to endure the heat.  

    At any rate, all of this has caused me to do some serious reflection on the very nature of my life, and probably, all lives.

    Things don't go as planned.  Again, I can really only talk about my own life here.  But I've had dreams and plans, big and small, and very rarely have any of them gone the way I wanted or even expected.  Examples:

    I thought I would be married fairly young, but in fact wasn't married until I was 29.  I also didn't expect trauma, betrayal, divorce, or any of that, but no one ever does.

    I thought I would be a missionary; working for justice and empowerment overseas.  In fact, I really wasn't very good at that work when I tried it so that did not pan out.

    Then I thought I would settle into a home and raise my kids and be a permanent active part of a community throughout my life.  In fact, the longest I've ever lived in a home as an adult is 8 1/2 years, and that is my current home.  Before this, the longest we'd been in a house was 6 years. And I've lived all over: from the Southwest to the South to the Midwest and back here to CA.  

    My vacations have rarely gone as planned.  When Middle and I planned a hiking trip to Yosemite, the car broke down on the way there.  On a family trip to Tahoe, Middle and David had to return early for a school requirement we didn't know about until the last minute.  Another trip to Tahoe, I had to return because of a church situation.  And these stories go on.  As a matter of fact, this problem with vacations never working out the way they are planned is so consistent for me that I was certain before we left that something would go wrong.  As you know, it did.  I don't know why, then, I was so upset by it.  I mean, I expected it at some level, but just hoped so deeply that I was wrong and it would all work out.  

    As I said, small things, big things...

    But as I've sat with this, I've also remembered that many things have worked out better than I expected.  I've made friendships where they weren't expected.  I've connected with people who have shown up in my life in truly unexpected ways.  David was a surprise, a very good one.  I've also had surprises in my career.  I didn't expect to be asked if I wanted to co-moderate the Presbytery, for example.  That was a wonderful surprise!  All my jobs as a musician: not one of them have I applied for: they have all come to me, been offered to me, and each one has been a wonderful gift allowing me to play piano and do other things musically, and to experience the joys of doing so.  My job at Bethel came as an incredibly wonderful surprise, working with Sarah was a gift that has continued to give, even though neither of us are at Bethel any longer.  My job at St. Andrew's was also full of incredible surprises: the people and their care and generosity being number one.  The opening at Clayton Valley was a great surprise and getting the position here has been a wonderful gift. Having a publisher reach out to me repeatedly to publish my blogs into a couple books was also an amazing, wonderful surprise, as was being asked to write devotionals for These Days for a couple weeks.  The list goes on!

    Can we weigh these things?  I don't know that that would be helpful.  But I'm back to feeling that what I'm being called to do, both with this time and with the situations that have arisen in my life is to look for what is good, to look for what is beautiful.

    I've needed to name for myself, honestly, that I can tend to focus more on the negative, when there are good things all around.  My personality does not sit in the good as much as it struggles with the challenges.  But I have some choice in this.  I know gratitude is always a gift, and it is one that lifts spirits, brings joy, and helps us connect more fully with God, with Love, with Beauty.  So, as always, my lesson in this remains to spend the time each day that calls for me to reflect on what has come that has been good, that has been surprising but also gifting, where God has been and continues to be in my day, in my life.  

    Three weeks of Sabbatical left... and I am going to be intentional about this time.  It will go quickly!

The Best Laid Plans…

     Yesterday we arrived in Porto, found Middle, got to our hotel.  All good.  Today the plan was to experience Porto.  I had tickets at Livraria Lello, suppposedly the most beautiful bookstore in the world, and we were hoping to bop down to the river for a river cruise.  Today is David’s last day in Europe… he flies home with Middle’s belongings, so we also planned to organize and figure out how to have Middle keep what he needs and give David what he doesn’t.  We had it all worked out with plans to eat at specific places and to try specific foods, even.

    However, the day before yesterday I started to have an intermittent pain in my jaw and mouth.  I kept just hoping it would go away.  But this morning when we went down for the breakfast, drinking warm tea was almost unbearable. In addition, after yesterday evening's attempts to slim down what we needed David to take home (I got rid of a number of articles of clothing including my jacket, David threw out a number of articles of clothing as well, including some jeans, and Middle threw out more of the belongings he’d already pared down substantially in Norway. I had told him when he insisted on taking his skis to Norway that he would never be able to return with them but some lessons are hard learned: so skis, bag, poles, as well as many items of clothing and other assorted objects now belong to Norway, despite my warnings), we STILL could not fit everything that really needed to come home into two checked bags and a carry-on.  So, today’s plans were tossed.  

    Middle had the job of finding a new backpack for his continued travels through Europe with the hope of giving his old one to David to replace the smaller one we had brought as his "personal item."  My job was to find a dentist who was willing to see me TODAY since we are supposed to start the Camino tomorrow morning.  With the hotel’s help, I was able to find a woman who said she would go into her office to see me even though today her office was closed.  After fighting with our map app, we finally found the place.  She said I have an infection in one tooth that has spread to my jaw, she prescribed both antibiotics and pain killers which I then had filled at the local pharmacy, and encouraged me to see my own dentist ASAP to get this dealt with properly.

      Middle, in the meantime, went on a hunt for a larger backpack for himself.  He wasn’t finding what he really needed, so I joined him and we spent the afternoon walking to the different sports shops in Porto.  We were still unable to find what he needed.  It is now 5PM.  Day shot.  Not very successful on the one hand.  We will spend more time this evening paring down even more so David can leave at 4am tomorrow morning for home.  Hopefully they will LET him check two bags… if not, we will be in real trouble.  

    But again, we have choices about how to view this day.  While we did not do the touristy things in Porto, Middle and I certainly saw a great deal of it as we searched for camping or sporting goods stores.  We got in some good walking which will be good prep for the next couple weeks.  We saw some lovely gardens.  In addition, I met with the kindness of strangers.  The dentist that saw me hardly spoke any English and it’s been so long since I spent that summer in Brazil that my Portuguese is pretty much forgotten.  Still, she came out on her day off to help a stranger and would only take a hug as payment!  Kindness indeed.  It was also a very good thing that today when the pain became unbearable I had the space and help of the hotel staff to find someone to see me.  I won’t have that space over the next couple weeks.  I am glad it happened here.

    So yes, the plans went awry.  Sometimes that’s life.  And many times it’s okay that things don’t go as planned.  We just have to look for the good.

A Present Silence

1 Kings 19: 1-15
Luke 8: 26-39

God’s coming as we know is not where, when, or how people expect.  We know this.  And yet still, where do you think people look for God?  Where do you think most people expect to see God or claim to see God?  Natural disasters, natural actions.  When big things happen in our lives – if these things are good, we say, “God blessed me” and if things are bad, we tend to ask, “Why did God do this to me?” or “Why did God let this happen”…like the Holocaust or natural disasters, the big Jesus burning down.  This was true in Biblical times as well.  People looked for God in the big things, the big movements in the world or in their lives or in nature.  That is a big part of why we have this passage written the way it was in 1^st Kings.  It needed to be said that for Elijah, God wasn’t in the wind, the earthquake or the fire.  Where was God?  

In the NRSV the translation of this passage says that God was found “in the sound of Sheer Silence.”  In the NIV it says God was found in a “Gentle Whisper”.   In the Common English translation it is “ there was a sound.  Thin. Quiet.”   I love that.  A sound of thin quiet.  There is great power in God showing up in silence, or even in a gentle voice.      

Because what really gets us to listen?  Do we hear or understand a message in the earthquakes and disasters in our lives?  What kind of message is that?  Does it get us to stop and listen?  Not usually.  Instead, it causes us to talk back, to talk more, to lament and cry and yell and ask “why?!”  God’s voice is not to be heard in that.  We hear anger, we hear punishment, we hear revenge.  But do we hear God?  I don’t think so, not only because I don’t believe God is about punishment and revenge, but also because if God is wanting us to change, just telling us “bad!  Wrong!” usually is not going to help us know how to be different or what to do that is different.

We know this to be true.  Psychology studies are absolutely consistent in showing that when we yell at our kids or hurt them, our kids are actually incapable of hearing or understanding or incorporating into their being what it is we are saying.  They don’t learn the lesson when we deliver it in anger or violence.  They just plain don’t learn it.  Do we think that God doesn’t know this?  No.  God knows and God wants us to learn and grow.  Anger is a secondary emotion.  And there are two things that underlie anger.  Always.  The first is grief and sorrow.  But the more common emotion behind anger is fear.  God has no reason to be afraid or to act out of fear.  Therefore, God’s response to us is always one of love, one that is quiet, one that is compelling.  One that is unexpected.

               Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a wonderful book titled, Learning to Walk in the Dark.   In it she shares the value of finding God in the unexpected and unexplored and scary places.  Some of what she says, “Those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision goes cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God.”  This thing that we fear so much, the dark, is actually essential to our health.  We need real darkness to be able to sleep well and we need real sleep in order to think well, to function well, to be healthy in our lives.  Jesus died on the cross.  But we are so afraid of the dark that we don’t want to face the fact that it is only in our dying that we, too, truly live.  Only in facing that which is uncomfortable, hard, but true and deep that we find God.  She continued, “One of the central functions of the dark night” (used as a metaphor to mean those times when we go through difficult and painful things and cannot feel God’s presence) “is to convince those who grasp after things that God cannot be grasped.  God is not a thing.  And since God is not a thing, God cannot be held on to.  God can only be encountered as that which eclipses the reality of all other things.  …(our) images of and ideas about God are in fact obstacles between (us) and the Real Thing.” (p 138).  (p144 - ) “The dark night is God’s best gift to you, intended for your liberation.  It is about freeing you from your ideas about God, your fears about God, your attachment to all the benefits you have been promised for believing in God, your devotion to the spiritual practices that are supposed to make you feel closer to God, your dedication to doing and believing all the right things about God, your positive and negative evaluations of yourself as a believer in God, your tactics for manipulating God, and your sure cures for doubting God.  All of these are substitutes for God.”

               Thomas Merton says it this way: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (from  “Thoughts in Solitude”)

God is present in the silence – in the quiet.  Often we think of silence as an absence, but in this case it is a present silence.  It is a profound presence. 

God’s coming, or seeming lack of coming is very rarely what we expect.  And what we eventually learn is that God’s presence in the silence is much more profound that any voice that we could hear, especially when we are in a dark time.  When grief is strong there are no words of comfort that can help, that can fill the void that is left.  All words in profound grief are empty, meaningless dribble.  The only thing that is meaningful in that is presence.  Genuine presence.  “A Noise.  Thin.  Silent.”

God is always in the unexpected places and that is scary.  I’ve shared with you before about my favorite restaurant in San Leandro:   the Bella Italia Inn, which had no inn attached to it at all.  It was an Italian restaurant, though the owner/cook was Indian.  This was the first thing you would notice when you walked into the restaurant - the Indian cook behind the counter in the kitchen cooking the food.   In case you missed this, you would be reminded of it by the choice of music - Indian music playing over the speakers.  The waitress who worked there was from Central America, and spoke very little, if any, English, only Spanish.  The decor in the restaurant was an odd mix of quality and...lack of quality - the wood work in the restaurant was high quality, truly lovely stuff.  But the tables would rock back and forth on their uneven legs.  The rugs were beautiful, but filthy both with current grime and with deeply set stains.   Drinks that you would order would be brought to you in glasses that didn’t match.  The last time I went, my friend was given a beautiful large crystal wine glass out of which to drink her coke, and I was given a beautiful, small and differently designed plastic wine glass out of which to drink mine. There were beautiful glass oil and vinegar holders on each table right next to the cheap plastic salt and pepper shakers.  If you were able to order your food (if you were able to communicate with the Spanish speaking waitress) she would bring you hot food on cold plates, and cold food on hot plates.  If you asked to split your dessert, they would “split” your two layer piece of chocolate cake by cutting off the top layer, so that one of you gets all the frosting and the other all the filling.  The waitress wouldn’t bring you a spoon with your spaghetti nor a pen with the credit card slip if you pay by credit card.  If you ordered mineral water, they brought something that wasn’t carbonated.  One time when I went, I had to wait for an hour to be served, though it was obvious that there was only one other couple in the entire restaurant - “we’re understaffed tonight,” we were told.  But in the midst of this very chaotic and strange place, the food is fantastic.  The seasonings exquisite, everything cooked to perfection.   Truly wonderful Italian food cooked by this Indian man in these strange circumstances.  If you were put off by the circumstances, the décor, the incongruity of the place, you would miss out on one of the best Italian meals in the Bay Area.  God is like that.  The unexpected gifts in the chaos.

The story of the pigs.  Again, God in the unexpected.  It terrified the people.  But he healed the man.  Why was it so scary?  In part because it was so unexpected, and so uncontrollable.  We like the boundaries that define our world, that help us to walk through and navigate each day.  The physical rules and scientific facts give us comfort: we know x can happen, we know y can’t.  But then when y does happen?  It is terrifying.

We are complex.  We are found to be in many different moods, with many different challenges and gifts and reactions and ways of responding to our world and being in the world.  And we are made in the image of God.  So God, too, is complex and shows up in many, many ways.  When we limit the ways in which God can show up or the ways in which we see God, we limit God-self.  We make our God too small.

I think about the Joan Osborne song, “What if God was one of us”.  The words are:

If God had a name what would it be?

And would you call it to his face?

If you were faced with Him in all His glory

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

And yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

What if God was one of us?

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryin' to make his way home?

If God had a face what would it look like?

And would you want to see if, seeing meant

That you would have to believe in things like heaven

And in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?

People were offended by this song.  Why?  And yet, the message of Jesus is very clear: God IS one of us, with all that that means.  But we have a fear of God being present in what we don’t like, what we don’t know, what we don’t understand.

So our challenge then is to keep our eyes open, keep looking for God even in the places we don’t like.  God works in the world, is alive in the most unexpected places, is present in the silence.  The biblical stories remind us that God comes where we least expect to see God, the stories remind us of our need for the miracles of wholeness, of transformation, of change, of seeing God in the unexpected, even if that can make our lives uncomfortable.

               I just finished reading a wonderful book called Tattoos on the Heart, written by Jesuit Priest Gregory Boyle.  Father Boyle works with gangs in L.A. and has won the California peace prize for his work.  One of the many things that makes the book so compelling is when he talks about the unexpected places where he has met God.  He warns that if we only look for God where we expect to see God that our god can become very tiny, very limited, very boxed in by our beliefs, our experiences, our own thinking, and most especially our expectations.  (p.19)  He goes on to say that God IS compassion, compassion that we, too, are called on to embody.  One story I believe highlights that especially.  Father Boyle is sharing about a woman who had two of her sons killed by gang activity, both of whom had actually outgrown their own gang behavior, had moved on to reclaim their lives and were living with hope, integrity and movement, going to college, going to work.  But they happened to be in the wrong places at the wrong time and were shot and killed.  She is devastated by both of these losses and is struggling to live each day, which she must do because she has two other children who still need her.  But at one point she is taken to the hospital herself with an irregular heartbeat and chest pain.  Boyle continues,

“The doctors are tending to her with EKGs and the like when there is a rush of activity at the entrance.  With a flurry of bodies and medical staff moving into their proscribed roles, a teenage gang member is rushed to the vacant space right next to Soledad.  The kid is covered in blood from multiple gunshot wounds, and they begin cutting off his clothes.  The wounds are too serious to waste time pulling the curtain that separates Soledad from this kid fighting for his life.  People are pounding on his chest and inserting IVs.  Soledad turns and sees him.  She recognizes him as a kid from the gang that most certainly robber her of her sons. 

               ‘As I saw this kid,’ she tells me, ‘I just kept thinking of what my friends might say if they were here with me.  They’d say, ‘Pray that he dies.’” But she just looked at this tiny kid, struggling to sidestep the fate of her sons, as the doctors work and scream, ‘We’re losing him.  We’re losing him!’

               ‘And I began to cry as I have never cried before and started to pray the hardest I’ve ever prayed.  “Please… don’t… let him die.  I don’t want his mom to go through what I have.”’

               “And the kid lived.”

               That’s where God is.  God is in those unexpected moments of grace, of vision, of love, of compassion, and of silent presence.  Sometimes it is hard to see God there, but if we want to be close to God, we have to start looking in the unexpected places, to look not in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the presence.

A prophet in his own home

Mark 6:1-6

               A woman who ran a soda fountain was disturbed one day to notice a group of older boys making fun of a younger boy.  “He’s so stupid!” she could hear one of the older boys saying, “Watch this!”  The older boy proceeded to take out of his pocket a dime and a nickel which he then held, one in each open palm in front of the younger boy.  “Which one is more?  Which one do you want?” he mockingly asked the young boy.  The young boy looked very carefully for a moment at each coin, finally picking up the larger nickel and putting it in his pocket.  The older boys laughed and mocked and moved on.  The woman watching this, upset by what she saw, approached the young boy.  “I know the nickel is a bigger coin, but son, don’t you know that the dime is worth more than the nickel?”

               “Of course!” replied the boy.  “But if I don’t pick up the nickel every time, they will stop doing the ‘trick’ and so far I’ve managed to get over a dollar of their money.”

               Just like the boy in this story, Jesus, in his home town, was much more than his community would, or could see.  The people in his community could not see Jesus for the man of God that he was.  They could not allow for him to be a worker of miracles, a speaker of truth, the son of God.  As a result he could not do miracles in his home town.  They could not see who he was and so, with his own home community, he had no status, no respect, and ultimately no power. 

               Do you know people who are so charismatic, were so charming even as children that they had no trouble becoming prom queen or king, class president, “most likely to succeed,” etc.?  Individuals at every high school win these titles every year.  And I think that these are the kind of people who would have had no trouble being prophets in their own homes.  These are people everyone likes and everyone wants to be with.  They make their way, their successful way in the world because of and based on their charisma.  Everyone who meets them wants to be part of their fan club, their inner circle, their friends.  Many of our politicians fit into these categories.  Leaders of many of our cults also fit into this category: David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc.  For many of our most famous actors and actresses they too have found success by knowing the right people and by being the ‘right’ people also:  people that you cannot help but want to support, love and be around.  Most of these people not only have charisma or social status because of their personalities, but also have class standing; they are from a class of people whom we tend to respect: they have money, tend to be white collar workers, they come from respected family backgrounds.

               What is interesting for me about today’s scripture is that it tells us Jesus was not one of those typically charismatic people.  The people in his home town did not run to support his ministry, but instead made comments like, “huh.  I know his little sister!” and “He’s just the carpenter’s son!”  In our day the equivalent might be “what’s so special about him?  Who does he think he is, trying to change the world, preaching at us, claiming to do miracles.  We know his family for heaven’s sake!  His father worked as a janitor.  Wasn’t his sister, Suzy, the one who had such trouble in school?  And his brother, George, wasn’t he caught smoking behind the church?  Who does this Jesus think he is?  He’s not so special.”  Because they could not or would not see Jesus, everyone was diminished.  The people did not benefit from his gifts, he was unable to fulfill his purpose among them.

               This understanding of Jesus, as one not successful in his home town, one not seen, one not powerful, is, like everything else about Jesus, scandalous.  God did not come to us among the powerful, among the professionally and monetarily successful, among the popular, or the charismatic or famous.  He came and is coming among those we tend not to see or think of very highly.  He is coming among people you and I would and do have a hard time respecting.

               But while this understanding of Jesus is scandalous, I have to admit, I like this about Jesus.  Since I too am not charismatic or famous or rich by American standards, this surprising part of Jesus appeals to me.  He isn’t so far away, so untouchable that I can’t relate to him.  More importantly, he isn’t such an “idol” that he can’t relate to me.  This story about Jesus makes him once again, more human, more like us, more one of us.  His experiences in this life were very much what many of us have experienced and known.  He underwent again and again what it was like to not be seen in his fullness, valued in his being honored as who he really was, and respected.  He experienced powerless-ness.  He experienced rejection.  He, too, was not seen in his fulness by people he knew, loved and cared for.

               The words of one children’s song are, “There’s more to me than you see.  Won’t you reach out and touch me?”  We understand that feeling.  We are more than the person in the red car sees as he gives us an obscene sign because we made some error in our driving or weren’t going fast enough in his opinion.  We are more than the people in line at the grocery store see, annoyed at us because one of our items is missing the price tag and we have to wait for the bagger to get the correct price.  We are more than the professor sees who writes on our paper, “I’m disappointed in you.”  We are more than our teenagers and the teenagers in our community see who believe we can’t possibly understand or relate to them because they don’t know that in fact we are every age we ever were and so there is still that teenage part in ourselves, searching for who we are, struggling against trying to please those in our communities.  We are even more than those who love us will ever know.  We are more than we ourselves recognize: we are more every day, we are more of our potential, in our possibilities, in our being than just our past, our class, our money, our fame, our talents and our actions show.  We are God’s children.  God made each of us amazingly complex, unique, beautiful and GOOD.  Each of us is immensely valuable.  Each of us is worthy of infinite love.  You are an incredible creation.  You are worthy of being seen, of being loved, of being known.  God made you and loves you just because you are.  Just because God made you in love and for love.

               There was a monastery high in some beautiful mountains that was going to be closed down.  There were only a few monks who lived there – no new monks had joined for many years and visitors were scarce.  In an act of desperation, the monks decided to consult a local guru who was known for his wisdom in all matters.  When brother Michael consulted with this guru, the wise man said that he could not help them to keep the monastery open but that he was so glad the brother had come because he had a message for him.  Michael was surprised and asked what the message was.  The guru told him that the Christ was living disguised in the monastery.  Michael took this message back to the monastery, and told the other monks that while the guru had not been able to help them, that he had this amazing news to share with them.  After hearing the message, the monks began to look at one another differently.  Surely the Christ wasn’t brother Jason, they thought, he snores and brags and is anything but Christ-like!  But then again, the guru had told them that Christ was in disguise…    Could it be brother Simon?  He eats a little too much, but is generally very gentle and loving.  Maybe it is him…  Because none were sure who was the Christ in disguise, they began to treat each other person in the monastery as if they could be the Christ, just in case they were.  Visitors to the monastery began to notice that something was different here.  Each of the monks seemed to treat everyone with such reverence, such care, such respect and such holiness.  And as they noticed this difference, they wanted to be around it more.  They invited their friends to come back with them, and some chose to join the monastery.  The monastery began to grow again and eventually became a thriving, vital, active Christian community.

               When Jesus was not seen and not understood, not respected and loved by his own community, everyone in the community was poorer.  The same is true among us.  When we do not see each other, work to know each other, love each other in our fulness, we are all poorer for it.  And there is good reason for us to try.  Because just as in the story of the monastery, Christ is among us.  And she/he is indeed in disguise: the disguise is each of us.  The disguise is you.  What would happen here if were each treated with the care and respect of these monks?  What would happen to you if people looked at you like they really saw you, respected you, VALUED you, all the time, as the amazing, lovable, child of God person that you are?  What would happen to our world if we began to treat each other across cultures and across all barriers of ethnicity, gender, ability, age, country of origin, sexual orientation, religion, with the care and respect of the monks?

               Where is the Christ?  Where does Christ come again among us?  Not where expected – not in the powerful, the rich, the famous, the noticeable, the “beautiful people”.  Jesus did not come to us as the all loved, “most likely to succeed”, rich bachelor TV personality.  And Christ does not return as a person we would recognize as being of consequence: not rich, not popular, not special by American standards.  Jesus had regular, normal brothers and sisters, his dad had a blue collar job, he grew up in a poor community and, as much as he was divine, he was also fully human, just like us.  The challenge in this for all of us is that we are called to treat everyone around us as the Christ.  The comfort in this is that you, too, are deserving of such love, such care, such deliberate intentional knowing of the wonderful, beautiful, child of God that you are.  Christ returns every day anew.  In and among us.  In and among YOU.

Christmas All Year Round - sermon

Luke 2:1-14

               Last year we celebrated Christmas in July for the first time together.  And I talked to you about how and why this was started.  To refresh your memories: there are several reasons we have this practice.

               For one thing, Christmas in December has become extremely commercialized.  It has become very focused on presents, on decorations, on cards, on parties, cookies, on buying, buying, buying and spending, spending, spending.  In church, our focus on Christmas Eve is on children’s pageants and singing.  As I mentioned last year, these are not bad things: these are very good things.  There should be a place and time when we are about giving gifts, receiving from one another.  There should be a time and place for focus on family, on parties, on decorations. It is wonderful that we have this beautiful celebration with Christmas pageants and candles and music.  I love all of that and wouldn’t change it for the world.

But I’m also aware that in the midst of all of that the real meaning of Christmas gets lost.  Christmas has become a gigantic commercialized and pretty secular event for all of us, and, as I’ve said before, an exercise in those who have too much already giving more to others who also have too much already, rather than a focus on what God’s coming to us as a poor, displaced baby is really about.  And while we love that Jesus came as a baby, because we love babies and we love children, our delight in our clean and pressed children, in our songs beautifully sung and our choirs trained to do their best music, often takes us away from the reality of what that messy, chaotic, noisy, confusing first Christmas was really like.  More, it takes us away, again, from the deeper message of God coming to us, to be with us, as one of us.  God did not come in the form of a king, not in clean clothes and rich surroundings, not in a comfortable home or hospital, not surrounded by extended and loving family bringing new baby clothes and a crib and car seat that are up to code, not with sterilized bottles and diapers; but in a stable, far, far from home, in a messy, poor place, away from family and friends, out in the cold, without doctors or nurses or midwives or attendants of any kind, without women around (and this was considered women’s work at the time), without warm water and clean towels.  God came to us messy into a messy world.  God came to us as a baby, and not, as the song would tell us, a baby that “no crying he makes” but a real baby who hollered and made messes in his diaper, who spit up at times (all babies do) and who probably threw his toys at times and got mad at his siblings as they came along and who wanted more of this and less of that, who undoubtedly disobeyed his mother at times.  A child.  A human who got cuts and bruises and scrapes.  Who knew what it was to have conflicts with other kids and other adults.  A poor child, who did not have riches and special athletics and music lessons and luxuries. 

This is the God who came to us. I think about the Joan Osborne song, “What if God were one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.”  For some unfathomable reason, this song was very controversial.  It is unfathomable to me because that is our Christmas story: that God WAS one of us, just like one of us.  And not, again, a rich and clean king, but a real and dirty infant.

It was scandalous.  And I think that if we did not white wash the story, we would find that it is scandalous still.  And that, to me, is the even deeper message of Christmas.  It isn’t that God came, once upon a time, into this messy and dirty and unkind world.  It’s that God still comes, even now, even with the chaos, confusion, anger, distress, extremes, alienation and isolation of today – God still comes into this place, every day, to meet with us.  And that, too, is scandalous.  God is with the poor and the suffering and the hungry.  God is with those experiencing injustice.  God is with those who are hurting.  God is with those who you are angry.  God is with those who’ve been hurt and those who hurt others.  God is with us when we’ve done something awful and when we are lost and searching.  God is with us when we are afraid.  God’s love for us meets us where we are, in this place, in the trenches of war, in the middle of divorce, in an argument with our children.  That is the message of God’s coming to us as one of us.  God’s love does not come to you after you become the one God wants you to be.  God meets you wherever you are as you are, and that love invites us to become the people we were created to be.

After World War II, as people began to care for so many children orphaned by the war, they noticed that, even though the children had three meals a day, they still were restless and anxious and had difficulty sleeping. It seemed the children had great anxiety about whether or not they would have enough food the next day. One relief worker came up with an interesting solution. Each night the nurses placed a single piece of bread in each child's hand. The bread wasn't meant to be eaten; it simply was intended to be held by the children as they went to sleep. Almost immediately, the children's anxieties were calmed, and they were able to sleep.

Jesus coming was meant to be that slice of bread for each of us to hold in our sleep.  Jesus, or God with us, reminds us of a love that is so deep that created and creator are no longer separated, no longer isolated and alienated from one another, that the sun will come up tomorrow and that we will be okay, whether we live or die, we will be okay. 

Christmas, whenever we celebrate it, is an opportunity to be grounded in that experience of God-with-us.  Are any of you familiar with Simon and Garfunkel’s version of Silent Night?  They sing beautifully the Silent Night that we all know, but in the background you hear a faint talking sound that gradually becomes louder and more attention-demanding.  Eventually, you hear the words that are being said and they are the 6 o’clock news broadcasting over the top of Silent Night.  All terrible, tragic, messy, ugly stuff.  Accompanied, throughout by the song Silent Night.  Every time I hear it, it moves me to tears.  These two Jewish men who wrote this song showed unbelievable depth and understanding about what we believe as Christians about a God who meets us where we are in this broken and hurting world.

I think God is profoundly present with us in this world, present as children are, in the here, in the now, in the real.  Amy Grant wrote a piece that we have shared at the last two Longest Night services called “Better than a Hallelujah”.  The words are:

God loves a lullaby and a mother’s tears in the dead of night

Better than a hallelujah sometimes

God loves a drunkard’s cry, a soldier’s plea not to let him die

Better than a hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are, The honest cries of breaking hearts

are better than a Hallelujah.

              

A woman holding on for life, a dying man giving up the fight

Are better than a hallelujah sometimes

Tears of shame for what’s been done, the silence when the words won’t come

Are better than a hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are, the honest cries of breaking hearts

are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing,

Better than a choir singing out, singing out

We pour out our miseries, God just hears a melody

Beautify the mess we are, the honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a hallelujah.

God is with us in our reality, in the reality of all that we are.  And while God loves our worship and praise and singing and adoration, what God wants more is a real relationship with you.  God wants to hear your pain, hear your hopes, hear your dreams and your fears.  And so God came to be as one of us, to have that kind of close relationship with us that we humans have with one another.  He came as child, as sibling, as friend, as master.  And he loved and walked and cried and raged and laughed and lived so that we might know that we could talk to God as one who understood, as one who understands. 

Sometimes I think we hide from God in the way we celebrate Christmas.  We focus on the joy, we focus on giving and parties and celebration.  Again, all of that is good.  But if the point of Christmas is that God is real, that God comes to us in a real way, as a real human being, then shouldn’t we also strive to be more open, honest and real with that God? But we hide in our rituals of faith even, making them perfect and beautiful and sweet when God’s coming was anything but those things.  I’m reminded of the musical Sound of Music.  Maria is scared of her feelings so she takes off and runs to the convent.  The wise mother superior though gentle says to her, “these walls were not meant to keep out our problems, Maria.”

           Father John Powell, professor at Loyola University in Chicago wrote about his encounter with one of his more rebellious students, Tommy, who was an atheist challenging everything Father

Powell was teaching in this theology class.  At the end of the semester, Tommy approached the Father and cynically asked, “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” to which the Father replied, “No, but I am certain that God will find you.”  A few years later, Tommy was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  He came to the Father and told him that he had been searching and searching for God without luck.  But one day he gave up on looking for God.  Still, he remembered something the professor had told him, “The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.” And he decided he needed to tell those people in his life that he loved them. 

Tommy said, "So, I began with the hardest one, my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him.

"Dad."

"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.

"Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk.”

"I mean. It's really important."

The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you, I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him.

"The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning."

“It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me."

"It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years."

"I was only sorry about one thing --- that I had waited so long."

"Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to..

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there.

"He didn't come to me when I pleaded with Him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through. C'mon, I'll give you three days, three weeks."

Apparently God does things in God’s own way and at God’s own hour.

"But the important thing is that God was there. God found me! You were right. God found me even after I stopped looking for God."

God is not a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love..

           

            Jesus was unexpected and my experience throughout scripture and personally is that every time God shows up it is in some unexpected way.

But, as Richard Rohr puts it, “there is no authentic God experience that does not situate you in the world in a very different way. After an encounter with True Presence you see things quite differently, and it gives you freedom from your usual loyalties and low-level payoffs--the system that gave you your security, your status, your economics, and your very identity. Your screen of life expands exponentially. This transformation has costly consequences. Moses had to leave Pharaoh's palace to ask new questions and become the liberator of his people.” 

Pastor Jeremiah Steepek transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service, only 3 people out of the 7-10,000 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food - NO ONE in the church gave him change. He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was asked by the ushers if he would please sit in the back. He greeted people to be greeted back with stares and dirty looks, with people looking down on him and judging him.

 As he sat in the back of the church, he listened to the church announcements and such. When all that was done, the elders went up and were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation. "We would like to introduce to you Pastor Jeremiah Steepek." The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle. The clapping stopped with ALL eyes on him. He walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment then he recited,

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

'The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

After he recited this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning. Many began to cry and many heads were bowed in shame. He then said, "Today I see a gathering of people, not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples. When will YOU decide to become disciples?"

 He then dismissed service until next week.

The realization of God being with us, and especially of God choosing to be with us as a poor person, as a displaced person, as one of the “least of these” should transform us, should make us willing and able to take risks to stand up for those who are oppressed or poor or treated unjustly. 

Christmas is a time of blessings and celebration that God is with us.  It is also a call to be with those we usually don’t see and often dismiss.  It is a challenge for us all.  But in those people we would dismiss, we will find God-self.  Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - Lord, Save Us!

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

Luke 19:28-40

In a small college town a tavern frequented by students ran the following ad in the campus paper during the days before Parent’s Weekend: “Bring your parents for lunch Saturday.  We’ll pretend we don’t know you!”  The ad was soon challenged by the college chaplain, who posted a revised version on the campus bulletin board.  It read: “Bring your parents to chapel Sunday.  We’ll pretend we know you!”

Our laughter in part, I think, reflects our realization that our expectations for people can blind us to who they really are.  If we expect our child to be the one bringing us to chapel, that is what we often will see.  So it is with Jesus as well.      

Today we read the story we tell every Palm Sunday, the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In a sense, this is the same story as the advent stories of Jesus’ coming. Or at least there are strong parallels. During advent we prepare for Jesus’ coming as a baby. And we are reminded that his coming will not be what we expect. He won’t be the king of the powerful and rich, he will be king of the poor and outcast, not born in power and might, but born as a poor baby. He won’t make things comfortable but will disrupt and disturb the status quo. Today, he comes again: this time into Jerusalem at the end of his life. And again, the people of the time are filled with expectations which will not be met. In the Matthew, Mark and John versions of today’s scriptures, they shout “Hosanna!” which means?  It means, “Lord save us!” or “Lord Help us!” And they had every expectation that this salvation would come in the form of stopping the oppression of the Romans in a military way.

We are again called to look for Jesus in the unexpected, to look for God’s presence in new ways. To look beyond the triumphal march into Jerusalem and instead focus on Jesus’ message for us and his call for us to follow in his ways of love, peace, sacrifice and hope.

Jesus was the lord of the outcasts, the lord of the poor, the lord of the marginalized and displaced. And this day, the day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was his day. It was also THEIR day.  He entered Jerusalem to the waving of palm branches, on a donkey’s colt (according to the other gospels), with the multitude of his followers placing their cloaks on the ground before him. He was surrounded by those who had been healed of their afflictions, those he had empowered, those he had freed, those he had loved, and they were so excited by his coming! Their king, their lord was entering Jerusalem! They believed he would save them, that he would take back the city and he would free Israel from the oppression of the Romans. He would lift high the lowly and everything would be okay again. Can you imagine the excitement? Jesus would make all their pain go away, he would make it good, he would bring blessings, freedom and shalom, peace, wholeness to Israel.  This was a day to rejoice indeed.

The Pharisees, the righteous, those who still had some power and some wealth and some freedom, even in the midst of Roman occupation were also present. But how differently they must have seen things! Here was this carpenter’s son, this Jewish man on a DONKEY - a sign of humility and poverty, not a grand royal horse, but a donkey. And here he was surrounded by the outcasts, the poor, those who had no power or resources, the “riff raff”. How could they really think this man would make a difference in their lives? How could they really think he could help them? They laid their cloaks on the ground before him - a gesture usually reserved for royalty.  But what cloaks! These were not rich frocks covering the dirt to provide a clean and royal ride for a king. Instead they were rags, used clothes, hand-me-downs, worn to threads - a symbolic gesture for a clown king. What a joke!! How could this man be a king? How could he do anything with this rag tag group of people to make their lives acceptable? 

In addition, the Pharisees were undoubtedly more than a little nervous about the scene Jesus and the disciples were making. The Romans did control Jerusalem. What if they felt threatened by this man? Who would they punish? Probably all of Israel - starting at the top. No, the Pharisees figured, it was important that this man and this demonstration be stopped before there were violent repercussions and more hardships inflicted on them from the Romans. 

And then there is Jesus’ perspective. This was Jesus’ day - the only day during his life time that the work he had done and the message he brought were honored and supported and uplifted in this grand way. For within a week the crowds would become disappointed by his lack of military action. Within a week they would have turned on him. Within a week he would be dead. And Jesus saw this. He knew that he was not the kind of king they wanted. He was never going to be the military man, come to overthrow the Roman rule. He was never going to be like our mortal, human kings. Instead, he was a king of love. He was a king of peace. And the difference he came to make was not military or violent. It was to change people from inside, to heal, to empower, to teach them to see everyone as brother and sister and to rejoice in that love. And if he could succeed in teaching people to love each other, that would make a difference far greater than any military or violent action possibly could. For Jesus, this was the day to celebrate. It was also a day to grieve for the people still didn’t get it. They still didn’t see him or his message. They were still expecting something different.

What version of Jesus do we see? What expectations for Jesus do we have? As we read today’s story about his entry into Jerusalem do we see, like Jesus’ disciples, a king who will rule the people and lead them in triumph? One who will return in glory to take over and make everything fair and right? I think most of us would hope for that. Most people, indeed most Christians, still expect a returning Jesus to overthrow our current governments and rule with might and strength. But that has never been the God Jesus has shown us. Do we, then, like the Pharisees, see a weak fool who really will not be able to effect positive change but may instead make things worse by creating fear in those who do have power? Or… can we instead see the man of the marginalized who will confront us for our riches and power and ask us to change our ways and serve the poor and marginalized? Can we see and expect a man who will upset the status quo, upset our comfortable lives by overturning the money changers in the temple – demanding a counter cultural behavior instead, ask from us actions of love instead of simple work towards making money, or friends or power? Who do we see? What do we expect?

“Lord Save us!” the people cried. They cried it in trust that he would save them. They cried it with hope and expectation. They cried it with joy and celebration. And the fact is, if they had listened he would have saved them, but again, not in the way they expected or wanted. When we can change our lives around from being fearful, angry, and hating into being people whose lives are truly governed by LOVE (which includes gratitude, faith, hope, trust, peace), then our lives ARE saved, they become different, they are changed into lives of meaning, of purpose, of “eternal life” in the sense of becoming so much bigger than ourselves. But this is not the way people then, or now, want to be saved. We want to be saved from our pain, from our grief. We want to be saved from financial struggles and worries. We want to be rescued from anything that hurts us or is oppressive, demeaning, unfair. We forget that we are called to be the change we want to see, to be God’s hands and feet in the world. We forget and instead want to be rescued – from ourselves perhaps most of all.

Palm Sunday is a day of celebration. We celebrate the kingship of Jesus. But it is also a day of reflection. We are called to reflect on the ways that kingship is different from our expectations. We reflect on our call to look for God’s coming in different and unexpected ways. We look to see God’s glory as it speaks to us today. Open your heart to God’s coming. Open your soul to the new possibilities present this day, here and now. And maybe, instead of “Lord, save us!” we need to be shouting, “Show us how to save you through saving and loving one another.” Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - Temptations

Luke 4:1-13

Luke wrote his gospel in a highly organized, pointed way. I would encourage you to actually look at the layout of the gospel at some point for yourself. But I am going to take my job as “teaching elder” more seriously this morning and talk you through some of his organization. The gospel of Luke begins with his prologue and dedication to Theophilus, Chapter 1:1-4. Luke then begins the gospel narrative with the infancy stories, explaining about John the Baptist and Jesus’ conceptions and births. That story is told beginning in Chapter 1:5, continuing through 2:21, the verse where Jesus is named, and then on through verse 39, his presentation at the temple. All of these verses are for the purpose of showing, proving, providing the signs that Jesus was the chosen one, that Jesus is the messiah, the son of God. These verses establish for the listeners Jesus’ divinity. These are followed in Chapter 2: 41-52 by the one story we hear of Jesus as a boy in which he was preaching in the temple. As I’m sure you remember, his parents couldn’t find him, and finally when he was found in the temple, Jesus scolded them for not understanding his role, his job, his position as a temple leader. In the gospel of Luke, this story again serves the purpose of showing us Jesus’ special calling and unique place in the history of the Jewish people. In Chapter 3 John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus, baptizes him, and then Jesus is marked by the descent of the holy spirit pronouncing him to be God’s son. Finally, chapter three ends with Jesus’ genealogy. For the Jewish people, this would be like giving his credentials to prove that he really was a person who was qualified to be the messiah. While for us in the United States, this genealogy may not seem like an important sign of Jesus’ kingship, try to understand this as a blood line monarchy. Descent is important for a king to be considered legitimate. This was especially true for the divine monarchy. Jesus’ genealogy would have been a critical, crucial part of identifying and understanding who Jesus was.   

Today’s scripture reading about the temptations of Jesus then follow this genealogy.  And in these verses as well, Luke is about the work of establishing for us who Jesus is. Up to this point, Luke is telling us that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, the chosen one. With the temptation stories, Luke tells us what this Messiah is to be like. Or rather, these verses are key as they lay out in exact terms who Jesus is NOT, what the Messiah is NOT going to be, despite the expectations and hopes of the Jewish people of the time.

The Jews around the time of Jesus’ life were expecting the Messiah, and looking for the Messiah. But they had very specific ideas in mind of what that Messiah would look like, who he would be, and what he would do. They believed the Messiah would be one who would rid them of oppression, of poverty, and of hunger. And so Luke tells us that Satan first tempted Jesus to perform the miracle of making stone into bread. In this story, Satan tempts Jesus to make the bread to feed himself. But I think it would have been very easy to justify giving in to this temptation for the sake of other people. For the ability to turn stone into bread, the choice to create food where there was none could have been used for the good of the people; Jesus could have given in to this temptation and chosen to end poverty and oppression for all people simply by turning stones into food, necessities, the things people need. But Luke tells us this temptation came from Satan: this was not Jesus’ job. Jesus was not called to simply wave his hand and make everybody comfortable. And this story tells us that he resisted the temptation to do so. 

Many Jews at the time believed the role of the Messiah would be to reestablish the kingdom of Israel, overthrowing the Romans who ruled over the Jews and all the land of Israel at this time in history. The second temptation addresses this. Satan offers Jesus the power of the world, all fame, all authority. Jesus could have used this gift for good as well. He could have overthrown any power, like the Roman rule, that was oppressive and dominant, and establish a new rule, led by himself, that was for good, that was just and kind. But this, too, was not what he was called to do. We know this again because Luke tells us it is Satan who offers this. This was not Jesus’ call, and so this temptation, too, he resisted.

Finally, many simply believed the Messiah would be a priest who would, through his power, protect the people, care for the people, warding off all evil that might threaten their lives or their comfort. And so in Luke, Satan tells Jesus to test God’s call, God’s love, the power God has given Jesus. He asks Jesus to jump off the temple, and throw himself into the arms and mercy of the angels. But this temptation, too, comes from Satan and Jesus resists.

I’m guessing that all of these temptations, all of these images of the Messiah are ones we would wish for Jesus to claim as well. We, too, would want a savior who would make sure we were fed, would lead us as a king, as the President of the United States and of the world, acting

with justice, thwarting all evil, leading us as both a political and as a religious leader, doing miracles and acting with power to insure that all are safe, happy, and secured of God’s grace even when we do stupid things that might look like throwing ourselves off of buildings.

But Luke tells us very clearly this is not Jesus’ call. This is not who Jesus is. He did not cater to his own needs, he did not reach for power or popularity, compromising his beliefs or calling, he did not test God’s love for him; and, despite what everyone wanted him to do, he did not “fix” the problems of the world instantly. Instead he began a ministry which angered people because it did not support the hierarchy that had been set up. He began a ministry which eventually got him killed because he told the truth to those in power about their unjust and evil behavior, and he called them to change. He began a ministry of good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and freedom for the oppressed, but not by ridding the world of these problems. Instead, he worked through the people themselves, through empowerment, through love, and through calling all of us to likewise carry out this mission, this plan. He did his work one person at a time, and sometimes in communities of people.  But he never took away free will, he never took over power, he remained humble yet continued to speak and act with love and truth. 

We are called to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. We are called to be his disciples, and to do the work that he has begun. That means that in the face of similar temptations, we, too are called to resist and to follow Jesus’ way instead. We too are called to resist the temptation of feeding ourselves first, of seeking power and fame and popularity, of testing God’s love for us, but also, of taking the easy way in the face of the great needs and oppression of those around us. We are called to remember in everything that we do that the ends do NOT justify the means, that the way we get where we are going is just as important as the end result. And taking away people’s freedom, people’s choices does NOT get us where we are called to be.  Acting, even to save the world, must be done with love rather than hate. And we are called to resist the temptation to say that it’s okay to grab for our own needs because we can use them to do good for other people. 

            The truth is that I think all of us are tempted by the same things. And as people of faith, we tell ourselves that we want these things to serve and care for others. If we only had enough food, comfort, power, popularity, wealth, surely we could change the whole world for the better. But these temptations sometimes cause us to face hard day to day decisions that are not always in the best interest of others, of our communities, of the world. For example, we might have the face the choice to do something in a job that is questionable, but we do it because we need to support ourselves and our families. We might justify doing something questionable because if we don’t have a job, what use can we be to anyone? Sometimes we debate between what we believe we need for ourselves and our families and giving to those who are truly, deeply in need of basics. This is a temptation I believe we face every single day. Do we give to those most in need, who are struggling to simply survive? Or do we use what we have for ourselves and our families. We don’t want to be afraid that we or our families won’t have enough. And we sometimes lose sight of the fact that somehow our ideas of what is “enough” expand based on what we actually have. Similarly, how many times do we keep quiet, keep our mouths shut about important values or things we hold dear in order to not “upset” people when maybe we are called to do exactly that? To take a stand for something we value? 

These are things I struggle with as well. As pastors we talk about this. As I’ve mentioned before, the larger Church across the country is shrinking at an alarming rate. Across denominations our churches are dying out. We can’t, therefore, we tell ourselves, or perhaps Satan or evil or temptation whispers in our ears, afford to speak the truths that we hear in scripture, that we read there every day, when we fear it may alienate people in our congregations.  People might get mad at us if we said when we really know, think, or believe. So we fail to do it. Francis of Assisi actually put it another way when he said that people of God should never be put in positions of high authority in any institution because our job then becomes preserving the institution rather than telling the truth. But this is not what we are called to do. How is the church relevant if it isn’t looking seriously at what the scriptures say, are and do? How are we doing our jobs by failing to speak those hard truths that many would rather not hear? 

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A colleague of mine wrote, “So I asked my three year old boy ‘Honey, if we were at a store, and Dad and I were in one aisle, and you were in another aisle, and there was candy, and the devil said, “You should take some!” What would you say back to the devil?’ A genuinely sweet grin lit up his entire face and without hesitation he replied, "Oh! I would say thank you!" It is far easier than not for us to say, "Thank you," when temptation comes calling. (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.)

But as we know, giving into temptations is a slippery slope.  There once were a couple of kids who wanted ice cream. The ice cream truck was coming, they could hear it coming up the street. So they asked their mother for money for ice cream and she said no. But they REALLY wanted the ice cream, so they were scouring the house for money but couldn’t find any. But then they found their mother’s wallet. And they took the money and used it to buy ice cream. So now they’ve done two things wrong. They had ice cream when their mother said no. They stole money to get it. But then the mom saw chocolate on their faces and asked them if they had had ice cream. And they added to their mistakes by lying about it. She knew they had, so then the next question was where did you get the money and they lied about that as well. One “sin” or mistake or error led to another, and another and another. Eventually one of the brothers gave in and told the truth. The other became angry and punched the one who told. Another wrong-doing. And it goes from there. 

In this world where there are hungry people, where there is oppression and injustice, where people are fleeing their countries because of genocides and other acts of mass violence, the bigger temptation, the biggest evil, is apathy, is inaction, is passivity. The biggest temptation for all of us is choosing to take care of our own and to not think that care for those who are out there is our job. But we are not called to be passive. We are not called to solely take care of our own. We are called to act out of love, for ALL people. That love should affect everything we do. Where we shop, paying attention to what stores are paying fair wages to people in this country and abroad. What we buy, paying attention to who has made or grown the things we buy, the food we buy and if they are treated fairly, if the land is being treated well. What we do with our money, who we vote for, how we talk to people, how we talk to strangers. All of these things, every choice we make should be informed by Love. Hard? Of course. For all of us. But that is the call. Anything less is giving into temptation.

The truth is that all of us become tempted, and all of us fail at times. The good news though is that God gives us more and more chances every day to make different choices. The good news is that God gets it because Jesus, too, was tempted. And the Good News is that Jesus models for us what to do when those temptations come. Jesus responded to his temptations by quoting scripture back to Satan. To put it in more modern terms, Jesus responded to the temptations that he faced by re-grounding himself in what he believed, in his relationship with God. And he models for us similar choices. Prayer helps. Confession helps. Meditation helps. Remembering what you believe, what is important, where God is in your life and that God calls us to love others because in doing so we are made whole. Remembering that…all of that can help reground us. Staying present so we are focused on what needs to be done now, right this minute for the good of the one in front of us, for the good of God’s creation. And again, that can be done best with God’s help. We pray each week, “lead us not into temptation”. But we will find ourselves tempted, and when we are, the prayer needs to be continued, “(and when we are tempted), deliver us from evil” both the evil of others AND our own.  Amen.