Psalms of Wisdom

                                             Psalms 1, 15

                Today is the last week of our Psalms sermon series.  I hope that it has been informative and of interest to you.  But more, I hope that you have been able to connect to the book of Psalms in a new way, seeing them a little differently, and hearing the invitation within the psalms to express yourself creatively to God: to say it like you feel it with your words and with other forms of art: music, poetry, dance perhaps, stories, drawings, sculpture, knitting, quilting – in whatever way you express your art and your feelings.  The Book of Psalms is an ARTISTIC book of the bible rather than a narrative, rather than history, rather than story.  The psalms are liturgy, they are song, and they are creative expressions of one’s experiences and feelings much more than one’s thoughts.

               Psalms of wisdom, however, I think contain one’s beliefs or thoughts more than the other type of psalms we’ve discussed.  Psalms of trust, praise, lament, and even history – these psalms invite us into the feelings of the experiences of the writers, as well as into our own experiences and feelings towards God, life, others and ourselves.  They express in total raw, open honesty prayers to God, and reflections on one’s situation at the moment.  But psalms of wisdom reflect more on the writer’s beliefs and reflections rather than feelings: they express a mandate for what it is to live a good life.  They are instructive for what it means to be people of God, and they talk to us rather than being prayers, pleas or supplications to God on our behalf.  And they tell us what is good in our behaviors, what is right, what is wise for us to do and be.  We see in their words wisdom expressed once again in beautiful poetry, we hear encouragement to choose well, to act well, to live well. 

We also know that words such as have been found in both of the psalms read today have been used by some people to attack, judge or correct other people.  We have seen on the news that no matter what you believe, you can probably find a way to justify it, Biblically, and these psalms are no exception: they, too, allow people with very different beliefs to use them in ways that can either help or harm.  For example, Psalm 1 says that the way of the wicked is destroyed.  And I have heard people use this with the prosperity gospel mentality, saying that if a person is not doing well, it shows that their behavior is suspect.  If a person is poor, or struggling, or ill – that this somehow indicates that their behavior is wrong. 

               We know this is false, and we know there are many other scriptures that confront this thinking.  The book of Job focuses on the idea that people’s suffering is not a reflection of their goodness or lack of goodness.  As Jesus himself says, “God causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike.” 

               So, too, with Psalm 15, these wise words have sometimes also been used to inflict damage.  The words are wonderful, beautiful and true: who is it who dwells with God? The one who speaks truth, who does no damage with their talk, does not harm a friend, someone who keeps their promises.   All of this is good and true.  But as we know, context here is very important.  For example, the “keeping the promises” part is tricky.  We know that Herod felt it was so important to keep his promise to Herodias that he killed John the Baptist.  And we know that because valuing promises over people is so dangerous, Jesus himself encouraged us to never make promises at all.  As he said: (Matthew 5:33-37) “Again you have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago: Don’t make a false solemn pledge, but you should follow through on what you have pledged to the Lord.  But I say to you that you must not pledge at all…Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.”  He said this because when people put their promises above the needs and realities of relationships and changing contexts, people get hurt, and damaged sometimes in very serious ways.

               The point I’m making is that wisdom is contextual.  And when we become too legalistic or rigid about anything, we lose wisdom all together.

               Let me give you some more modern examples. 

I look around at the sanctuary today and I have the (not very great) insight or wisdom to notice that something is “wrong.”  That things are not right here.  What is wrong?  Well, what’s wrong is that there are only a very few people here in the building.  The Church is not the building, it is the people.  So normally we would look at this empty church and say, “this is a sign that we are not doing well, that we are struggling.”  But today, during this season, during this crisis time in our community, we know that an empty sanctuary is not a sign that our congregation is struggling.  It is, instead, on this day, a sign of our deep connectedness, our commitment to caring for the larger community by practicing social isolation until the virus scare is past.  We know that it is a reflection of an effort to keep ourselves and everyone safe, healthy, well.

Another example: we know that eating is important.  But we usually save eating for specific times and places: we don’t eat in church, except for communion.  We usually don’t eat at work or in school.  And if we have allergies or other health problems such as diabetes, there are foods we cannot eat, or foods we should not eat.  The context of our own health and well being, and sometimes of social practices – these dictate whether or not it is wise to eat something and when it is wise to eat. 

Bathing is important, hygiene is important.  But we aren’t going to brush our teeth in the swimming pool or at the water fountain in the park. 

Being in community is very important.  But also taking time to retreat and pray is also important.  And during times such as this, we know being apart is not only important but necessary.

The reality is that very few things are good all the time.  Very few things are right in every situation or in every context. 

I think about Jesus’ words about anger and the danger of anger.  He said (Matthew 5:21-22): “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment.  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment.”

He said this, and yet, later in the same gospel we hear of Jesus’ anger.  Matthew 21:12-13  “Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”

We also know that Jesus probably did not have a problem with buying and selling: he just had a problem with the context of doing so within the temple.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  He picked grain on the Sabbath, too.  Did Jesus have a problem with the 4th commandment which is to keep the Sabbath holy?  And to do no work at all on the Sabbath?  No, he just had a problem with people using the law as an excuse and a justification for hurting other people, avoiding healing, and forbidding eating. 

               In the book of Proverbs, 26: 7-12, we are told,

As legs dangle from a disabled person,

    so does a proverb in the mouth of fools.

Like tying a stone in a sling,

    so is giving respect to a fool.

 Like a thorny bush in the hand of a drunk,

    so is a proverb in the mouth of fools.

 Like an archer who wounds someone randomly,

    so is one who hires a fool or a passerby.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit,

    so a fool repeats foolish mistakes.

Do you see people who consider themselves wise?

    There is more hope for a fool than for them.

In other words, we need to be wise even in our wisdom.  Wisdom means acting appropriately based on one’s context.  The wise have an understanding of context, a vision into when something is right and when it is not.

The truth is that we just don’t know it all.  We just don’t.  Not one of us is all knowing, not one of us is wise beyond it all.  I wish it were otherwise, but we become stuck or confused because we know there is not one single person alive today who is all-wise. We all need help knowing how to do good, how to be good, how to understand these words of Wisdom written in our scriptures.  Where is that help for us?

First and foremost, weigh everything you do against the 2 commandments that Jesus summed up for us – loving God, and loving your neighbor as self. These are more important than any one law.  These are more important than all laws put together.  We are called to love, and wisdom requires that we value and weigh everything based on whether it does good or does harm to those we are called ot love: to everyone.  But even then sometimes it’s hard to know what’s right.  We have scriptures, we have the writings of wise people, we have our friends, our families, our communities, we have prayer, we have history.  Lots of resources to teach us.

I want to share with you a story.

There once was a boy who saw one of his old teachers after years at a wedding.  The boy walked up to the teacher and asked the woman if she remembered him.

The teacher did not recognize the boy who was now a man, but after George introduced himself, she said, “Oh yes!  I remember you now, George!  I have thought of you often over the years.  What are you doing now with your life?”

George told her that, like her, he had become a teacher. He then went on to tell the woman that he was a teacher because of her teaching him.  He said that he had followed in her footsteps because of the huge impact she had had on his life. 

She asked him what kind of impact she had made on his life and George told her this story:

“One day when I was a boy, I stole a beautiful, but very costly pocket watch from one of the other children in the class.  It was a birthday present to him and he loved it.  But it was beautiful and valuable and I had taken it.  Danny found you and told you and the whole class that someone had stolen his precious present, the watch.  I remember how you pled with the class and begged the class to return the watch, but I was too embarrassed to admit I had done it or to return it.  Then you locked the classroom door and asked the class to line up and close our eyes. You went from pocket to pocket searching for the watch. You came to my pocket and you found the watch and you gently pulled it out.  But you did not stop there. You continued, moving from pocket to pocket all the way to the end of the line. After you had the watch, you told us to open our eyes and return to our seats and you returned the watch to Danny. 

You never said a word to anyone about the fact that it was me who took the watch.  You didn’t even confront me about it.  You saved my dignity, and your kindness changed my life forever.  That is the power of being a good teacher, and because of your actions, I chose to be a teacher as well.”

The teacher responded to George saying that this was an amazing story, but that she didn’t remember much about it and certainly didn’t remember that George had stolen the watch.

George was stunned.  “How can you not remember that I stole it?  How could you not think of that story every time you thought of me?” 

The teacher responded, “I really don’t remember that it was you who stole the watch.  And here is the reason why: As I moved from pocket to pocket I kept my eyes closed, too.”

The power of kindness, the power of love – when we look through our wisdom psalms, ultimately, good behavior comes back to Godly behavior: behavior that is kind, behavior that is grace-filled, behavior that reflects the love of the God who loves us beyond our imagining.  Our wisdom Psalms help us to know how to love, they help us to follow God more closely.  They help us to be wise. 

What are the ways in which you are being called to use your wisdom, your kindness, today?  It may feel harder with our isolation, but there are ways.  Our food pantries are suffering right now, our people on the edge are losing housing and needing care.  You can support organizations with your money and resources even if you can’t visit people.  You can think about who in your community is most isolated and lonely and reach out with a phone call or an email.  You can follow the wisdom of today’s Psalm 15: speak truth, do not do damage with your talk, do not harm one another, do not insult one another, share your resources, without expecting a return; do not bribe, threaten or manipulate. 

I am grateful for each of you, as far away as you may be at this moment.  I am praying for you, wishing you well, sending you love.  Reach out if you need help.

My prayer for all of us today is that we use the psalms more fully as our own prayers, as our own commitment to seeing, hearing, understanding and loving God with ever more fullness.  Amen.

Sermon - Sight

Isaiah 9:2

Luke 24:13-25

We read today’s story as part of Easter-tide, but I found myself coming back to it again.  Because it is an odd story that calls us to look deeper. The disciples were walking with Jesus.  But they did not recognize him.  How could they not recognize Jesus?  Why did they not see? Just as on Pentecost I talked about how sometimes it is really hard to hear and understand one another, sometimes it is also very hard to see. So I ask you to take a moment and reflect on these questions: What do we fail to see because we don’t expect what is actually there? What do we fail to see because we don’t want to see it? What do we fail to see because we don’t believe it? What do we fail to see because something isn’t where we expect it to be?

There once was a little boy named Sam who was very excited about Halloween.  But his parents kept putting off getting his costume until finally the day of Halloween his mother came home with a costume that Sam hated. It was of some comic book character who had been big once but who now was seen by all the kids to be ridiculous and only for the littlest of children.  Sam was devastated. How could he ever wear this?  He couldn’t possibly go out on Halloween in this costume!  He was so upset, he ran down the street to where an older couple who had become surrogate grandparents to Sam lived.  He ran into their house and cried and cried about the terrible costume his mother had picked out for him. Well, Norm, the older man thought for a few minutes and then he said to his wife, “Don’t we have some old costumes up in the attic from when our kids were children?”

“Why, I believe we do!” she replied. Up they all went into the attic and down they came with an old ghost costume. Really, it was just a sheet with holes cut in it for the eyes. But Sam was so thrilled with the costume, he just couldn’t wait to put it on. With a look of awe in his eyes, he pulled the sheet down over his head and before anyone could stop him, he went running out the door to go trick or treating and ran straight through the yard and bam into a tree!  Norm saw this and he dashed out after him, picked up the little boy, but before he could stop him, there Sam took off again, running as fast as he could until bam he ran smack into another tree!  This time the force pushed him flat onto his back where he lay still until Norm came running up.  Norm wondered what on earth was going on until he looked into Sam’s face and realized that Sam had not lined up the eye holes to match his eyes. He had been virtually blind, running around the yard, completely unable to see where he was going. Norm gently but firmly took hold of the sheet, pulled it around until Sam was able to see through the eye holes, tied a rope around his waist to hold the costume in place and sent Sam off on a much more successful and enjoyable Halloween evening of trick-or-treating!

One day a boy was walking down a road when a frog called to him, “Boy, if you kiss me, I will turn into a beautiful princess.” The boy picked up the frog, smiled at it, then placed the frog into his pocket. A few minutes later, the frog said, “Boy, if you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, and I will stay with you for a week.” The boy took the frog from his pocket, smiled at it, then put it back into his pocket. A few minutes later, the frog said, “Boy, if you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will do anything you want!” The boy took the frog from his pocket, smiled, and put it back. Finally, the frog cried, “Boy, what is the matter, I have told you that I am a beautiful princess, and if you kiss me, I will stay with you and do anything you want!” The boy took the frog from his pocket and said, “Look, I am an engineering student, I have no time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool!”

The boy saw a different reality from the frog.  The boy saw farther, or at least he saw differently. 

About twelve years ago, on my birthday, Eldest brought me a present wrapped up.  Eldest was the ripe age of four and a half.  She was little and she was a typical young child who couldn’t really see beyond herself in so many ways.  I knew it was a store-bought present, as opposed to something made for me.  And I had been told by all of the adults who knew what the gift was that I should not to expect much in this gift because Eldest had insisted on buying this particular present despite being strongly encouraged to pick something else.  It was given to me with looks of apology and even discomfort from the adults who knew what the gift was.  So I opened it without much hope or expectation.  This is the gift (show them the miniature).  What do you see in this? 

I’ll tell you what I see.  I see Eldest herself.  Especially at that age…a little dancing fairy girl.  She found a replica of herself at that age, what I saw most profoundly, most deeply within herself at that age. And that is what she gave to me: a memory of Eldest at the age of almost 5.  And I felt that in her insistence on this particular gift, she actually had a deeper insight into what I loved most than anyone else around her at the time.  She had sight into who I was, into what I saw, and into what I valued, that the adults around did not see.

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me something so very precious -  Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone.”

Sometimes the darkness or the challenges in life themselves carries a gift for us.  I am reminded of a MASH episode in which Hawkeye had a stove explode in his face which caused eye damage in both eyes.  He lost his vision and he didn’t know if that loss was permanent or temporary.  The day before he was to see the doctor to have the bandages removed – the day before he was to discover if the eye damage was permanent or temporary – he seemed in a frantic mode of insisting on walking around and moving around. BJ confronts his frantic walking around and going out saying, “Hawkeye, I know what you’re trying to do. And I know how you feel…You don’t want to think about what might happen, so you keep running.”  But Hawkeye insists that that’s not the case.  He says, “Look, when Dr. Oberman comes in here tomorrow, and unwraps my eyes, I hope to God I’ll have my sight back. But… something fascinating has been happening to me…One part of the world has closed down to me but another part has opened up.  Sure, I keep picturing myself sitting on a corner with a tin cup selling thermometers, but I’m going through something here that I didn’t expect. I spent two incredible hours this morning listening to that rain storm.  And I didn’t just hear it, I was part of it. I bet you have no idea that rain hitting the ground makes the same sound as steaks when they’re barbequing. Or that thunder seems to echo forever.  And you wouldn’t believe how funny it is to hear somebody slip and fall in the mud…  This is full of trap doors, but I think there has to be some advantage to this.  I’ve never spent a more conscious day in my life.”

            When we are given the opportunity to see things, hear things, understand things from a different perspective, it is an incredible gift.  It helps us to see, to really see, beyond what our eyes tell us. And sometimes our eyes get in the way.  I have a friend who did some work helping people fix up their houses.  She was painting rooms in a house one time and told me that the old paint in one room had had to be scraped off before they put on the new paint because the wall had been textured.  However, the previous paint had been sponge painted on.  That meant that the wall looked textured even where the texturing had already been scraped off.  She told me she had to scrape the walls with her eyes closed because her eyes did not tell her the truth about what she was seeing, about whether the wall was still textured or just looked that way because of the sponge paint. 

As you know, World War I was a very bloody and aggressive war, a time of great death and tragedy and loss.  At the Western Front it was bloody and violent like everywhere else.  But on Christmas Eve, 1915, things changed for a moment.  Soldiers heard across the lines, across the divisions in politics and beliefs, other soldiers singing Christmas carols.  In listening to one another, the German soldiers from Saxony were inspired to make a brave choice.  Bringing food across the front, and singing Christmas Carols, they came to the British soldiers they were fighting in a Christmas spirit.  The British soldiers, shocked at first, were also moved and found themselves responding by joining in the singing and offering up what they had to share in the festivities as well.  After a time of singing and faith celebration, pictures were shared, personal stories began to be told, sometimes only through hand signs, between people of many different nationalities.  In one version of this story, officers had to break up the comradery as they realized fighting would soon become impossible between these two groups if they continued to get to know, share and celebrate with one another.  In another version of the story, the bonds made that night were so great that those soldiers could not be compelled to continue fighting those they had come to see as human brothers and sisters.  These soldiers, then, on both sides, would no longer kill each other and had to be moved off the front.  In the midst of tragedy, in the midst of war, in the midst of violence and death and anger, new sight was gained, new vision given, through sharing, through seeing one another as the human beings that we all are.

A mother told this story: We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly sitting and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, 'Hi.' He pounded his fat baby hands on the high chair tray. His eyes were crinkled in laughter and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin, as he wriggled and giggled with merriment.  I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man whose pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be shoes. His shirt was dirty and his hair was uncombed and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicose it looked like a road map.  We were too far from him to smell, but I was sure he smelled.. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists. 'Hi there, baby; hi there, big boy.. I see ya, buster,' the man said to Erik. My husband and I exchanged looks, 'What do we do?' Erik continued to laugh and answer, 'Hi.' Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room, 'Do ya patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek- a-boo.' Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk. My husband and I were embarrassed. We ate in silence; all except for Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid-row bum, who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments. We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot. The old man sat poised between me and the door. 'Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik,' I prayed. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to sidestep him and avoid any air he might be breathing. As I did, Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby's 'pick-me-up' position. Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man. Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young baby united in love and kinship. Erik in an act of total trust, love, and submission laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain, and hard labor, cradled my baby and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time.  I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms and his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, 'You take care of this baby.' Somehow I managed, 'I will,' from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Erik from his chest, lovingly and longingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, 'God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift.' I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car. My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly, and why I was saying, 'My God, my God, forgive me.' I had just witnessed Christ's love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment; a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes. I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not. I felt it was God asking, 'Are you willing to share your son for a moment?' when God had shared God’s son for all eternity. How did God feel when God put Jesus in our arms 2000 years ago. The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me, 'To enter the Kingdom of God , we must become as little children.' Sometimes, it takes a child to remind us of what is really important. We must always remember who we are, where we came from and, most importantly, how we feel about others. The clothes on your back or the car that you drive or the house that you live in does not define you at all; it is how you treat other people that identifies who you are.

            A blind person asked God once, is there anything worse than losing your sight?  To which God responded, “yes, losing your vision.”

            When we try to see with our eyes, we often fail to do so. That blindness, that inability to see without help is a common problem for humans.  We walk around in the dark, not because it is dark, but because our vision is covered, obscured in some way. It can be obscured by our politics, obscured by our beliefs, obscured by what we expect to see or what we fear seeing.  It can be obscured by our pride, or even by our shame. Oftentimes this blindness causes us to err, to sin, to take a wrong path so that somebody gets hurt, ourselves or someone else. We all have blind spots, we all need God’s help to see.   

Today’s story on the road to Emmaus is a human story.  A human story of failing to see God, to see Divinity, to see Christ, in the one who is with us, in the one walking along by our side.  The disciples didn’t recognize Jesus.  And we often don’t recognize the God in the person we are with.  But it is our call to try, to crane to see a little deeper, a little more where, what and who God really is.  It is our call to see God in the ones we are with, no matter what road we walk.  My prayer for all of us is sight, is vision.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - Being Transfigured.

Exodus 24:12-18

Matthew 17:1-9

While at first the story of transfiguration may seem like something we don’t really experience, I think when we put it into different words, all of us have experienced or witnessed some kinds of transfiguration, probably not to the degree described here, but a transfiguration, none the less.  Let me give you an example: pregnant women often have a glow about them, and when people talk about the things that are deepest and dearest to their hearts, we can see in them a light, an animation, a transformation that resembles the glow we read about in the transfiguration stories. 

Additionally, most to all of us have had mountain top experiences - those times when we go on retreat or as a young person to church camp or to trienium or a family adventure or other adventure, have fallen in love, had heard a piece of music or experienced someone’s words that moved deeply within you in which we have encountered the God of goodness and love in an entirely different way.  Can you think of times and experiences like that in your lives?  We come away from these experiences on a high.  We come away feeling God’s call raging through our very beings.  We come away with a strong sense of God’s presence and a feeling that we can, truly, do anything with God behind us or in front of us, leading the way.  We come back on a mission, with a sense of purpose and God’s presence. 

That isn’t to say that the encounter with the holy is ever easy.  Most of the time I think it can really be terrifying to encounter the holy.  The disciples response, as we read it in verse 6 was, “When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified.”  Have there been times for you in which you’ve encountered the holy and it was terrifying?

I remember as a child one night laying in my bed and praying to God that an angel would visit me.  “Please God, just let an angel come to see me this one time!  Please God, I want to see an angel and know that your love is here with me!”  I prayed and prayed and when I finished I opened my eyes.  At that moment in the corner of my bedroom I saw a bluish, cloudy haze.  Whether or not that was an overactive imagination, the strong effects of hope, simply the result of having squeezed my eyes shut for so long while praying, or in fact a genuine answer to my prayer, my reaction was exactly like that of the disciples.  After seeing the blue haze, I immediately squeezed my eyes back shut and fervently began to pray again, “God, I made a mistake!  Take the angel away!  Take it away!”

But even our less dramatic encounters with God can be disturbing.  Because a consistent result of an interaction with God is a difference in the way you perceive the world around you.  An encounter with God causes you to see things in a way you hadn’t the moment before.  And that can shake us at a very core level.  It can change the way we relate to everything and everyone , the way we understand ourselves and the world, the way we see and experience God.  It’s like the first time that you put a prism into a white light, the first time that you see the spectrum of the rainbow come from the prism and you realize that what you thought was the absence of color is in fact all the colors.  Or the first time you learn in science that while everything that we see looks solid and like it is hard matter, that in fact atoms are mostly space, and therefore all that we see is mostly space as well. 

The truth is we don’t see the many layers of any reality very often.  We tend to see only one or two layers of the way things really are but we don’t see the whole.  That’s not to say that the layers we do see aren’t real.  They are, but it is only a part of the truth.  We see the white light, but we don’t see that it is made of all the colors.  We see the people in front of us, and we don’t see the atoms that make them up or the space that makes up the atoms. In terms of the world, all our histories and news stories - all of them - are written from a perspective. No one has the whole truth on anything.For people who don’t have faith, they see the world, but they cannot see the loving hand behind creation and behind every breath we take. 

And when we then are given deeper glimpses, or rather, glimpses at some of the different layers of reality, it can be amazing and awesome in the deepest sense of the word.  But it can also be disturbing to learn that our vision does not encompass the whole picture, that our reality is only a piece of the what is “reality”, and that this extends into everything, including our understanding of and our relationship to God.  Paul says in 1^st Corinthians 13: 9-12, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  We get only glimpses into the deeper reality, and even these can be disturbing.

The transfiguration is such a glimpse into the deeper, a glimpse into the whole, an encounter with the big picture, with the many layers of reality, with God.  And that is not easy.  But it is transforming and changing.  It opens us up to a deeper relationship with God and with each other. 

The real question then becomes, what happens when the amazing, awesome interaction with the holy has passed?  What happens when we descend the mountain and return to normal life?  What happens when the prism is removed and we no longer have it out to help us see all the colors in the white light?  How do we continue to carry with us those mountain top experiences which feel so transformational even we descend once again into day to day living?

We have Moses and Jesus as examples of what that might mean.  When Moses returned from the mountain, he found that his people had made idols and were worshiping them and had turned from God.  Moses descended with the ten commandments to a people gone wrong.  But the faith that he gained from his transformative time with God strengthened him to confront their behavior and to bring them back into faith and faithful relationship with God.  Jesus returned from the mountain to a people in need of his healing, in demand of his being and presence.  Neither of them was allowed to bask in the glory of their experience on the mountain, neither of them came down from the mountain into a place where they could teach and preach about their wonderful experience of the Divine.  They both came back to this world: a world that is hard and demanding, confusing and disappointing much of the time.

And that is our experience as well.  We may have the gifts of these mountain top experiences, but we are called then to go back into the world and to use our time with God to strengthen us to face whatever life hands us.  We are not called to be monks, isolated and away from the world.  We are called to come back to the world, to be in it and to be part of transforming it.  Henry Drummond, a Scottish theologian said this, “God does not make the mountains in order to be inhabited. God does not make the mountaintops for us to live on the mountaintops. It is not God’s desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings below. But we don’t live there. We don’t tarry there. The streams begin in the uplands, but these streams descend quickly to gladden the valleys below.” The streams start in the mountaintops, but they come down to gladden the valleys below.

That isn’t to say that the mountain top experiences are pointless or meaningless or unimportant.  For Jesus and Moses, their mountain top experiences were not then just for nothing.   They remained a gift that empowered them, that guided them, that strengthened them to face day to day life.  And so for us as well.  It is from the place of our own transformation that we will be better able to transform the world and bring it more into God’s realm.

I want to read you a poem written by Christian Wiman about an experience with the larger vision.

From a Window

Incurable and unbelieving
In any truth but the truth of grieving,

I saw a tree inside a tree
Rise kaleidoscopically

As if the leaves had livelier ghosts.
I pressed my face as close

To the pane as I could get
To watch that fitful, fluent spirit

That seemed a single being undefined
Or countless beings of one mind

Haul its strange cohesion
Beyond the limits of my vision

Over the house heavenwards.
Of course I knew those leaves were birds.

Of course that old tree stood
Exactly as it had and would

(But why should it seem fuller now?)
And though a man’s mind might endow

Even a tree with some excess
Of life to which a man seems witness,

That life is not the life of men. [sic]
And that is where the joy came in

Christian Wiman

Those moments of transformation, those times of transformation can carry us forward on the wings of joy, to face whatever life has to offer us that day.

The final good news in this is that even though we do have to descend from the mountain into the valley, even when we struggle to hold on to our transforming experiences so that we may be strengthened for our times off of the mountain, the good news remains that God is not just on the mountain top.  While we may experience God and the holy in a new, different and awesome way on the mountain, God still remains with us in the valleys and God remains with us in the plains as well.  Take strength from the mountain tops.  But live in the valleys and plains.  Take joy from the mountaintops, so that you might be able to see God in the valleys and plains as well.  Be transfigured, so that you might transform the world.  Amen.

Art Vs. Life Vs. Art

      I've been listening to the radio again, something I had just stopped doing for awhile, opting instead to listen to music I had purchased from itunes.  I remembered why I stopped listening to the radio today as I found myself driving along shaking my head at what I was hearing.  The tunes that are coming out?  Catchy.  Not brilliant, but catchy.  The words, however?  I found myself wondering if we truly had sunk this low.  And then I remembered what is going on in our culture, and I thought about how life and art really do tend to reflect one another.
     25 years ago the words that were being written in many of our popular songs were truly thought provoking, artistic, deep words.  To give you some examples (and if you can name who all these artists are, I'll take you to lunch) of some of the incredible, thought provoking lyrics that were being written:
    "To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean
To ride on the crest of a wild raging storm
To work in the service of life and the living
In search of the answers to questions unknown
To be part of the movement and part of the growing
Part of beginning to understand...
To be true as the tide and free as a wind swell
Joyful and loving in letting it be"

"Oh my mama told me
'Cause she say she learned the hard way
Say she wanna spare the children
She say don't give or sell your soul away
'Cause all that you have is your soul
Don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul"

"I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine."

"How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy
There is no monopoly on common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too..."

"One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach.
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love"

"In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of every glove that laid him down

And cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

'I am leaving! I am leaving!'

But the fighter still remains"

And of course...

"Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one"

       Each of these artists has written many, many songs and many of them are deep and full of words that not only touch us but move us to think, to consider, and possibly even to grow and to change. That is what art should do.  It should challenge us to think, to grow, to be moved and even changed by the art, to become better than we are.  It would be unkind and unfair to say that these are no longer being written.  There still are some deep, thoughtful artists out there writing words that move and change us, that reflect back to us both who we are and who we want to be.  But the music on the radio?  The popular music?  It has become amazingly shallow.  I listened to three songs during my short drive this morning. The first was all about how the singer was so awesome that all her old boyfriends regretted losing her. The second was about revenge and damaging property because her partner had cheated on her.  And the third was a man saying he might continue to drink and therefore would no doubt cheat on his partner that evening.  And I just sat there amazed.  Are these really the deepest things we can consider right now, that we think deserve our time and attention, that we want to spend our life contemplating in our music? Conceit?  Revenge?  Casual and hurtful and trust breaking liaisons with the excuse of being drunk?  And if so, is it any wonder that we are living in a culture that is so equally self-focused, set on revenge and hate, and so unworthy of trust in our individual as well as community and world relationships?  The art we celebrate and honor mirrors the values we hold.  The values we hold become incorporated in the art we honor and celebrate.  A sexy body, a sultry smile, raunchy lyrics should not be enough to define what we value in our music.  But the fact that it does says a lot about what we value in life.  

     It's not enough for me.

     So the radio will go back off for awhile, with the hope that maybe, someday, our popular music will once again reflect the values that I hold dear and which I believe can make our world a better place: love, grace, forgiveness, gratitude, justice, peace, trust, beauty, and truth.  Until then, here is a beautiful song written by Carrie Newcomer for all of you that I hope will inspire you as it does me:

Our influence in this life time

Last week I was walking with a friend across a parking lot on our way to lunch.  She was talking about very serious things that had gone on in her past life, and I'll admit, I was so focused on what she was sharing that I did not notice that we were walking more IN the parking lot lane than to the side of it.  I was listening to her share about some of the pain she had experienced, some of the joys she had experienced and some of the most challenging times of her life.  I was listening to her voice expressing unhealed pain still, as well as resurrection moments and new life and I was praying for her silently as we walked.  I was focusing on being present with her.  And because of that, I was unaware of my surroundings.  I didn't notice, that is, until someone started honking and cursing at us as they passed. Fortunately, I don't think my friend noticed.  But it brought to mind for me a couple things.

First, we never know what others are going through at any one moment.  The person who was honking and cursing at us did not know that we were talking about deep and important things.  She did not know that there was pain and prayers being shared.  Neither did I know what she was going through in her life at that moment that made her be in such a hurry and made her so easily angry with the world around her.  We do not know what others' lives are like, and because of that, it is probably always a good idea to assume the BEST of people and to give them the benefit of the doubt in any situation.  She might normally be a very nice person who was just having a really bad day.  Likewise, I am usually more considerate and aware of where I am and where I walk.  But there was of course no way for her to know that.  Assuming the best about others, no matter how they are behaving in the moment, is therefore helpful.  We just don't know what someone else is experiencing.

Second, as so many people have said in so many different ways, we have a choice about what we contribute to the world with every single interaction.  With every challenge that we face we have a choice to be kind or to be nasty, to be compassionate or to be judgmental, to be grace-filled or to be oppressing, to be loving or to be hateful.  We have to pay attention.  But as Tolstoy pointed out, the most important thing to pay attention to is the one you are with in any one moment and that one's needs at that moment.  Because it is in those one on one moments that we affect the world.  It is through small kindnesses that we change the world for the better.  It is in the small steps of each day that we create a life long journey that either makes the world a little better, or makes the world a little less compassionate.  There is so much hate and anger right now.  It surrounds us in debates on TV and in road-rage and in nasty passing comments.  Every action we do that is grace-filled counters that a little.  Every kind word, every apology and every affirmation, every time we really look at someone and see them, every time we take a moment to hear another person, every smile that we give to a stranger, every time we give someone the benefit of the doubt, and every time we take a risk and assume the best about the other and offer compassion rather than judgment, even when they are misbehaving, we have the opportunity to make the world a better place.

What is the legacy you wish to leave to this world?  Is it kindness and compassion?  Or is it pain and scars?  Is it grace and beauty?  Or is it judgment and condemnation?  Each day gives us a new opportunity to choose.  Each minute gives us a new chance to be the good the world needs so desperately. And each moment gives us the gift of the choice to love rather than to hate, whoever it is that we encounter.

Sunday's Sermon - Authority and Right Behavior

Deuteronomy 18:15-22
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

We start today with the passage from Deuteronomy that calls us to be careful, especially as leaders in the church, of what we say, of what we teach.  We are then led to the Corinthians passage which calls us to be mindful of everything that we DO so that we are not leading people astray or down a bad path.  And finally we come to the Mark passage in which Jesus’ authority is made clear. He both teaches and acts with an authority that astounds and shakes people up.
Of course Jesus’ authority shakes people up.  He got it RIGHT.  He was able to do what he set out to do.  He was able to cure and exorcise demons.  He was able to speak in a way that people heard differently.  He spoke, as we are told, “with an authority that was not like the legal experts.”  Have you ever been in a place where someone was speaking and the words touched you with an authority that shook you?  Where the words felt like they went all the way into your heart in a way that was different from what we usually hear or the ways we usually hear?  Have you ever heard someone speak, even to a group, and know that somehow the words that were coming out of that other person’s mouth were spoken FOR you and TO you even if the person saying them wasn’t aware of it?
Several years ago, I was helping out in Youngest’s classroom.  I was walking with the children to their computer lab when we passed the school janitor.  Youngest’s teacher said hi to the man and he responded, “Just Keep believing”!  But as he said it, he turned to me and locked eyes with me for just a moment.  And I had that feeling, that feeling of being hit by lightning, that feeling of having heard a message just for me, that feeling of having met an angel, a messenger from God who had something that I needed to hear in that moment.  If this stranger had actually spoken these words to me directly, I doubt that I would have taken them in the same way.  I would have heard them as trite, or would have felt “preached at”.  He was the janitor, someone some people might dismiss.  But through his voice in that moment and at that time, I heard God.  In that moment he spoke with authority.  I don’t know if he was even aware of it, but that doesn’t matter.  He spoke with authority in that moment to me.
This has happened for me other times as well.  A couple months ago at one of our praise services we read a scripture passage from James 3 and 4 that I had prepared to preach on ahead of time.  Mostly it focused on not judging others, but there was one verse in the passage, “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”  And while it was one verse among many and not the verses that I had focused on when I was preparing the sermon, when the scripture was read that evening, those passages spoke to me.  They spoke to me differently.  They spoke with authority to me about our relationships with God.  Are we in relationship with God so that we can get what we want from God?  Do we pray so God will bless us and our lives with abundance?  Some preachers preach this idea with a theology called “prosperity gospel” in which the message really is that if we just do x, God will give us y.  It is all about what we can get from God and that is the call they use to bring people into faith.  But this passage from James says something different.  Do we do all of this for ourselves?  Are we here in this place because it will make us happier?  Or do we worship and pray because God calls us to pray, God calls us into a life of faith because God wants us to live lives that serve OTHERS?  Do we ask, how will this benefit me?  Or do we ask, how will this serve God and God’s people?  That verse in James hit me in that moment with great authority, with truth, with depth, with God’s presence.
Sometimes I have been talking with one of you, or more, have been part of a conversation with a bunch of people, and one of you will say something that, similarly, hits me differently.  It will go into my heart in a different, new way as if the words were spoken with authority, as if God God-self had commanded that they be said.  When we hear something spoken like that, when we hear God’s voice behind the words, it is amazingly powerful, and it shakes us to the core.
In today’s passage from Deuteronomy the prophets are being warned.  They are being warned to only speak God’s truth or they will die.  But the reality is we all die.  And perhaps that is in part because we all mess up, there are times even the prophets got it wrong and get it wrong. We know this because we believe there was only one who got it right ALL the time and that was Jesus.  We also know it from the stories of the prophets themselves.  Jeremiah got it wrong by thinking he couldn’t do anything because he was too young.  Moses got it wrong thinking that because of his speech impediment, he could not lead the Israelites.  Jonah got it wrong over and over again – first by running from God and then by being angry that God did not destroy Nineveh.  The prophets were all human and so sometimes they got it wrong.  We are the same.  No matter how faithfully we strive to follow God and to speak what God would have us say, sometimes we get it wrong.  Mostly I’m not even sure we know it when we get it wrong.  We could be preaching with great conviction and still be totally misguided in our understanding.  Sometimes we know we’ve got it wrong after the words escape our lips, and the only thing we can do is apologize.  At my last church I had to do the memorial service for a stranger who was the adult son of a couple of my parishioners and who had committed suicide.  After the service, the father of the deceased man came up to me and said, “That must have been a really hard service to do.”  I looked at this parishioner, a man in his 80s at the time, someone whom I deeply loved and respected and the words flew out of my mouth, “It wasn’t as hard as it will be to do yours.”  The second I said the words I knew they were just the stupidest, most insensitive thing I could have said.  I meant to communicate care to this man whom I really did care about.  But sometimes we just get it wrong.
           Jesus' words and behavior showed us a great contrast to this for he spoke with wisdom, love and authority at all times.  He acted with wisdom, love and authority at all times.  His words and his actions caused even the demons to speak who he was and to be afraid.  His words and his actions touched people and shook them to the core.  His words and his actions caused people to ask why and how he spoke with authority.  And that authority stemmed from love.  That authority came from the place where Jesus cared more about healing others through giving them God’s word and God’s healing than he cared about his own life.  That authority came from the place where Jesus was all about serving and loving US, to the point where he was willing to be killed because of how much he loved us.
In the Corinthian passage we are called to act with that same care.  Yes, we are told, we have been given freedom in our faith, a freedom to live more fully.  But if we enact that freedom in a way that confuses, or misleads another, or worse, causes another to fall away from God, then we have misused the freedom that God has given us.  Does that mean that we are called to make some sacrifices?  Absolutely.  But more, it means we are called to notice.  What are we doing that helps and uplifts others and what are we doing that causes others to turn from their faith, from living their lives as wholly and fully as they can? What are we doing that brings faith and joy and love to others and what are we doing that causes others to stumble?  And are we willing to give some things, not because we have to but because it is the loving thing to do for the sake of those other people whom God also loves?  Are we willing to live lives that demonstrate love for even those people who make us uncomfortable, even those people we may hate, because we love God?  Are we willing to focus on the other, and on God, more than on ourselves?  We have to think about this not only by our actions but by our words as well.  There is a saying that we should THINK before we speak.  Each of the letters in the word “THINK” stand for something.  Is what we are about to say True?  Is it Helpful?  Is it Inspiring?  Is it Necessary?  And is it Kind?
We won’t always get it right.  We don’t have the authority, the wisdom or the love of Christ.  But the more we strive to live as Christ, the closer we become to the people God calls us to be.  Amen.

Sunday's Sermon - Risking it all for something better

Exodus 14:19-31

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

As I reflected on today’s lectionary scriptures, they all seem to me to be calling us to take risks, to reach out in trust and faith for that better thing, that wholeness, that new way of being that God calls us to.  Not easy.  Never easy.  But it is what I hear, in different ways, in all three of today’s scriptures.

The Israelites were called to risk everything in order to no longer be slaves in Egypt.  More, they were called to risk everything so that their children would no longer be slaves in Egypt.  For as we know, they were in the wilderness for 40 years, a generation and more passed before they came to their own place, their own home.  They risked everything so that their children might no longer be an enslaved people.  How scary for them!  How terrifying to leave everything they knew, everything they trusted, everything they experienced and understood and lived, for the risk of a better life for their kids.  Of course it was hard, horrible, and at times they expressed great anger at Moses, at Aaron, at GOD for leading them out, for encouraging such a rick.  There were many, many times when they felt, and said, and yelled that it would have been better to just stay slaves than to go through the painful, difficult transitions of risk, of change, not knowing for sure that they would have something better, but instead only hoping, trusting, having faith that they would.

Then we come to the passage in Romans.  And at first it does not seem to be talking about risk.  But it, too, is.  The new Christian community in Rome was called to take the risk of letting go of some of their principle ways and principle beliefs about what could be eaten, when and how.  Those who grew up as Jews had strong opinions, based on their Torah, our first five books of the Bible, about what was legal and okay to eat, when, and how.  But those who joined them from the Gentile community did not share those beliefs or practices.  This was very hard on many of the people who came from the Jewish tradition.  They felt that the writings of what we now consider the Old Testament were as important in this new community as they had been before.  The laws written in scripture about what could and couldn’t be eaten, they felt, must be upheld.  They were willing to fight for these laws, insisting that those who did not follow them were not true Christians, were not people who should be part of the church.  But Paul challenged that, saying that Christ was about Love and only about Love and that these laws about eating (and other things) that people held on to so strongly had to be released.  These new  Jewish Christians were called to let go of some of their ways, or at least let go of the judgments of others that accompanied these hard and fast beliefs.  They could continue to practice their eating laws and other laws, but they could no longer judge, attack, or exclude those who would come to the faith who did not practice these same laws and rules.  But what Paul was asking of these Jewish Christians was hard.  He was asking them to take a huge risk of letting go of judgment.  That might feel so small to us.  But for them it was huge.  HUGE.  It meant letting go of who they WERE at their core, letting go of being JEWISH in their veins, or at least of being part of a community in which everyone followed the same rules.  And again, many of them simply could not do it.  They heard and knew and understood that they were called to LOVE and not to judge.  But some couldn't do it.  It was simply too hard to take that risk. 

And then finally, lastly, we come to the gospel story for today.  And we are told to forgive and forgive and forgive.  And we are told, what’s more, that in the same way that we fail to forgive, so God will fail to forgive us.  This is calling us to a radical forgiveness.  And that, too, is an invitation to risk everything that we hold on to, to risk the anger and the judgments and the fear that we hold on to, to risk letting all of it go in the reach for a different way of being in the world. 

Can we do this?  We are not being asked to leave our country of origin.  We don’t have the same judgments about food.  But we still have beliefs and judgments and practices that God may be calling us to risk changing.  When Jesus calls us to love and to forgive, even our enemies, even people we fear, can we let go of judgment and risk loving?  Can we let God be in charge of holding people accountable? 

We hear the passage from Exodus and we can only imagine how absolutely terrifying it must have been for the Israelites to pack up their stuff and to leave their homes in search of something better.  We know that people throughout history have done the same, packed up everything, without a job waiting for them or a home already picked out, without a clear image of where they were going or if there would be a place for them, or a welcome, or food to find along the way.  And we know it must have terrifying.  Many of our ancestors came to this country in a similar way, escaping persecution and risking everything to start a new life.  If you are like me you think of those people as people of great courage and faith, being willing to leave behind a country that was their own in search of something better.  But my guess is that it is even harder to risk giving up our most deeply held beliefs, rituals, and practices, in search for something better – community, a new way of relating to God.

               I think about people who spend years in counseling, in therapy, and how hard it is to look at the old stuff, to work it through so that a new way of relating to the world might be found.  I think about the stories plastering the news this last week about Domestic Violence, and how hard it is for these beaten and abused people, mostly women, to leave their partners, their spouses, even when they are being beaten up regularly.  I volunteered for a time on a domestic violence hotline and it was the very, VERY rare victim who would find the courage to leave.  I think about people choosing to make friends and cross cultural, religious, ethnic, etc. boundaries with people who are different from them, people whom they normally judge.  All of this is hard, hard stuff to do.

               Paul Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.  Usually I hear this quote as meaning that faith in God requires believing in something that can’t be proved either way.  But this week I heard this very differently.  I heard it being about everything else that we hold dear.  When we have faith, we are called to risk our certainty about how we see things, who we judge, how we do things, how we live, and we are called to instead rely on the faith that when God calls us forward into a new way of being, that God really does want and intend the best for us.  That no matter how hard it can be to take those risks, that is what faith calls us to do. 

               As I thought about this risk that we take, the movie the Spitfire Grill came to mind.  The movie is about a very young woman who has just come out of prison for manslaughter and is looking to start a new life.  She finds a small town where she is hired to work at the Spitfire Grill.  And while at first there is a lot of fear and judgment towards Percy, as people get to know her they come to see her and love her for who she is.  There is one exception in the movie, however.  Nahum is extremely protective of his aunt, for whom Percy works, his family and his town.  He sees Percy as a stranger, and as a threat.  He doesn’t want to know her story, or really anything about her.  He cannot take the risk of getting to know Percy or, as he fears, getting hoodwinked by her charm.  In the end, his failure to risk seeing her ends up in a terrible tragedy for the town.  I won’t give away what that is for those who haven’t seen the movie, but I will say that it is only after this irreversible tragedy that he can see his own failure to risk forgiveness, to risk love, to risk seeing this other person as a human being.  That failure to risk a new vision leads to the tragedy, a deep loss for everyone in the town. 

               Most of what we fail to miss by not having the faith to trust in love, in forgiveness, in God’s call to us to be open to both, most of the results of that are only personal.  We miss risking and living for something bigger and better, but it mostly only impacts ourselves.  Still, God calls us to something better.  But sometimes those risks are not just personal but communal as well.  I think about this in terms of Church.  As denominations and as the Christian Church on the whole, are we willing to take risks to be more what God calls us to be?  Are we willing to take stands to say, “we are God’s people and we will stand up for the oppressed, the mistreated, the outcast!”  Are we willing to risk praying, and listening and following God’s call even when it seems scary and threatening and open-ended; even when we cannot see where we are going or what God is leading us to?  Are we willing to take the risk, knowing that God wants the best for us, for our children, and for our communities? 

               I want to end this by simply inviting us into a period of silent listening.  I invite you to simply open yourself to hearing what God is calling you to do, calling US to do. 

               I pray we will have the hearts to risk it all for something better.  That something better is God’s kingdom.  Every week we pray that God’s Kingdom will come here as it is in heaven.  We help bring that about by being willing to risk listening to God’s call and God’s will, by being willing to forgive, no matter how hard that is, by being willing to LOVE.

Sunday's Sermon - Taking Offense and Turning it to Good

Genesis 45:1-28, Matthew 15:10-28

What do we take offense at?  What do you take offense at?
Now, a more important question that I don’t need you to answer, but just ponder to yourself for a few minutes: Does it help to take offense?  Do problems get solved?  Injustices corrected?
In the face of injustices, sometimes it feels like there are only two responses.  The first is to get angry.  And the second is to turn that anger inwards and to just accept the pain and injustices that come our way, often accompanied by a sense of helplessness or even hopelessness.  Anger often involves lashing out.  And one or both of these responses may include walking away, leaving the situation that has offended us.  Sometimes anger can make a difference.  Sometimes speaking out the truth in anger, like Jesus did as he turned the tables of the money changers in the temple, will make a difference, affect change, challenge and overcome injustices.  We don’t know the results of Jesus’ actions on that day, but we do know that the story of his turning those tables continues to inform us, educate us, make a difference in how Christians understand their church buildings and what they can and should be used for.  But other times anger does not actually make things better.  When anger is not accompanied by something productive, like ideas about how to change things, a direction for ways in which something might be done differently, or an offer of help for ways in which something could be done differently, then it tends to also be simply destructive.  And that other option of just accepting the injustices?  Of walking away?  That doesn’t help either.  Walking away doesn’t make things better.  And as Christians we are called to do something about injustices and to change the pain or cruelty that we experience or witness.
But what I would like to propose today is that there is at least one other way to deal with injustices, both personal and communal.  Today’s scriptures gave us two stories.  The first is the story of Joseph.  The kids showed us this story in their production of Joseph: from the Pit to the Palace.  But for any who might have missed it, Joseph was not very popular with his brothers.  He was favored by his father, which led to his brothers not liking him very much at all.  But he also chose to share with his brothers that he had had dreams of them bowing down to him.  This, too, failed to make him a very popular member of the family.  So the brothers threw him in a pit and then sold him as a slave to Ishmaelite traders, telling their father he had been killed.  This was an amazing injustice that lead Joseph into slavery, and then into prison.  Eventually he ended up as Pharaoh’s helper – in charge of Egypt’s land.  But not before a great deal of suffering had taken place.  How did he feel towards his brothers?  How did he handle all that had been done to him?  How did he treat those who had almost killed him and sent him to a life they knew would be horrible?  When they came to him begging for food, not recognizing him, what did he do?  Here was the perfect opportunity to get his revenge, to act out in anger and revenge.  He could have turned them away.  He could have announced, “as you did to me, so I do to you” and refuse to give them food.  He could have locked them up, or sold them as slaves.  And truthfully, he didn’t let them off easy.  He wanted to be sure they had changed.  But once he had seen that their hearts had changed, that they were no longer the young men who had done this terrible thing to him, he forgave them and acted towards them with grace and love, providing food during the famine, rescuing those who had wanted him dead, providing for these his torturers for years – caring even for those who had hurt him so badly, recognizing and remembering that in the end the path they forced him down, while not an easy one, led to life for all of them.
In the gospel lesson for today we have two examples given to us of ways to respond to things we don’t like.  We first have the Pharisees.  They are offended by what Jesus says and they react with OFFENSE.  They react by being angry, by pulling away, by plotting his destruction, and in the end by having him put to death.  In contrast we have the Canaanite woman who asks for help for her daughter.  Even though Jesus first ignores her and then insults her, she, in great contrast to the Pharisees, does NOT choose to act with offense.  Instead she acts with gentle, non-attacking, straight-forward persuasion.  She does not get angry.  But neither does she crumple, give up, or walk away.  Instead she offers a different perspective.  The Pharisees became offended but nothing came of that reaction of offense except, in the end, the crucifixion of an innocent man.  They did not get Jesus’ attention by acting offended.  And they certainly didn’t persuade him to change his tactics or change his mission or his approach or anything.  Jesus’ response when his disciples mentioned the Pharisees offense was to tell the disciples to leave them alone.  “The blind are leading the blind,” he said. Their offense came to nothing except anger and pain for themselves, and dismissal by Jesus.  But in contrast, the woman who chose to not act with offense, the woman who instead gently but persistently chose not to leave, not to act in anger, not to get mad NOR to just accept what came her way and in helplessness to walk away, the woman who instead showed up and asked for what she wanted with determination but again without becoming angry – this woman, THIS woman got what she wanted, challenged Jesus and changed his approach to her and to all the other gentiles who followed in the gospels.
How do we respond when people offend us?  Do we pick up our toys and go home?  Do we feel helpless and hopeless?  Do we act out in anger?  Or can we choose this other way, speaking our truth in peace, with determination but also without attacking, without rancor, perhaps with humor and with the simple but powerful act of being present?
I read in the news that a high school student in Tennessee was suspended this last week for saying “bless you” to another kid when he sneezed.  Apparently the teacher was offended by this and considered it an infringement on the separation of church and state.  While I personally believe very strongly in a separation of church and state, the purpose of that separation is to allow each person to practice and live out their own faiths, whatever they may be.  To suspend a person for an act of kindness that originated from their faith (and that’s assuming that it wasn’t just a flippant automatic response, which is also a possibility), is to fail to understand the purpose and reasoning behind a separation of church and state.  It is, instead to impose on an individual rules about where and how they can express their faith, the exact opposite of what the separation was intended to do.  Putting my strong opinions about this aside, a teacher’s offense at an act of kindness will no doubt have lasting negative effects on those around her.  Already, the community has become more divided around this issue.  Instead of people talking to each other, listening to each other and growing in that listening, people are entrenching in their own opinions and acting out with anger, with aggression, with attacking, accusing, hurtful words.  An act of kindness has become the center of a controversy that has turned people bitter, angry, has made enemies out of friends and created a stubbornness and unwillingness to hear each other that will be HARD to overcome.  I wonder what would have happened if, instead of suspending the girl, the teacher had used the moment to open a conversation about separation of church and state, what that means, how that should be lived, the history of that policy, and where it has taken us now.  People might still have disagreed, but if the conversation were set in an atmosphere of exploration, people might have learned and grown from it.
When I was in college I lived in a Christian co-op with 19 other students in what was the campus ministry center.  Living in this center involved a commitment to participate each week in one of the regular programs of the campus ministry center.  It also involved committing to attending a weekly potluck and each week one of us put on a program for the others to consider some aspect of faith or living out that faith.  The community I lived in was very diverse, ethnically and in every other way.  And while we were supposed to be committed to growing together as a community and as a body of faith, there were divisions.  There were smaller groupings of friends within the community.  One week, the woman leading the conversation was a white woman who had felt excluded by the rest of the community.  She led a program in which we were all invited to pick someone we didn’t know well and try to get to know them better.  I don’t remember all the ins and outs of this conversation.  But I do remember that about a year later, one of my friends, a Latino man, shared with me that the people of color within our community had felt the presentation was racist and excluded THEM.  I was stunned.  I was shocked because they had said nothing at the time.  They had left the community at the end of the year, found housing elsewhere without ever explaining why they left, without ever telling the community that they were angry or hurt or upset.  I asked Mike why this group had never voiced their feelings.  And he told me “we, people of color, do not believe it is our job to have to educate white people on their racism.”  Well, they are right.  As people of color, it is not their job to educate the rest of us on our bad behavior.  Women don’t have the JOB of educating on sexism.  Poor people don’t have the job on educating about poverty. People with disabilities don’t have the JOB of educating those who don’t.  It is not the job of people who might have experienced any kind of injustice to educate those who perpetrated it.  However, as CHRISTIANS, as people of FAITH, it is our job to act with love towards ALL people.  It is not an act of love to walk away without talking to people.  It is not an act of love to refuse to engage one another, even our ENEMIES in open and honest conversation.  Scott Peck defines love as “working towards the highest spiritual growth for the other”.  It does not work towards the others’ highest spiritual growth to walk away.  It does NOT work toward the others’ highest spiritual growth to hide behind feeling “offended”.  We are called to move beyond that.  To instead find peaceful, humorous, loving but truthful ways to be present and open and real with one another.
I will admit I do not always find this easy.  Not at all.  When Eldest received a 75% on her assignment the first day of class which was to have her parent sign her syllabus, a syllabus I did in fact sign, I found myself quickly moved towards feeling offended.  This was MY assignment.  Had I spelled my name wrong?  Why did I get a 75% on signing her syllabus?  But my decision to be offended started me off on the wrong foot with Eldest’s teacher.  Instead of being present, again using humor, or simply asking if there had been a mistake, I approached it with my bristles out.  This served no one.  Least of all Eldest.
There are so many things we could be offended by on a daily basis.  So many.  That person turned without using their turn signal.  That person snarled rather than smiling.  That person failed to invite everyone to their party.  That person wrote something that could have applied to us.  That person failed to remember that someone was gifted in a particular way and to include them in a project.   That person gave an excuse that we know was an untruth.  Well, again, we can find things to cause us offense daily.  And when we fail to speak up, sometimes those little things start to add up until we are so offended we explode or leave.  Hanging on to our grievances isn’t the solution.  But reacting with offense or walking away are not usually productive options either.
So what do we do when we are feeling offended?  Well, first I think taking a deep breath is a always a good start.  Remembering the Canaanite woman, remembering Joseph, remembering how others responded without a sense of being offended when they could easily have done otherwise, remembering our call to forgive, remembering our call to love even our enemies, remembering that we can do a lot more good and spread a lot more love by choosing something other than offense.  All of this can help.  But the bottom line is that I think it takes practice.  And looking at the good models we have in some people helps.
Ben Weir is one of my truest heroes.  He was one of the Lebanon hostages in 1985.  He was held for 16 months and suffered cruelly.  He is also a friend.  And truly one of the kindest, gentlest spirits I have ever met.  I remember one time when I was with him he was confronted by an angry attacking young man – “what kind of God do you believe in anyway?  You went over there as a MISSIONARY to try to convert people to a hurtful religion and you were punished because of it.  You got what you deserved.”  And Ben’s gentle, quiet, but listening response… “I’m sorry that you are feeling angry.  For me, my faith got me through that time.  But I understand that can be hard for folk going through hard times.  I would be happy to listen any time to what you have experienced.”  I never once heard him snap or respond in anger.  And even after his cruel treatment, he remained one of the world’s most respected advocates and workers for peace in the Middle East.  His gentleness permeates everything about him.  And through his actions he modelled for me, as for many, a person I would like to be.  One who chooses a different way.  Who listens.  Who loves.  Who sees.  And who shows up, no matter what injustice or offense is aimed his way.
My prayer for all of us is to find that kind of peace, that kind of wisdom, that kind of LOVE.  Amen.