Becoming more whole - only when we have to

          In the movie, The Family Man, the main character is given the opportunity to see what his life would be like if he had made different choices.  In his real life, Jack is CEO of a prominant company and Alan, who works under Jack, is timid, unsure, unable to make any decisions without Jack holding his hand.  In Jack's "glimpse" into a different life, Alan is the CEO.  As the CEO, Alan is a man of strength and of courage.  He stands up for what he needs and does not hesitate to make decisions or to fight for them.  When Jack eventually returns to his real life and meets up once again with the timid, unsure Alan, he makes the comment, "Somewhere inside of you there's a much more assertive person."

         In my own life, if I had not been put in a position where I was forced to be in charge of... well of everything, I, too, would not have stepped into that position.  I was comfortable being an associate pastor and later, a co-pastor, not wanting to make the hard decisions.  In my family, while it looked like I was the alpha, the big decisions, all of them, were made by my husband.  He decided when and where we should live, what schools our kids should attend, when we moved out of state and even what jobs we had.  He wasn't domineering. I just was more comfortable having someone else make those decisions.  I didn't trust my own voice, I didn't trust my ability to choose well.  But along with that beta position in my own life came a sense of inferiority, of incompetence, and frankly of deep insecurity.  Being forced into a position where I raised my kids alone, worked as the sole pastor of a congregation and the lone income provider for my family, being the only adult who had to make every decision for the family: while the transition was difficult, it also helped me to grow in my own strength, my own abilities, and ultimately, my own sense of wholeness, happiness and well-being. Additionally, I learned how to do things.  I learned how to mow the lawn, how to do small repairs in my own home, how to invest money.  Before, it had been simpler not to learn these abilities.  But I am grateful I now have them. While I never would have chosen what we lived through, the deep truth is that I would not be half the person I am today without having survived it, and thrived through it.

       I look around and I wonder what certain people could be if their lives forced them to step up.  More, I've been thinking about how we sometimes enable people to be lesser versions of themselves through our care for them.  When we make all the decisions, are we disempowering others to make their own choices?  When we take charge of certain aspects of another's life, are we disempowering them from being able to take charge of those aspects themselves?  When we stand up for one another, are we disempowering them from standing up for themselves?  

       No, this is not a political argument against aid.  I believe there are universal rights people have: the right to clean water, food, shelter, healthcare, education.  All people should have these, and there are  people who absolutely need help. You cannot teach a person to fish who is so hungry they can't hold the rod or net.  But aid would undoubtedly be more empowering if we were to also teach, and more, to help folk make the connections they need to get the work they often want.  

      While sometimes we are thrown headfirst into needing to take more control of our lives, it is easier if we are gradually empowered to grow.  With our children, they are given more responsibilities as they grow up.  If a person is not used to making decisions or doing things for themselves, easing into those behaviors is certainly better than being thrown headlong into the deep end.  Also, I believe we can support one another in ways that do not take away another's opportunity to make decisions, stand up for themself or learn a new skill.  But these take thought.

        There is a Murdock Mysteries episode where Murdock's wife was arguing with their boss about her right to do something.  She turned to Murdock expecting him to defend her, but he did not.  Afterwards she confronted him angrily that he had not stood up for her.  But his response was, "You did not need me to do that for you!  I knew that you were a strong enough woman that you did not need to be ‘rescued’ or ‘saved’ by the big powerful man.   If I had jumped in, the police chief never would have come to respect YOUR strength and your ability to speak for yourself as a full human being.” 

        I wonder how often we think we are rescuing or helping someone when in fact we are disempowering them from becoming the best, most whole people they could be.  

Expectations of Clergy And Other People of Faith

            I've heard several people lately say something to the affect that they left the church at some point in their lives because of the way other people in the church behaved.  They left because of a pastor, or because of the way members of the congregation behaved towards the pastor, or they left simply because members of the congregation were unkind towards other members of the congregation.  And the conclusion of each of these folk was something along the lines of "people in the church shouldn't behave that way."  After all, if we strive to follow God, shouldn't that make us better?

            I've been sitting with this question for years, actually.  It's common that people leave because of the hypocrisy they see in the church: so after a pastor messes up, or after mean people in the church do something unkind, or because of the judgmental stance of some churches or congregations.  Shouldn't we who profess to follow a loving, compassionate, gracious God work harder to do right?  To avoid hurting people?  To build people up and care about those who need our care?  Shouldn't our weekly time remembering what we are called to do and who we are called to be make some difference in our lives?

          My answer has changed over the years, some, but here it is as I think now:  Yes, our time in the church should make us better.  But it should not make us better than other people.  It should just make us better than we ourselves might have been had we not been in that place of remembrance and support for being the best we can be.  None of us will ever be perfect.  And I don't think we can ever compare ourselves to other people.  The best we can do is compare ourselves to ourselves.  Have we grown to be more loving, more forgiving, more gracious than we were before?  Or than we might otherwise have become?    

        I think about what Jesus himself said on this subject, (Luke 5:31-32): "Jesus answered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do.  I didn’t come to call righteous people but sinners to change their hearts and lives.”  

        People come to church for many reasons.  But for many of us, it is because we are striving to be the people God calls us to be and we know we need the help and support of the community, of the time of worship and joint commitment to serve the poor and oppressed.  We need the time together to both reflect and work together to bring justice and peace to the world.  We can't do it on our own, or certainly we can't do it as well on our own.  For those who can, more power to them.  For the rest of us, our time in community and in church is essential for us to be the best we can be, for us to continue on the journey to be more whole, more caring and more loving.  That's all we can do.  We will never reach that goal, we will never be perfect.  But church allows us to grow towards it, to remember to self-reflect and work harder to be better.

        Some of what angers people is how big the mistakes are that some people within churches make.  I understand that.  But I have two responses to this.  First, I don't think God ranks "mistakes" or "sins" (to use a churchier word) in the same way that we do.  In the ten commandments, for example, murder is not listed as a worse sin than forgetting to take a day of rest.  I want you to think about that for a minute.  Murder is not ranked higher in the ten commandments than forgetting to honor the Sabbath.  There's no "ranking" of sins in scripture.  WE do that.  WE rank things and sometimes we really get those rankings off in some very strange ways.  Some Christians think that loving someone they have decided is inappropriate is worse than murder, for example.  We know this because they will KILL LGBTQ folk and feel justified in doing so.  But God wants wholeness for us and that means working for good in every aspect, working towards love and care, compassion and understanding in every way.  When we fail, we fail.  God forgives and we move on, hopefully having learned from the mistake.  

         The second thing I want to say about that is that again, we cannot be comparing people against other people: only against themselves.  And since we do not know what they would have been like had they NOT been in church, who are we to say that church has made no difference for them?  We can't know this.  

        Churches are human creations.  And as such they will be imperfect just as humans are imperfect.  They are there to build up, to honor God, to create community, to encourage us to be the church in the world, lifting up the oppressed, empowering the poor.  We who are in the church are part of that.  But because we are part of it, church will reflect our gifts, and our weaknesses.  We continually strive to do better, to make church better.  But it will never be perfect just as we as individuals will never be perfect.  

         I say again, church will make no person perfect.  It just won't.  But it can help.  At least it can help some of us.  And that's enough for me.    

Advent Repentence

Second Sunday of Advent

Rom.15:7-13

Matthew 3:1-12

What was the point of today’s passage from Romans?  Paul is making a point of God’s grace, God’s love, God’s presence being for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews.

How about the passage from Matthew?  What happens there?  In the passage from the gospel of Matthew John is criticizing the Pharisees and Sadducees.  As Jesus does later, here John is calling them hypocrites. Again, the Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious leaders of the day.  And John is telling them that their religiosity, their stance of faith means nothing because it is not backed up by acts of justice.  It is not supported by their behavior.  The root of their faith is about loving God, loving others, loving.  But they are not acting loving, not behaving with justice in any way.  And he is confronting that hypocrisy.  He then goes on to humble himself saying he is not worthy.  In some ways this is a showing to the Pharisees and Sadducees how they should be behaving themselves.  Because we all have some kind of hypocrisy, none of us get it all right all the time.  The willingness to self-reflect, to look at yourself and see your own hypocrisies, to name and own your own flaws: this is a huge part of being people on the way, people who are loving and caring, people who are growing.

So, the real question here is: What do these passages have in common with one another and more, what does any of it have to do with Advent? 

As we look at every Advent, the Advent call, the Advent promise, is that everything will be thrown on its head.  That those we exclude will be included, and that those who think they have it all together will have to face some very hard truths about who they really are and what God is really asking for them to be. Paul is making the point that the Gentiles as well as the Jews are acceptable to God.  It does not matter to God that they had a different religion, different belief system, and at that time, a different heritage, ethnic background and race. This would have been shocking at the time, it WAS shocking at the time.  But that is what Paul is saying. God has accepted, once again, those deemed unacceptable by the people.  John in today’s gospel reading is confronting the Pharisees and Sadducees’ hypocrisy and saying that their repentance is not genuine, their actions are not supporting their proclamation of being people on the way, people willing to change, people willing to do what God is asking them to do; their behavior is not “bearing the fruit” of love and compassion and grace.

What this has to do with Advent is that Advent, like lent, is a time when we are called to self-reflection, to repentance as a major part in our preparation for Christ’s coming.  We prepare the way for Christ’s coming into our hearts, into our lives, by looking closely at the places that are dark, hypocritical, hidden, “in error” and which need tuning, and sometimes, radical change.  We do this from a place of knowing that we are loved, “accepted” by God regardless of our past, present or anything else.  We are loved, but God is not satisfied to just love us - God calls us to respond to that love, from a place of gratitude, and to be willing to risk changing, and growing and becoming whole.  Because while God accepts us as we are, it is almost impossible for us to accept God into our hearts or really experience God at the deepest level from a place that is unloving, that lacks compassion or grace.  Therefore we must, not because God asks us to, but because there isn’t another way - we MUST repent - change, look at our lives, in order to accept God in in this new way in which God is coming this Christmas.  This isn’t easy.  I understand that.  Yet we are called to do this on a regular basis.  Especially during critical times in the church year.  Advent and lent, in particular, call us to this hard work of repentance.

I’ve talked a little about twelve step programs with you in the past but today I want to talk about them again for a few moments.  As most of you know, the twelve steps provide a way for people with addictions of any kind and even for those who are simply connected or related to those with addictions, to deal with those addictions.  How do they do this?  By asking people to follow the twelve steps as a way to healing.  And these are:

Twelve Steps

1. We admitted we were powerless over (alcohol, or whatever addiction you are dealing with)—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood (God).

Admitting we have a problem God can fix.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Confession

7. Humbly asked (God) to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Repentance

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 

Continued, regularly scheduled confession and repentance.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood (God), praying only for knowledge of (God’s) will for us and the power to carry that out.

As a result becoming closer with God.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Hoping to share with others the joy of that increased closeness - evangelism!

Do you notice how much of this is focused again on “repentance?”  I know that’s a Christian word for a non-Christian program, but that’s basically what it is.  This is about repentance - admitting your wrongs to God, admitting your wrongs to another, being willing to change those wrong behaviors and to fix the mistakes that you have made.  Looking again and again at your behaviors and “when you are wrong, promptly admitting it.”  People in twelve step programs do this to become whole - they do it to free themselves from their addictions.  And they find that as a result, they are closer to God, closer to experiencing the Divine.  They have “spiritual awakenings” that bring them such joy, such wonder, such change that they cannot help but share it with others - which is what real evangelism is about.  It’s not about “converting” others, it is about sharing your joy and your blessings in a way that is contagious and miraculous and beyond words. 

Well, God calls us to do the same things and for the same reasons.  This hard work of self-reflection and correction which we do weekly in our prayers of confession, which we do seasonally during advent and lent, that is part of the very foundation of our faith.  God calls us to this action not because God wants us to suffer, or feel inferior or feel less whole.  Instead it is because God wants wholeness for us and wants health for us. We cannot be the best we can be without that self-reflection and without being willing to change some things. God also wants this for us because, as I said before, with every step towards wholeness we find new ways to invite God in to our lives, we meet God in new and deeper ways, we experience God in new and fuller ways.  This is the work of a Christian.  It is the work of growing.  It is the work of LIFE because without it we cannot be whole people.  As Richard Rohr says, “Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change. That is the true story line of the Gospel.”

Again, this is not to say that this is easy.  And sometimes it is hard to know where even to start.  So I want to give you a place to start this Advent season.  There are many ways to do this, and this suggestion is just one.  But if you are stuck with how to do this kind of self-reflection, how to do this kind of “repentance”, I suggest one place to start is by looking at your regrets.

Just after college I went as a Volunteer in Mission to a community in North Carolina.  Among other things this community was beginning the process of building a retreat center up in the mountains.  A couple weeks into my stay one of the pastors leading this community, Mike, took me to the site where they hoped to build.  There wasn’t yet a real road up to this site.  So in order to get there, we began the slow, windy trip driving up a very steep logging road that was bordered on one side by the rising wall of the mountain and on the other by a sheer drop off into a valley below.  Mike and I rode in a very old, beat up pick-up truck which was so fragile that the roof of it wasn’t really attached anymore, just kind of hung on by a little metal here and there.  Mostly it just sat with rusting, jagged edges, bobbling and squeaking on the top of the truck.  There were no seat-belts in this truck and the shock absorbers were shot.  It also had no emergency brakes, or at least no way to access them within the body of the truck.  As we bounced and jolted uncomfortably up this steep, cliff-edged trail, I clung to the handle on the door, just praying we would make it safely up to the top so I could announce my decision to never ride up or down this mountain again in this particular vehicle.  I would walk, if I had to, no matter how long it took.  As my head hit the roof and these grumpy unhappy thoughts raced through my head, suddenly the engine on the truck died.  “Stupid truck!”  I thought.  But quickly my annoyance turned into terror.  For along with the engine dying, the breaks went out.  Completely.  The truck paused for a half second and then began to roll back down this windy, steep, cliff-edged hill with amazingly fast acceleration.  As Mike frantically pumped the breaks and reached for the non-existent emergency brake, all the while turning the key and trying desperately to re-start the engine, I knew it was over.  That was it.  This was where my short life would end. 

After what seemed like eternity, but was only a few seconds, Mike, rather calmly, I thought, announced that he would be turning the truck into the side of the mountain to try to slow it down.  He did so with incredible skill, and as the truck backed into the side of the mountain, the truck perched for a minute in space, on the brink of rolling.  If it had tipped over, I would not be with you today, but at the bottom of that cliff.  Instead, after an unsure minute, the truck stopped.

That experience was profound for me.  During those moments when I thought my life was over, much of it did, as the proverbial stories say, flash before my eyes.  Much of what was included in that flash was a plethora of regret.  What things, you might ask, would a 22 year  young woman have to regret?  Well, not too much of my regret was for actions in my past.  Most of it instead was about the future.  I regretted not knowing what it was to be married, I regretted that I would never have children.  I regretted that I hadn’t yet gone to seminary.  I regretted that I had turned down another mission opportunity in favor of this one, I regretted that I was not spending my time in real service to other people, especially those people in the world whom I believe God aches for, hurts for, calls us to empower: the poor, the displaced, the underprivileged. 

Those regrets, while at first painful, became gifts to me in that they allowed me to get a real glimpse into what was really, ultimately important to me: having a family, living a life of service, loving God.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to keep hold of that self-reflective ability.  Many more of my regrets as a seasoned adult have to do with the past, with choices I’ve made or people I’ve hurt.  But they are still gifts to me: they still tell me about problems I need to address, dreams I need to pursue, behaviors that I need to change. 

Regrets, though painful, are a gift from God.  They show us what is really important to us, pointing out things we need to change, giving us opportunities to make amends, do some healing, and to work through mistakes.  There are things that we regret that we are unable to fix: opportunities that we didn’t take that we may never have again, or people we have hurt who are no longer living or whom it would be impossible or hurtful to find.  There are things we cannot change about the past.  But I deeply believe that God would not give us, or call our attention to, or even allow us to live with these regrets if there was not something to be done with or about them.  I think about how in the Harry Potter series, at the very end, the villain is told that the one way he can save himself is by being willing to look at what he has done and to feel remorse.  The wise characters in the book point out that this remorse is the most painful thing a person can feel.  And yet, that remorse, that willingness to face ourselves and to make changes, this is what brings us ultimate healing, growth and wisdom.  There are lessons to be learned from those regrets that will encourage us to make a different choice in the future: I will not fail in this way again, or I will not choose in this way again.  If amends can be made, they need to be.  If they can’t, maybe other ways can be found to offer good in the name of the thing we regret that we did before.  Regrets can be deep pullings in our lives, calling us to look at something.  We need to not push those uncomfortable feelings away, but stay with them, figure out what God is calling us to do with them, and “repent” in the sense of turning around, choosing a different path.

Advent, the time when we prepare our hearts for God to come to us in a new way, this time is an invitation to do this work.  This is the time to face our regrets.  This is the time to ponder how we are called, in what ways, and in what ways we are not living up to that call or following that call and how we need to do it differently.  This is the time to go deeper so that God may come to us anew, more deeply, more fully, more wholly.

Today’s passages tell the story: we are acceptable, because God loves us no matter what: Jew, Gentile, black, brown, red, yellow, green, purple, short, tall, squatty, whatever.  God loves you.  But because God loves you, God wants to be in real and full relationship with you.  God calls you, therefore, to prepare your hearts in a new way for God’s coming and God’s presence in your hearts, in your lives.

The Future: Good or Bad?

Isaiah 65: 17-25

Luke 21:5-19

Today we read two different passages talking about the future for the faithful.  What happened in the first passage from Isaiah?  The Isaiah passage describes a glorious future - creation of a new heaven and a new earth.

No more weeping.                               

No more infants dying after a few days.                                       

People living to be a hundred on a regular basis.

People living in the houses they build - (no foreclosures?)

People eating the fruit of their vineyards.

They will survive and enjoy their work.

Their children will do well.

Wolf and lamb will eat together - and the lion will eat straw now: no more stalking prey.

Serpent still cursed (eating dust) but no hurting or killing.

The Luke passage is also talking about the future but what does it say? 

The temple will not stand: those beautiful things built as an offering to God will be destroyed.

Wars, insurrections.

Nation rising against nation,

kingdom against kingdom,

earthquakes, famines, plagues

dreadful portents and great signs.

And before this...you will be arrested, persecuted,

handed over to synagogues and prisons, brought before kings and governors.

Betrayed even by parents, siblings, relatives and friends.

You will be hated.

But.... your soul will be saved.

Two very different versions of what the future looks like.  Why do you think these descriptions are so different?

They were written at different times to different groups of people and reflecting on different events. The passage from Isaiah was written to a group of people who were exiled and to whom Isaiah is declaring that once the injustices have been punished, once the pain they have reaped upon themselves is done, once Israel has repented, arrogance and hypocrisy confronted, and Israel has been cleansed and made new, THEN a new day will dawn, a day of life, a day of hope, a day in which the damaged relationship with God caused by the corruption of human hearts will be bridged by God God-self, made whole once again, made new, and made beautiful.  This is the promise of comfort after the fall, after all that we have done and failed to do, it is the promise of redemption, of grace, and new life, given to a displaced and suffering people.  God has not left them, they are still God’s people, and God will make everything right again.

The passage from Luke, was also written to a suffering people at a time of pain and persecution. But the strategy of Luke here, also wanting to offer comfort, is very different.  Luke has Jesus foreseeing their suffering and declaring that it is not meaningless.  Those Christians suffering persecution after Jesus’ death needed to know that their dedication and commitment to Christ in the face of pain, loss and even death was purposeful and powerful and important.  Their comfort then comes in a different form. Unlike Isaiah’s promise which is of a better life on earth for the faithful and their children, this is instead a promise that their current pain has deep and everlasting meaning, that God has not abandoned them but is with them to the end.  There is the promise of future relief here too, but it has more to do with the immortal soul and less to do with relief from the physical struggles of life.

While appearing to offer very different images of the future, both of these passages are seeking to offer the promise of God’s presence, God’s comfort, and new life.  Both passages are also offering a deep challenge....As commentator R. Alan Culpepper states “in every generation there are those whose religion is simply a form of escapism into the fantasy of futurism, every generation has also had its courageous and prophetic visionaries who devoted themselves completely to Jesus’ call to create community, oppose injustice, work for peace, and make a place for the excluded.  Every generation, therefore, is called back to the teachings of Jesus by the examples of those who have suffered persecution and hardship because they dared to strive to live

out Jesus’ call for a community that transcends social barriers, that cares for its least privileged, and that confronts abuses of power and wealth....(the Luke passage) calls for such a commitment in life that those who dare to embrace it will find themselves persecuted by authorities.”  We know this is true.  Who are the martyrs of our time?  Who are the people in our lifetimes who have really stood up to injustice, really made a stand for others to lead better, more full, more fair, equitable, humane lives?  Not all have been martyred, but many have.  Rosa Parks.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Both of these passages are addressing the need to act for justice, despite all costs.  The entire book of Isaiah offers the challenge to the elite of Israel to stop using and abusing the less well off: to seek justice, knowing that if they don’t everything they have taken will be taken from them, and that if they do, if they repent, if they work for justice, then they will find new life far better than the one they are abusing others to get.  The challenge for those hearing the Luke passage is to walk firmly in the footsteps of Christ, again working to conquer injustice, working for a better world for all, knowing that the cost may be persecution, but that the gain is your very soul. 

Where are we in this?  As Culpepper said it, too many Christians come to church looking solely for the comfort - or as he said - the escape.  How many of you have heard people pray something along the lines of “as we come to this place, let us leave our troubles behind us, let us forget about our worries, let us be relieved of our burdens.”  I’ll own it, I’ve prayed similar things.  It’s present in some of our music, too.  There is a lovely song in our hymnals,  “you are my hiding place.”  But that very line is an example of this escape theology.  “You are my hiding place.”  Is God supposed to be a hiding place?  A place where we HIDE from the world and our problems?  Is our faith about escaping our difficulties?  Because we are called to exactly the opposite.  We are called to stand up to injustice - to be so much a part of making this world a better place for others that we risk persecution, even death.  Our faith if anything should throw us into danger, not pull us into a “safe” hiding place.

Instead of praying to be relieved of our burdens, we need to pray for strength, wisdom and courage to face them.  Instead of a hiding place, maybe we need to pray for places of peace where we can be renewed to face the battle of life again.  Instead of escaping into God, we need to ask God’s guidance for ways in which we can bring God’s kingdom to earth, making it a safe place for all people, making it a just place for all people, making it a good and Godly place for all people.

How do we do this?  By confronting whatever injustices and barriers come before us.  Sometimes this happens in large ways.  My study leave this year involved going to Alabama and learning more about the Civil Rights movement.  It was unbelievable to me how many people risked and lost their lives to stand up for African Americans to have the vote, to be allowed to sit anywhere on the bus, to be able to attend the same schools with the same quality of education that white children were given.  People who simply walked across a bridge who were beaten and killed.  People who simply stood near a school who had fire hoses and dogs set on them.  People who said, “no more” and stood up against injustice.  Again, during this season of voting, I think about the women who also stood up, demanding their right to vote.

As you know, Jack, for example, went down for many years to the US/Mexico border in AZ with a group of Christians who, despite differing political beliefs about immigration issues and laws none the less felt called as “neighbors” to help the large number of people - children, youth, adults of all ages, who die crossing the border because of dehydration.  They went to the border during the hottest weeks of the summer and simply set up a camp to provide water for those who otherwise would die in the heat.  They did nothing else.  They did not “aid” those trying to get into the country, nor did they turn them in.  But they saved lives by being present, being loving, providing water.  And while they were “persecuted” - harassed by the border patrol, threatened with arrest and worse, they stood in their faith and in their belief that we are called to love all people, to care for all people: in doing so they stood up for their faith. 

The ways in which we stand in our faith do not have to be so dramatic.  Serving food, providing shelter at the Winter’s Nights or Loaves and Fishes programs.  Recycling and composting so we are not contributing as much to the earth’s destruction.  Voting in ways that work to end homelessness and poverty in this country and others.  Being present at vigils, protests, assemblies: standing up for what we believe, but more, standing up for God’s people who do not have voices in the ways that we do....we are called to do that, to be part of that in every way that we can, with every opportunity that presents itself to us.

Is there comfort here?  Of course.  Both today’s passages were offering comfort though in different ways.  The Isaiah passage reminds us that God is by our side and that the other side to hard times is a life of renewal and refreshment - following the repentance and the work towards wholeness.  The Luke passage reminds us that when we do struggle for others, in the name of God, in the name of Jesus, in the name of love for neighbor and enemy alike, that we gain our very souls.  It is in this that our lives have meaning.  It is in this that we find real love.  It is in this that we meet God.  Amen.

The Spiritual Discipline of Celebration

John 2:1-11
Luke 15

      Today we are looking at the spiritual discipline of celebration.  This one may be one of the hardest practices for us to recognize as a spiritual discipline.  How is it a discipline to celebrate, to laugh to party?  Aren’t disciplines supposed to be hard? 
       No.  As I said the first week we talked about this, the spiritual disciplines are ways to come closer to God.  That is their purpose.  If something is too hard it can be a distraction in itself.  That is the problem, often, with people who choose total austerity as a spiritual practice.  Just as our stuff can distract us from God, total lack of stuff can also distract us from God.  Hardships of any kind can claim our focus, and the purpose of the spiritual disciplines is to limit distractions from God, or to figure out ways to still focus on God through the distractions of our lives.  So then the question might be asked, isn’t celebration also a distraction from God?  When we are partying and celebrating and happy are we focused on God?  Well, it depends on how and why we are celebrating.  If our celebration is about God, and if we include God in our celebrations, they become invitations for joy with God, for dancing with God, for expressing gratitude to God for all that God has given us and continues to give us.  We hear today in the passages from John and Luke all the many times that God celebrates.  God celebrates when we are with God.  God celebrates when we return to God.  God celebrates when we find meaningful relationships (as in the wedding in Cana).  God celebrates when we find new life and when joy finds us.  God celebrates us.  And we, in turn are called to celebrate God. 
         Some may say that lent is the worst of all times to focus on celebration.  It is supposed to be a somber time of reflection and preparation for Jesus ultimate sacrifice.  We celebrate after lent.  But actually, the forty days of lent exclude Sundays.  If we included Sundays, lent would be 46 days.  But we don’t.  Sundays are supposed to be the days off from lent.  They are set aside to celebrate the resurrection, the return to life, the glory and wonder of a God who loves us so much that even death is overcome by that love.  Sunday is the day of celebration – of God’s love and resurrection and new life given to us each day.  So perhaps especially during lent we are called to set aside the seriousness of self-reflection, repentance and preparation on Sundays and simply to be and celebrate God’s love and grace this day.  And while there are some traditions that do away with celebratory words such as “alleluia” and even “Gloria” during lent, other don’t – reflecting that every Sunday is a celebration of resurrection and every Sunday is a time to remember that God created us, first and foremost, good, and that is worth celebrating.  I read an article recently in Presbyterian Outlook from a pastor who intentionally decided to keep using alleluias and glorias during lent as a way to remember that indeed, we are made good and that our time of self reflection is not about beating ourselves up, but encouraging us to grow into being the best we can be.  Sometimes the beating up behavior makes that harder.  It is easier, it is better to celebrate the good and from that place of celebration, rededicate ourselves to working towards being even better.
       It may seem odd to offer up ways to celebrate.  Surely we all know how to celebrate.  But I would say that if the typical traditional church service is any indication, we really don’t know how to celebrate God.  It’s like when a pastor stands up and says, “This is the day our God has made” and gets back a “let us be glad and rejoice in it” in a monotone, somber, distracted voice.  That is not rejoicing.  That is not celebrating.  Are the words we say simply words, detached from the rest of us?  Or are we called to genuinely celebrate with all of our being the amazing things that God has done and is done for us?  Celebration is an expression of true joy.  Celebration therefore involves all of who we are, our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our emotions.  It looks like gratitude, deep: heart- felt gratitude.  It looks like a joy that cannot be contained in a sitting, still, solemn body.  It should look the same way that we celebrate birthdays and weddings and graduations.  But it usually doesn’t, does it. 
       At my last church, we began a family oriented midweek service when almost all the kids in the church were quite young.  The kids would dance in the aisles during the songs, they would move around during the prayers. And I have to admit that I, too, struggled with this.  I felt like they needed to learn “proper church decorum” at some level, and so, while I did not scold the kids in church, I did tell my own kids after services that they really needed to not move around as much.  That was a mistake.  Worship should have been a joyous experience, a celebration.  Instead, we made it like another school day, inviting them to sit and listen.  They gave me the perfect example of true joy.  They truly embodied and demonstrated for me the celebration in each of those services of joy in their faith, in their community, in each other.  But I was uneasy because I, too, had ideas about what “church” should look like.  I was wrong.  And I encourage all of us, as we look at lent and these spiritual disciplines to think much more seriously about how we celebrate God as a spiritual discipline.
          Here, then, are some of the ways that I think we can celebrate God’s love and presence and resurrection:
1. Laugh often
2. Play
3. Attend and throw parties
4. Visit special places
5. Visit friends, old and new
6. Be generous with your time, talents and resources and celebrate that we have so much to share!
7. Dance
8. Sing or make music another way
9. Be silly
10. Notice the blessings around you and practice gratitude
11. Be excited about what is happening and what is coming
12. Let go of fear
13. Anticipate and look forward to events that are coming.
14. Appreciate nature and celebrate the seasons
15. Take time to really enjoy and savor the physical things in life: pay attention to what you are  eating or drinking and savor it.  When you walk, run, exercise in any way; pay attention to how your body feels and enjoy it.
16. Smile often
17. Use all of your senses in life: smell, taste, seeing, hearing, touching.

     I think the hardest time to celebrate is when something bad has happened, when there is a tragedy or a big loss.  I hear people who’ve lost a spouse or a child tell me that they feel guilty celebrating or even experiencing joy after they’ve lost a loved one.  I get that.  I understand that.  But I also know that it is the times of celebration that help pull us through those hard times. 
     When my family was going through its hardest time, I remember dancing, almost every morning, with my youngest child as she got ready for school. The other two kids would have left already, and it would just be my daughter and I getting ready for our day.  Sometimes we would hold hands and dance, sometimes I would pick her up and swing her around the room to some of our favorite music.  We did this, as I said, almost daily - as a way of surviving; of moving when it felt hard to even breathe; of saying, there is still love here and life and that is worth celebrating no matter what; as a way of remembering that joy was still accessible, even when happiness was elusive; as a way of saying, “God, we still experience you in life.  We still honor you with our actions.  We still choose to walk as the resurrection people, even when it feels like death is upon us.”  We did it as a way of being in and held by love for each other and for God in each moment.  We still do this sometimes, though not as often; frankly, not often enough.  The physical activity, the connection with loved ones, the laughter, the smiles, the joy – these things don’t make us forget what we have lost.  They are not sinful distractions from caring about what or who we have lost. Instead, they take the edge off, they renew our strength and energy so that we can get through the harder times, so that we can support each other going through hard times.  They remind us that what is important in life is not just the pain, not just the losses, but the people who continue to love us and surround us and care for us.  They remind us that God still wants good for us, joy, wholeness, peace, even when things are hard.  It is good to take breaks from our grief just as it is good to have a weekly break from our more serious Lenten practices.  It is good to take time to remember the joyful blessings that surround us - the beauty of the earth, the bounty of our food and friends, the smiles, hugs and love that come our way, the unexpected surprises of new friends or seeing old friends, the gifts that surround us daily.
We are so very blessed.  Celebration is a way to honor that.  To acknowledge it.  To express our gratitude to God.  And to say, as God said at the beginning and every day, “creation - it is good.”  Amen.

A Deeper Exploration into Reconciliation

         I've been spending a great deal of time over the last few years thinking about reconciliation.  I believe deeply in searching for, creating, and working towards reconciliation.  I believe that we are called to move towards wholeness, and that doesn't just mean as individuals, but as a people.  I believe the anger, hatred and fear that exists between people tears us apart, not just between people, but within our very souls.  We forgive so that we can let go of anger, hatred, fear, and pain and find peace. We make amends so that we can release the heavy and debilitating burdens of guilt and shame. We heal relationships because when we hang on to pain we cannot find peace within or without. Peace comes from grace, but also I believe we reach out, own and claim grace as we make peace, not only with God and with ourselves, but with all of those around us.  We cannot be at peace as long as there are tears (rips) within us or between us.  We cannot fully embrace grace as long as we cannot own our own parts, make amends, and extend forgiveness to others and to ourselves.  We cannot be bearers of peace, grace, and their overarching parent, Love, as long as we are consumed inside with anger, hate, pain, shame, guilt or fear. And when we are not reconciled in our personal relationships, what hope do we possibly have of being reconcilers in the world?  How can we carry peace to a community when in our personal lives we are so torn? When our insides look like this:

how can we possibly hope to convey and be bearers of this?:

     My deepest heroes are people of peace: Mr. Rogers, Ben Weir, MLK, Don Carroll, Carol Creek, Jimmy Carter, Richard Rohr, Cyndi Sneeringer.  You may not know all of these people, but they are all people who embodied/embody peace, grace and love.  Their very presence makes a room feel lighter, more hopeful, more "holy". Their spirits are calming, and when I am with them in any way (with their writings, their words, or in their presence), I find myself often moved to a place of tears, a place of release, a place of praying with all of my being for the world's wholeness and reconciliation. They model for me who I want to be.  They show me a way that is better than who I currently am.  

      And yet, in the face of all of this, I am aware that there are some relationships that simply cannot be reconciled. There are some people who do not want reconciliation. There are other people who struggle with specific mental illnesses that do not allow them to create space for reconciliation. There are people who cannot be self-reflective and therefore cannot do the work of remorse, repentence, asking for forgiveness and offering forgiveness - all of which is truly necessary for reconciliation. There are barriers sometimes of time, distance, situation, even death. And sometimes there are people who are simply toxic for us for a myriad of reasons that make that reaching out, that crossing of the barriers, dangerous - for the other as well as for ourselves.  

      I struggle with this. I want reconciliation to always be possible. As I said, I believe in wholeness, in healing, in crossing boundaries. I believe in grace and peace. What, then, does a person who wants with her whole being for the world to find peace, to be reconciled - what does that person do with the reality that sometimes it just simply is not possible? I asked some of the wise people in my life, those people of peace, "How do you believe in reconciliation when you can see situations in which it appears impossible?" 

      "It is ALWAYS possible," was the answer that was returned.  But also, "It is possible within yourself, it is possible with God, it is possible with the universe.  But it is not always helpful or possible to do this directly with the other. Most of the time it is. But with a few it just isn't.  It is so important to accept this. There are people we cannot and/or should not connect with. There are people we cannot reach and people we cannot help. We are human, and because of that, we have limits and limitations. And others have those limits and limitations too. Only with acceptance of this reality of what it is to be human can God create the forgiveness, the healing and the reconciliation within each of us."

      I think about the 12-step program necessity of making amends wherever possible.  It is crucial to healing that we do this. And I have wondered if we aren't making excuses to avoid the hard work when we choose not to seek out reconciliation. Part of truly reconciling, even if it is just within ourselves, is to ask ourselves and to be able to answer honestly that we have done what we could, as well as then turning it over to God or the Universe or whatever you understand to be bigger than yourself. 

      This journey that we are on is not a smooth or easy one.  But one day at a time, one step at a time, one relationship at a time, we can learn to find peace even when the answers are not what we want or expect, either of the world or of ourselves. I believe the first step in becoming the people we strive to be is simply to accept our humanity. And to seek to offer and accept grace and forgiveness in the face of limits and limitations, not only to others, but to ourselves as well. 

That inner ache - the human condition

     The inner ache, that sense of missing something, a feeling I think most of us experience at one time or another, takes on many forms.  For some it takes on the form of loneliness, a wanting to connect to others, to feel understood, embraced, loved fully and completely for who we are. Others have described it as a desire to "go home" and have said that this place (this life) is just not home, somehow. They feel restless, lost, out of place. For some it feels like an absence of meaning or purpose.
     Our culture has, for awhile, tried to find the fulfillment of that emptiness or ache in the form of "true love", something described as incredibly rare and by some as only for "one couple in every hundred years". Other practices don't see it as that rare, but still emphasize that this partnering somehow makes us whole. Many faith traditions offer a belief of "the two becoming one". Some honor marriage, therefore, as a sacrament in which God has made one whole out of two halves, a whole that cannot be divided no matter what. I understand the value in that thinking, and maybe for some people that is true. I had a very good marriage. My husband and I were very well suited to each other and rarely disagreed, let alone argued.  We played well, worked well, parented well, partnered well together.  We were compatible in our theology, politics, finances, ideas of parenting, level of cleanliness, foods we liked, activities, books and movies we enjoyed... actually I can't think of much that was incompatible until the end.  For many years, I was happy with him and with the marriage. Still, I never felt that somehow I was "made whole" by the marriage.  And by that, I mean three things.  First, I never felt that I had been only a half a person before. Second, there were still times in the marriage when that ache, loneliness, emptiness, yearning was present for me. And third, when the marriage ended, I did not feel that I became half a person again.  There was a ripping, a tearing, but not into two halves of a whole. Instead it was the ripping and tearing of any close relationship that is injured, damaged, or torn. It was deeper because the relationship was deeper. But it was not because I was torn away from my other half, but because we were tearing another chink into the divisions of the world. I think that, perhaps, the whole idea of "true love" being incredibly rare is an attempt to explain why, despite partnering and marriage, most of us still do feel that ache at times, even in good marriages.  But, at least for most of us, I don't believe we really can be filled by another human being. We aren't "half of a whole, waiting to find the other half," rather we are a puzzle piece in a huge picture, the whole of which is bigger than we can see or imagine.  It includes all of us, and I would say all of creation.  We are pieces of creation, and our separation from that body, into individuals who sometimes seek our own good at the expense of the whole, leads us into this feeling of disconnect, of ache, of separation. Until we are united again in a vision that we truly are one and that what hurts me hurts you, what hurts you hurts me, and that therefore we must work together for the good of everyone - until we have this unity, I think there will be that aching, that yearning, that sense of not "being home" and of not "being whole."  We aren't home, because we are torn from one another and can not rest in a sense of unity.  We aren't whole because we are like a shattered mirror, with many pieces that cut and stab, unaware that until we work together, we will never be a whole.
     I had a wise spiritual director once say that that inner yearning is, ultimately, the desire to connect more fully to the Divine. To me this is a recognition that together we are more than the sum of our parts. Together we have meaning. Together we are a work of art, created by something we cannot begin to comprehend, and yet something that we ache to be a part of.  We yearn to be a note in a beautiful piece of music, not singing it on our own, but being sung as part of a universal chorus.  We ache to be a part of an amazing piece of art, not simply another slash of color painted at random and drifting around, but an irreplaceable part of a creation that has beauty and light and wonder.  We long to be part of a lovely and purposeful dance, not simply a movement on it's own, but a movement with meaning and purpose that works together with all of the other movements to become something we all are part of and that guides and fulfills each part even as it is in itself breathtakingly wondrous.
    Moments of transcendence take us into that larger vision.  But returning is hard as we once again fall into our own unique space and struggle to find the whole once more.
    Still, keep striving.  Keep searching.  Keep reaching out to find your place in that whole.  The ache itself calls us to do that, to be a part of putting the puzzle pieces together and of helping to imagine the picture, the music, the dance, that is bigger than we can see.  It is only together that we can be the creation we were meant to be.  And it is only together that we will finally be "home", and "whole" and connected with that which is bigger than the sum of the parts.  It is only together that we will be with the One who made us and creates us to be beautiful.

Wearing our Scars like Medals

I had a doctor's appointment last week.  It wasn't for any medical issue.  I was just setting up "care" under a doctor out here so that if I do get sick, I can get in to see someone.  We did the usual "intake" interview where I list past issues (not many) and current concerns (also not many).  But as I left I realized that it was the first time in the last 4 1/2 years that during a "care" conversation I didn't share anything about what my family has experienced in these last few years.  And I will admit, it felt ... different.

I found myself thinking about some of the conversations I've had with the male people in my life lately who have shown me with great pride the physical scars they carry, some from surgeries, some from injuries, some from great adventures, ALL of them marks of having endured, having survived, having gone through something and come out the other side.  My son, but others I know as well, wear their physical scars like medals.  Those scars show the person to have really lived, to have really suffered life in some way, and to have sustained some kind of hardship intact.  The scar is a sign of strength as well as a sign of being a person who has met life head on, participated in it, and become better because of it.  At some level those scars have become, not just part of their history, but part of their identity.  "Sam" is the person who survived that injury. "George" is the person who experienced this physical trauma.  Both are the persons of strength (again) and character, who made it through.

I realized that at some level, I have carried my scars, my emotional traumas and experiences in the same way.  I am the person who lived through hell.  I am the person who carried my family while going through my own personal nightmare.  I am the person who continued to pastor a church and work a job and a half and raise my kids as a solo mom while enduring the unthinkable in terms of public scandal, shame, shock, disappointment, judgment, rejection, loss and trauma.  I've worn these scars tentatively because I am all too aware that, first of all, everyone experiences hardships of one kind or another, and second, what I've gone through is still nothing compared to what some survive - war, hunger, chronic pain, torture, assault, etc.  I've worn my scars tentatively, but I have worn them. They, too, have marked me in a way that I've not only worn, but which have helped define me over these last few years.

To have left that doctor interview without sharing these stories marked a change for me.  And as I walked away, I realized that this was momentous in many ways.  To not only have declined to tell my story, but frankly, to not even have thought about it until I was leaving marked a significant change. It put that story squarely in the past, no longer as something that defines me now, no longer as a part of my current experience.  Are there still scars?  No doubt.  But they are smaller now, and they have moved to less obvious places.  They no longer take up a large part of my exposed visage, of my front, of my being.  I am much more than my past, and even than my experiences, both then and now. The kids and I have survived, but more than that, we've chosen to live as people who are today free from the restraints of a past that might have defined us a few years ago.
It no longer does.
And for that I am grateful.

Lessons, lessons and more lessons

      I woke up angry this morning. That doesn't usually happen. Usually I wake up appreciative of the morning quiet, the morning dark, the time when I can lay in bed and think, or pray, or meditate for a few minutes before starting the day.  But this morning I woke up angry.
      Yes, there is a reason.  I post a lot of stuff on Facebook about the constant challenges we face, and we were given more yesterday.  I paid someone to put in new linoleum in our fixer-upper kitchen.  This was supposed to be a one day job, but the man didn't finish.  That's fine.  However, after he'd left and I walked into the kitchen, I saw that there were two dents/rips in the middle of the new linoleum. I paid through the nose to have this professional install a new, beautiful, clean kitchen floor, and it is wrecked before he is even finished with it.  I know how these things go...I will whine and complain, but be told that because I didn't notice it while he was still standing there, that there is "no proof" that he did this, and that "too bad for you - it is what it is."  I know this is how it will go because this is how it has been going for us with every stumbling block we have faced throughout the move.
    One example: the movers (Stephen's, in case you want to know who NOT to use) lost several expensive items in the move: my daughter's bed, my son's camping tent, an expensive large set of pruning sheers, the legs to a table that had been made especially for me, our hand truck/moving dolly, our wagon, a broom and upright dustpan, etc. None were small.  None (except the broom and dustpan) were cheap. And when we wrote to the company and said these were missing, we were told "Too bad for you.  You didn't notice they were missing as they unloaded the items.  You didn't notice they were missing while the moving guys were still standing in front of the truck, so you are out of luck." Really? Because I just didn't have everything that was in our house so thoroughly memorized that I would notice at the moment that three men and several helpers were moving stuff that these particular things weren't among them.
     Another example - I have had a hard time enrolling the kids for school out here, especially my daughter who is now enrolled in an online program. It has been a challenge for a variety of reasons, but they are now enrolled and attending schools here. Part of getting them enrolled involved UNenrolling them from their schools in Ohio and requesting official transcripts to be sent to their new schools, etc. I did all of that, however, and thought we were good to go until yesterday I received in the mail an official letter saying that I was about to be arrested for not making my kids attend school in Ohio.  Apparently my kids are "truant" because they are living and attending schools in CA and not in Ohio any longer.
     So, as I said, I woke up angry.  And then I opened my computer and I saw that my good friend, Sarah, had posted this on Facebook, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." And I stopped.  The reality is that the stupid stuff I seem to deal with every day is just that - stupid stuff.  I am not in a war torn country. I am not fleeing for my life because of oppression or threats or violence.  I am not a refugee somewhere without work or food or a place to live. While the linoleum guy may not listen to me because I'm female (an experience I've had with other house workers and especially with car repair people), I know I still have the unfair privilege that comes with being born white. I have enough to eat. I have a lot of "stuff", most of which is a "want" and very little of which is an absolute necessity.  I have a lovely house to live in, even if it does need work. I am surrounded by family and friends and a wonderful church community who is helping me fix up the house, and care for the kids, and transition to this place.  I have work that I enjoy (and that is not something to take for granted, or something everyone has by any means).  I have three lovely, healthy children.  My parents, aunts, uncles, sister - all my family except grandparents are still living. I am incredibly lucky.  I won't say I'm "blessed" because I think God loves all of us and blesses all of us in different ways. I have to acknowledge that much of what I have is "privilege".  I was privileged to be born to a middle class family.  I was privileged to be raised in a way that valued education.  I was privileged to be born white. I am privileged to have good health in my family and in my own being. I was privileged to have my schooling paid for and to be able to worship how I want and to be able to speak out in this format about anything. And while I strive to be aware of all that I have to be grateful for, sometimes I forget that it is a privilege to have all that I have.  It is not a right. And while I will stand up for myself about the linoleum, if I am not successful, I will need to still be grateful that I have it at all. "Equality feels like oppression." Well, if I am honest, there is no equality.  I am far more privileged than most of the world. Than MOST of the world. It isn't even equality when I have to deal with this stupid stuff.  It's just little daily challenges. I am still incredibly privileged. What do I honestly have to be angry about?

    There are days when I wonder why so many challenges come my way.  I wonder why we had to go through hard stuff in Ohio and then why the move had to be so very hard.  I wonder why, daily, I have these lessons in patience, forgiveness, compassion, and presence. There are times when I would prefer to simply have a nice easy year, or month, or week, or even just a nice easy day or two.  But that isn't what I have been given in this life. Instead of ease, I've been blessed with lessons.  Instead of travel and wealth and luxury, I've been blessed with opportunities to learn. I've been given lessons that call me each and every day to be grateful, lessons that call me to breathe through those hard moments and to stay present in the now, to keep my eyes open for the good, lessons in being quiet and creating peace within so I can help spread it without, lessons in being patient and in waiting each day to see the gifts that will come, lessons in learning to trust and learning to forgive, lessons in letting go of anger and of the past and sometimes, of people I've loved.  Every day there are lessons. and for today, the biggest of those is to accept and be grateful that those lessons are the blessings I've been given.

Sunday's Sermon - Those who aren't against us

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

Mark 9:38-50

A woman was walking across a bridge one day, and she saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.

So she ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

"Well, there's so much to live for!"

"Like what?"

"Well... are you religious?" He said yes.

She said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

"Christian."

"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?

"Protestant."

"Me too! Are you Presbyterian or Baptist or…?"

"Presbyterian"

"Wow! That’s amazing.  Me too!  Are you Presbyterian USA or Presbyterian Church of America?”

“Presbyterian Church of America”

To which she responded, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off the bridge.

Drawing lines in the sand.  I think all of us are pretty good at that.  It seems to be a natural part of being human to divide our world into us and them.  In sports there is my team, their team; the San Francisco Giants or the Oakland A’s. You can’t support both. In terms of colleges where I came from there was Cal or Stanford. In products there’s Coke or Pepsi. Among our churches, there are Catholics and Protestants. And among Protestants there are divisions and divisions. But even more, there is a growing divide between the evangelical/fundamentalist Christians and the Progressive Christians. The divide is becoming so wide that I sometimes wonder if we actually worship the same God at all. Similarly, politically we are becoming so much more polarized in terms of conservatives and liberals, democrats and republicans.  And there, too, it would almost seem we have two (or more) different understandings of what our country should be, could be and is.

Once we have identified ourselves with a particular group, we can become very rigid and careful guardians of what we feel is “ours.”  We can become very protective of keeping what we know “pure” or “the best.” People side with “their own” even when they actually wouldn’t if left on their own. Even the most open of us fear change and can act that out with rigid boundaries between ourselves in the groups of which we are a part and those outside the group.  We can become possessive of our size “we want to keep this small,” our projects “our committee is taking care of that,” our out-looks, and the credit we get for certain activities.  Once we’ve formed our loyalties, we can limit others joining us, but then find ourselves jealous when those others do similar things to what we do, even if they are good things.  As children, “cliques” form that are often rigid and exclusive and if one of those cliques decides to join a particular sport or compete in a particular activity, any other group who does the same might be called “copy cat” and the strictest social pressures can be put on the second group to stop “copying.”

As adults our possessiveness and our jealousies may be more subtle, but they can be even more harmful.  In the church especially, the Us vs Them mentality can be destructive. 

In one area where I lived, the Presbyterian church in town began a soup kitchen to help the hungry.  As part of their program, each person who was being fed was required to sit through a half hour sermon before they could eat. The Methodists from the church down the street took issue with the way the Presbyterians were handling the situation. They felt that as Christians they were called to feed people without pushing faith and that the best way they could serve Christ was by giving without expecting anything in return, showing God’s love through example. So they opened their own soup kitchen. In addition, a third soup kitchen was set up about the same time by the Lutherans. The Lutherans didn’t preach to their hungry, but they did ask each “guest” to contribute a token quarter per meal. They believed that this gave back to each person a piece of their dignity because they were “paying” for their meal and it was an exchange; not just charity.  Well the Presbyterians were outraged because the Methodists “took” all of their hungry away, without giving them the “opportunity” to hear about God.  The Lutherans were angry because they felt giving someone something for nothing took away a hungry person’s dignity.  Everyone was serving in the name of Christ, but it became a large and divisive problem between the churches; each church competing for the ability to serve the community by feeding the hungry.

There is a popular story about a church that was in an area where there were an abundance of homeless people. The members of the church were uncomfortable around these people, and so using the excuse of “safety” did not allow any of the homeless people in to worship.  One of these homeless women, Sally, thought the church was beautiful, and she wanted so desperately to worship there one morning that she tried to sneak in a window.  When she was found, she was carefully escorted out the back.  She approached the pastor during the week and begged to be allowed to come and worship in the church.  After meeting sometime with the session, the pastor finally decided on a plan.  The pastor found Sally and said to her, “Sally, I’ll tell you what.  You go and pray to God and if God wants you here, he’ll find a way to make you look clean enough that the members of our church won’t be afraid of you, and you can come worship here as long as you like.”  While Sally prayed and prayed, she was never made “presentable” enough for the church members.  But one of those times during prayer, Sally experienced a vision in which God said to her, “Don’t worry, my child, about that church.  They won’t let me in either.”

There is something very comforting about drawing lines in the sand.  I believe it helps us define who we are. We define ourselves in part against others, we know ourselves as much by what we are not as by what we are. It can therefore be helpful to have a clear sense of who is on our side and who is not, what we do and believe that is different from what others do and believe.  It is for this reason that as a denomination we struggled for awhile against joining other denominations in the Council of Churches United, otherwise known as COCU, which later became CUIC – Churches Uniting in Christ.  The purpose of CUIC was that we can, as a larger body, do more to help serve the world and each other than we can as individual churches.  But many in our denominations feared that we would lose our distinction and our identity in joining CUIC, they also fought over things like bishop succession and laying on of hands. There were hard and difficult fights against uniting with other Christian churches, all proclaiming Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

As a denomination we also struggle to determine what view points and behaviors are

“acceptable” as we continue to define who we are as Presbyterians.  One of the ways we do this is by drawing lines around our leadership. You know that we’ve fought passionately over whether or not gay and lesbian persons could be included in ordained ministry.  We’ve also fought over what is required in terms of studying. In our church certain tasks have been reserved for people who have gone through the arduous required process proceeding ordination as minister of Word and Sacrament. Those who have studied for three to four years beyond college in a seminary, who have learned both Hebrew and Greek, who have passed both oral and written ordination exams and who have had a committee interrogating them for several years as well, these people have the opportunity of becoming ministers of the Word and Sacrament. But as you may know there has been a movement in the last fifteen to twenty years to allow lay folk; people who have not gone through all of this process, to do more and more of what pastors alone have been doing.  This movement towards allowing more non-clergy more power has moved very slowly.  I can understand why.  Perhaps these lay folk would not teach correct Presbyterian theology.  Perhaps they would not interpret or understand scripture in an educated, helpful way.  Perhaps they would lead people astray. Isn’t it important that they be educated in the way we want them to be educated? But underneath the perhapses I believe, is the investment of the clergy and the fear of what it would mean to “include” others.  We had to learn Hebrew and Greek, we had to take the exams.  We spent four plus years in school and sweated through difficult and challenging classes.  It doesn’t seem fair if someone else gets to serve and be recognized as a pastor without having to go through all the hoops that the rest of us went through. 

It is a similar situation that we see presented in today’s gospel reading.  The disciples had discovered that through their relationship to Jesus they had been given the ability to heal, or cast out demons.  It was an extraordinary gift, and it drew many people into Jesus’ following.  But on this particular occasion the disciples came across someone else who also had the healing power and who also was given the gift, the ability to cast out demons.  The disciples were upset.  While this other exorcist was helping people in the name of God, even in the name of Jesus, he was not “with” them.  He was not one of Jesus’ disciples.  Perhaps he would gain his own following.  Perhaps he would lead people to believe or do things differently than Jesus was teaching.  Perhaps...But it was not just the perhaps.  He was not one of them.  The disciples were a team, a family.  As individuals each of the disciples had given up everything they had to follow Jesus.  They had left their work, their homes and their families.  I’m sure they felt it was unfair for this other man to get credit for healing and helping when he was not having to also give up everything to follow Jesus.  But at the same time, the disciples also didn’t invite him to join their group.  Instead they felt this other exorcist had to be stopped.

But Jesus did not uphold their line in the sand.  Jesus was constantly about widening circles of inclusion rather than limiting them.  His inclusion of people deemed totally unacceptable to his society was very hard for the people around him to understand and accept.  He was discredited by the pharisees and scribes for including sinners and outcasts of all kinds in his following; prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans.  He accepted them, loved them and included them.  Each time Jesus widened the circle of inclusion, the disciples too, not just the pharisees and scribes, but the disciples, were troubled, challenged.  Who were they as disciples when the lines were so unclear?  What was most difficult for the disciples was that Jesus’ love and acceptance was not conditional upon a person’s changing.  Sometimes his love then allowed others to change, but his caring was not dependent on that change.  How were the disciples to keep Jesus’ following pure and distinct if Jesus loved and accepted even those who were sinners?  Who were they as disciples and why did they give up all they had to follow Jesus if Jesus loved and included even outcasts? 

Still, Jesus gently challenged them.  “Let him be,” Jesus said.  “Let him heal, let him cast out demons.  Let him do what we do and be part of who we are, even as he is separate.  I ask you to accept that since he is not against us, he is FOR us.  This other exorcist whom you do not know and who has not joined me in the way that you have is still part of my body, the church.  Draw your circles wider; let those who are different but who are doing my work of healing and loving, let them in. Through serving in this way, they too will grow in God’s way.”

We continue to struggle with the dividing lines, we continue to want to decide for God who is in and out.  Yet it is in our unity, in our inclusion that we are able to most fully do God’s work.  The Church that refused to let the homeless worship missed an incredible opportunity to serve, to learn, to grow with their homeless brothers and sisters.  The three churches competing over the soup kitchens could have worked together rather than against each other in order to do more than just feeding.  Their lines of division limited their vision and resources.  But together they might have been able to provide shelter, showers, maybe even jobs.  So too with CUIC.  In joining with other churches in mission, we could do so much more to serve God’s world than we can as individual denominations. And so too in the case of lay persons who seek to do more pastoral work. The ordination process we have does not allow for many Native American churches, rural churches and smaller churches to have pastors, it does not allow people who are not good test takers, or who cannot financially afford years of schooling to become leaders in the church.  Also, in our rigidity, we are setting stumbling blocks for people who are striving to come closer to God. These lines in the sand hurt us as a church, and they limit our ability to serve God.

Once again I hear Jesus’ words, spoken to Christians, spoken to the Presbyterian Church, spoken to me and to you, “Those who are not against us are FOR us.  Let the other exorcists be and do their work.  In doing my work, they can only grow in their faithfulness.”  We are all God’s children.  Together we are the body of Christ, empowered to change the world, empowered to exorcise every demon.  Draw your circles wider, for God’s kingdom has no limit, no end, and God’s love is for everyone.

Did it really happen?

I keep reading on facebook and other places lately a great deal of questioning about the validity and veracity of stories.  Did the "deer crossing" lady really exist?  Did the story about the man who gave the robber his coat, too, really happen?  Did the story about the homeless people returning hugs really happen?  And finally, even, did Jesus really exist?  People are very concerned about the reality of these stories, or rather, their historicity.  People are also concerned about the historicity of things other people actually still remember.  Did the Holocaust really happen?  Did the moon landing really happen?  Are these things real?  Are they historically accurate?

Personally, I think all of these things really did happen, they really are historical events.  But to me the bigger question is not "Did this really happen?" but rather, "Is it true?"  And to me, these are VERY different questions.  A friend and fellow pastor has said to me on more than one occasion, "I don't know if it happened, but I know it is true."  Again, while I believe the above things did historically occur, it doesn't really matter.  What matters is the truth they give us.  The deer lady crossing gives us the truth that humans are sometimes silly, sometimes miss the obvious, sometimes not always brilliant and sometimes in our blind spots we make ourselves look ridiculous (but also can bring great joy in the form of deep laughter to many others).  Who cares if it was real or not?  I don't.  It gave me a great laugh, and that's what mattered to me.  The man who gave the robber his coat shows us the truth that sometimes kindness can make a real difference in the life of another human being, especially when that other human being is not deserving of that kindness.  Taking the risk of greeting meanness with love does sometimes change people in radical ways and has the potential of changing the world.  That truth shows itself again and again.  It just doesn't matter if this particular example of it is historical or not.  The truth of the homeless people returning hugs while the people who have a lot of "stuff" won't is that it is often the people who have the least who are willing to give the most.  This too is a truth that shows itself again and again in the world.  Did this particular example really happen?  Who cares!  We need to be reminded of its truth regardless.  The same with all of the other examples.  People can do horrible things, like the holocaust.  People can do amazing things, like the moon landing.  And yes, God comes to be with us and shows us a path of love and healing and radical peace.  God brings resurrection out of death when we look for it, when we choose to participate in it, when we keep our eyes open to see it.  Do I believe it was historical?  Yes.  But it doesn't matter to me as much as the fact that it is TRUE.

I think we get so caught up in the question of historicity that I fear we miss the meanings in these events. We miss the deep truths of the stories.  We miss what they have to teach us and show us about life, about humanity, about what is possible and what must be confronted and changed, about the very nature of God.  I would almost rather we all decided these stories weren't true so we could stop arguing about their historicity and get back to the fact that every one of these stories has meanings that can deepen and enrich and teach and lead us fully into the life God wants for us.  When we are so focused on whether they are historical or not, we miss the messages God gives us through these awesome events; through the beautiful, the horrible, the precious and amazing, the warnings of what can happen and what can be, and the possibilities of what we can do with God and with one another.

Look deeper.

Look beyond what happened or didn't happen.

Instead look for truth.

Our stories, historical or not, are full of truths.  Thanks be.