Women Prophets

Deborah, Miriam, Anna, etc.
           For those of you who were not here last week, during this Lenten season we will be looking at the prophets.  Last week I shared with you that there are 3 major books named after prophets and 12 minor books in the bible named after prophets.  I shared also that they generally have two major messages: do not worship idols and do whatever you can to bring justice (care for those suffering) for the people.  What I did not point out, but what I think is so very important is that these are the same two mandates Jesus gives us.  He says that all the law and the prophets can be summed up into two commandments.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart strength and mind (ie, no idols: put nothing before God), and love your neighbor as yourself (ie make sure that all people are treated with kindness and justice and that all have enough). 
           Today is going to be a little different in that we will be hearing about and “from” prophets that do not have books written in their name.  Listen now to the voices of our women prophets:

 “Who are you?” you ask.  And well you should!  I am a prophet.  I am more than a prophet.  I am many prophets, recognized thinly by scripture.  I am given the respect by my people afforded to prophets, I am recognized as one of those called.  And yet the question remains, “Who are you?”   -because the recordings of me are scant.  My name, a few phrases from my histories, my title of prophetess are all mentioned in scripture.  But little beyond that is named.  Little beyond that is said.  The scriptures focus on the men.  The scriptures focus on the male prophets, their words, their deeds, their callings from God.  What is known of me is little.  What is remembered of me is slight.  Even when the parts I play are important to the life and history of God’s people, my name is rarely known and the parts I played are given little credit.  Still, today I am here to give you a glimpse, a vision, a picture into the many unnamed prophetesses who have been a part of creating the history that has made you who you are, as people of faith, as God’s people.

             I am Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses.  I have led the Israelite women, God’s women, in dancing and praise singing, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously: horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”  (Exodus 15:20-21)  I am a prophet, yet still I am human.  Aaron and I made a mistake, chastising Moses for marrying outside of our community, marrying a Cushite.  As a result of this error I became leprous for a time.  Aaron remained unpunished, but I took on this punishment for the both of us.  Still, my people stayed by me.  They still valued my prophesy and I was healed and reunited with my people.  I heard God’s voice of correction and I changed.  I made mistakes, but I was not stubborn in them.  I heard God, spoke God’s words, and changed my behavior. (Numbers 12:1-15). I died in the wilderness of Zin.(Numbers 20:1)  And this is all there is in the Bible about me.  Still, there is much to be heard, much to be learned, even in these few short verses of scripture.  Listen below the words, hear my story and learn.

          I am Deborah. I was not only a prophet but also a judge of Israel before there were kings to rule God’s people.  I announced to Barak that he was to take on the army of Jabin with Sisera in the lead.  But Barak knew he could not do this without me.  And so I arose as a mother of Israel and led the people of Israel in this battle, knowing that another woman, Jael, would be the one to ultimately defeat Sisera for the people of God.  Jael and I, together, were the strength of the people Israel on this day and we led the Israelite army to defeat those who were oppressing God’s people.  We were its leaders and we did what no man did.  Then together I sang with Barak, “Hear O kings; give ear, O princes; to the Lord I will sing, I will make melody to the Lord, the God of Israel.”  I sang, “perish all your enemies, O Lord!  But may your friends be like the sun as it rises in its might.”  I sang of Jael, I sang of the people of Israel, God’s people.  I sang, and while I also led and defeated enemies of God’s people, this, too is all that you will hear of me.  This is all that is known of my prophesy and my care for the people of Israel – for God’s people. (Judges 4-5)

            I am Anna, the widowed, who lived in the temple and spent all of my time speaking to God, fasting and praying constantly on behalf of God’s people.  I was in the temple when Jesus was brought in as a baby.  And I knew him instantly.  I was blessed to meet the infant Christ, and to proclaim him to be such to all who came near. 

          I am all the unnamed women prophets, or the ones whose names are mentioned with no details.  I am the women throughout history who have had a piece in the story but have been nameless, or faceless – their histories seen as trivial and unimportant, their contributions minimized or denied.  I am your mothers, your sisters, your daughters, your wives – not written into the history because it has been “his story” written by and about the men of faith.  Yet even so, my stories cannot be completely ignored.  I sneak into you’re his-stories, I sneak into your leadership because without me there is no you.  My part is minimized, yet here I remain, prophets, judges, leaders, - and while my story is not often told, it continues to shape you and it continues to determine the journey of God’s people.

            Still, it is okay with me to receive such little notice.  It is okay because I did not prophesy for the sake of fame.  I did not prophesy for the sake of recognition and remembrance.  I came, I spoke, I prophesied because God called me to do this. 

          You, too are called.  Whether male or female, your part in the history of God’s people is important.  Listen to your call.  Answer God with a “yes” and go – speak God’s words of justice, of truth, of love.  Remember Miriam, Deborah, Anna and all the unnamed prophets who have led and pushed and challenged and taught.  Remember our courage.  And go and do likewise.

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            Today is “Celebrating the Gifts of Women” Sunday in the Presbyterian Church, USA.  Many of us, understandably, probably wonder why we still have this Sunday.  After all, when we look at the PCUSA as a whole, 66% of our members are women.  Our percentage of ruling elders (session members) is currently 52% women.  And our percentages of women pastors, while not equal yet to men is about one third female pastors to 2/3 male pastors.  Our seminary students are predominantly women at this point.  Women’s voices in the church are on the rise, so why do we need a day to focus solely on women in the church?  In this congregation especially, where you have a history of female pastors and elders and all but one of your deacons is female.  Not that we don’t have male leadership – Currently 2/3 of the session and of the trustees are male.  But do we really need a day to focus on the gifts of women in the church?  And if so, why?
          One of the reasons why this day continues to be important was shared with us by our Women Prophet representatives today.  It is important that we make sure to spend some time recognizing women of faith, recognizing women’s contributions to the church and to our faith lives because women are so under-represented in scripture.  We know that they were an important part of the faith stories and faith lives because their names do make it in to the stories occasionally even though women were not the writers, readers, or interpreters of these biblical passages.  Women were not valued in the same way that they are today, they were not given the same opportunities that men had, and they were not really seen as fully human.  Still, many of their stories, while abbreviated, do make it into scripture and that fact in itself is a strong testimonial to the importance of women to our faith story and more importantly, to God.
            While specifically on this day, then, we are called to take seriously the female contribution to our relationships with God and our understanding of God, at the same time I think there is a deeper message here for us to hear and understand.  We are called to look around us and see where God is, to see God’s face, to see God’s presence when it comes to us.  This is not always an easy thing to do, but it is made much harder by our preconceived ideas about where God is not to be found.  If we think that God is not found in the homeless, or in those we don’t like, or, as in the case of some of the biblical writers, in women, then we limit how God can speak to us, where God speaks to us and when.  We limit our connection and our relationships with God if we fail to look in the places where we might otherwise least expect to see God.
              I have shared with you before scenes from the TV series Joan of Arcadia.  At the very beginning of the series when the teenage girl Joan first has an encounter with God, Joan is not happy about it.  Joan argues with God, first denying that the person in front of her is God, but then finally coming to terms with it.  “I don’t look like this.  I don’t look like anything you’d recognize.  You can’t see me.  I don’t sound like anything you’d recognize.  I am beyond your experience.”  
           Joan, who is still really not understanding responds with, “So, do you just go around appearing to people?”  
           To which the God-character responds, “Minor Correction: I am not appearing to you.  You are perceiving me.”  I think there is great wisdom in that.  God is all around us.  But our sacred moments, our moments when we are touched by the Divine happen when we have the vision to perceive God.  Again, we see the miracles, we hear God’s voice, we see God’s presence only when we are open to perceiving it.
            I think we have a hard time perceiving pretty much anything.  We are mostly made of space, our atoms are mostly space, but that’s not what we see when we look at one another.  White light is light made of all the colors, but we don’t see all the colors.  Frankly, we see very little.  The visible light spectrum is the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye can see.  Our eyes can detect wavelengths from 380 to 700 nanometers.  But that means that in fact we just perceive a very small portion of the wavelengths that are out there.  Even within this spectrum, our sight is limited.  For example, we see three primary colors.  This has to do with our cones and what our eyes can detect.  The Mantis Shrimp, in contrast, has 16 primary colors and all of its variations.
           Then when we are asked to perceive where God is, well, perhaps given how hard it is to see what is right in front of our eyes, seeing the origin of things and God’s presence in what happens around us can become even harder.  Seeing beneath what is in front of our eyes is a different kind of challenge.  Seeing and hearing God can be extremely challenging.  But God is always there. 
           Dwight Nelson told a story that he said was true about the pastor of his church. He had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard and then was afraid to come down. The pastor coaxed, offered warm milk, etc.
           The kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and pulled it until the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten.
            That's what he did, all the while checking his progress in the car. He then figured if he went just a little bit further, the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But as he moved the car a little further forward, the rope broke.
            The tree went 'boing!' and the kitten instantly sailed through the air - out of sight.
            The pastor felt terrible. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they'd seen a little kitten. No. Nobody had seen a stray kitten.
             So he prayed, 'Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping,' and went on about his business.
             A few days later he was at the grocery store, and met one of his church members. He happened to look into her shopping cart and was amazed to see cat food.
             This woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her, 'Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats so much?' She replied, 'You won't believe this,' and then told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat, but she kept refusing.
            Then a few days before, the child had begged again, so the Mom finally told her little girl, 'Well, if God gives you a cat, I'll let you keep it.'
            She told the pastor, 'I watched my child go out in the yard, get on her knees, and ask God for a cat. And really, Pastor, you won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky, with its paws outspread, and landed right in front of her.'
            God moments.
            For those of you who attended or participated in the concert fundraiser for the victims of the Camp Fire up in Paradise, you heard the pastor share his story of losing everything; his home, his belongings, and just barely escaping, through the flames as he drove, with his life.  He shared with us that as he returned to look at the damage, there was only one thing that he found at the house intact.  Just one.  His daughter had died a few years previously and they had hung on to a nightlight of Jesus holding a lamb.  They’d hung on to it because it was a connection to their daughter whom they had lost to death.  And when they went back to the house to find everything, everything destroyed after the Camp fire, the one thing that had somehow survived the flames was this plastic Jesus nightlight holding a lamb: their connection to their daughter, and to faith all wrapped in one.  A visual sign and reminder that even in the dark, they were held like a lamb held by Jesus. 
             I’ve shared with you before many of my own times of perceiving God: times when I received comforting or reassuring emails at just the right moment, songs that have come on the radio just when I needed to hear them, strangers making comments at just the right time.  These happen for me often.  Just this last week, when I went spinning down that path of struggling with trust, a series of songs came on the radio, three in a row that were all songs that connected me deeply to those people I was fearful about, songs that reminded me of the good in them, songs that reconnected me to what is real about the here and now.  I heard those for the God messages they were. 
            What is even more humbling perhaps is those times when we are invited to be God’s face for someone else.  I shared with you this story in a newsletter article, but felt it would be appropriate for today as well:
            When Youngest was two, I used to take her to "get used to water" swim lesson at the Hayward Plunge - a lesson she loved so much she would cry when it was time to get out of the pool.  I sat on the side lines with a woman I'd been befriending who had twins in Youngest's class. Unusual to this lesson, there were also two other women sitting in front of us in the "observation" benches: they had brochures in their hands about the classes being offered and seemed to be checking out the adult water aerobics class to see if they wanted to sign up. Half way into the lesson one of the two women in front of me excused herself and left. My new friend also had to leave at that point because her twins needed a trip to the bathroom. As soon as both the other women left, the woman sitting in front of me suddenly burst into tears. She turned towards me and said, "the woman I was sitting with has just made me very sad." I was surprised, but also immediately jumped into "pastoral counselor" mode and put my hand on her back and asked what had happened. She sort of melted into my touch and sobbed out that she had just gotten out of the hospital where she'd had to have two blood transfusions. These transfusions had saved her life and she was doing really well now, though in need of some light exercise. Apparently, though, the women she'd been sitting with had just told her that getting blood transfusions was a really bad thing and that she would probably die from the diseases carried in the new blood. Unbelievable!  I told her that there used to be problems, occasionally, with people passing on diseases in this way, but that because of those problems the blood that now gets passed on in transfusions is really very thoroughly tested. Obviously she had needed the transfusions and the very fact that she was doing better should show her that the new blood had not made her ill at all! I said that I believed the other woman to be greatly misinformed and apparently not very helpful either. I then just listened as she poured out more information about her life - the joys and struggles, but at the end she said she was feeling much better. Within a minute of her telling me she was better and after getting herself together, drying her eyes and sitting up with a smile once more, my friend with her twins returned to the bench.
            As the lesson ended and we all made our way out of the Plunge, the distressed woman came up and said she really felt I had been a God-send that day - that she usually doesn't dump on total strangers and she just thanked God I had been there when I was. The cynical part of me wondered (to myself) if God could send people hither and yon why She/He hadn't sent the unhelpful, misinformed woman somewhere else this morning. But I did think it was interesting that at just the moment the distressed woman needed some personal care that everyone else in the area left.
            My personal belief is that God doesn't take away our free will: God doesn't control everything. At the same time, I think God can and does work through people and situations that are open to God's guidance, wisdom, love and hope. In this case, it seemed to work out - maybe not just for the distressed woman, but for myself as well who was in need of a little reassurance of God's presence, love and care that morning as well.
             But, as in the Joan of Arcadia series, the bottom line is the same.  Those moments when we are suddenly deeply aware of God sending us messages of love and support and care are not times when God suddenly appears.  Those moments when you become aware of God’s messages of love and support are not times when God suddenly appears.  Because God is always there.  Instead, these are times when we are suddenly graced with the perception of the God who is always with us.   
           A kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing.  She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work.  As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.  The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.”  The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”  Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”  I think God looks like many things: nature, other people, sunshine, rainbows; moments of presence, moments of peace, moments of connection.  The question is will we see God?  We are too often guilty of seeing what we know rather than knowing what we see.
           But as Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
           Today we are called to celebrate the gifts of women.  But for me, this is a day when we are called to something even deeper.  We are called to look at those people whom we might otherwise fail to see as messengers of God’s love.  We are called to seek out those moments where God’s message and light come through people and nature and our lives in unexpected ways.  We are called to celebrate the gifts of those who are often unseen, minimized or ignored.  We are called to open ourselves to seeing God in new ways.

Are things improving?

          I had bronchitis a couple weeks ago, which really knocked me flat for a few days.  So I was at home during the day (a rarity for me) and I was flipping through TV channels.  I came across an old Andy Griffith show rerun, one of the early ones.  My memory is of enjoying these "wholesome" programs when I was a child, so I thought, "well, this should be fun!" But the first thing I noticed, not surprising since it is still often an issue, was that every character in the story was white as snow. Then we get into the story line. In this particular episode, there was a young woman (meant to be 16 or 17) working her father's farm.  Andy's girlfriend got it in her head that this young woman would much prefer to exchange her work clothes and base look for dresses and make-up and a stylish hair cut, so she troops out to the farm to give the girl some of these items.  The girl's father rejects the gift for the girl, saying he needs her help on the farm.  So Andy, Barney and Andy's girlfriend, after a conversation in which they accuse the father of being abusive for not allowing his girl to have these "girly" things, basically kidnap the girl ("arrest" her?), dress her up, give her a hair cut, make her up and then bring her back to present her to the girl's father.  He admits that she looks very nice, but then explains that it really is just the two of them and he needs her to now get back into her work clothes (dresses are not helpful for the work that must be done on a farm) and help him with the farm. At this point, Andy takes the girl by the hand, leads her over to some boys who just happen to be working nearby (on the next farm over?) for them to ogle her, and then returns to the father.  Andy explains to the father that he is not "using" his girl to the best of her abilities.  Surely, he explains, it would be better for the father to have a male helper than this useless girl.  So he could use her better by allowing her to attract a male who can then work the farm with the father.  The father agrees and they all live happily ever after (?!).
          Needless to say, I was absolutely appalled. And I don't think I even need to list all the things wrong with this.  I don't need to list them because it is obvious that this devalues women's work, women's worth, women's person-hood.  It is obvious that the girl in this story never had a voice and was never able to express what she wanted.  It is obvious that she was just a resource for the father, as either a helper or as a person to attract a "better" helper (ie a male).  It is obvious that gender roles were so fixed in this scenario that there was no possibility of seeing her for anything other than a second class citizen. It was very disturbing.
         But I also found myself reflecting on the fact that things actually have changed and moved over the last 50+ years.  Not everywhere.  And there is a long way to go still towards recognizing women's humanity.  We still don't pay women equal wages for equal work, we still treat them as sex objects, we still value their appearance over their talents, we still abuse and use women. There are still fields of work and study that are restricted by gender (women cannot be priests in the Catholic church, for example), we still treat them as second class citizens. But, at least here in my community, I know that the large majority of people here would be equally appalled by this TV episode, and that shows movement, that shows growth in our understanding, in our vision, in our appreciation for who women are, what we can do, and what our best gifts are.  I am not, in any way, the only person who would watch this episode and wonder what the girl (who remained voiceless in the episode) would say for herself.
        This episode gave me perspective.  It has been hard to not fall into despair when I read about the racism, the sexism, the rejection of other people, the increase in poverty and in the huge gap between rich and poor in our culture, the cruelty towards immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, the abuse of others and of our earth that seems to have escalated in the last couple years.  It is hard to not fall into a sense that everything is moving backwards in terms of our understanding of one another as siblings, as family, as connected to each of us in a way that makes it absolutely necessary that we care for and love one another.  I am blessed by the wisdom and perspective of people who are older, who have lived through other troubled and dark times, who remind me that "this too will pass".  But their words don't always drive away the growing sense of a damage done that may not be reversible.  To see this episode, though, reminded me that in the midst of all of this, there is movement still.  At the time that episode was written and aired, my grandmother was working our family ranch by herself.  No one questioned that.  Not one person felt she was less than competent to do so.  But still, the episode aired.  While it was aired again a few weeks back, it is a rerun shown.  I don't know of any new programs that could get away with a horrible message like this.  And that is good news.  If our art reflects life, we are moving, we are growing.  And that gives me hope, indeed.
        I'm also attaching a link here to a commercial that I think also shows this movement.  Granted, this is a New Zealand ad.  Also, the language may be a little much for some.  I apologize for that.  Still, I love the message here.  Hope you enjoy it.

Your Worth, Your Value - a note to women, especially.

       There are people, women especially I think, who never quite get past the internalized belief that if others don't value us that we therefore have no value. I see where this understanding comes from. When women are present in our fairy tales, and most of our movies even now, they are heterosexual romantic interests primary, if not solely, and their value comes directly from being loved by a man. When these are our primary stories, our identifying narratives, the stories that tell us who we are in this world, the idea that maybe we have worth all on our own, all by ourselves, separate from a male partner but also separate from the friends and family we love us is foreign, strange, and in some way incomprehensible.
      What happens, then, when someone we love stops valuing us in the way they once did?  Or when we become aware that the assumptions we had about someone's care for us turn out to be false? In those moments, we suffer not only the loss of the relationship or friendship, but truly, a loss of ourselves. We can become confused about who we are without that other person's affirmation. We can feel that we do not have worth. In some cases women have confided in me that they feel they don't even exist when they are not with another person who values them. When they lose their husbands or partners in any way, it can be devastating not only because of the loss itself, but also because it confronts their very assumptions about who they are and what they are worth. You may find that hard to believe.  But it's true. This year, 2017, I have heard from women for whom this is a true-ism.  We have a long, long way to go.
     I am hoping that perhaps the increase in movies and books that value women and women's love differently, especially when those movies are made for children, will contribute to women's sense of self-worth, independent of those around them, and especially independent of their "necessarily-male" partner.  Movies like Frozen, where the "true love" was between sisters; Brave, where the tension was between mother and daughter; and Zootopia in which there was no romantic interaction at all with the main character, who was a female - these movies give me hope that perhaps we are learning to teach and instill a different sense of worth in our girls and, as they grow, in our women.
       But in the mean time, I have this to say: a belief that our worth comes from those around us is problematic, untrue, and deadly.  From a faith perspective, perhaps especially, we are valuable simply because we are.  We have been loved into being and that makes us beautiful, worthy, and valuable all on its own.  God created us for relationships - yes with each other.  But more, God created us to be in relationship with God, God-self.  And that is high praise indeed.  You have been loved into being because God wants a relationship with YOU.  How awesome is that!
       When we start to embrace the fact of our own value, it radiates out of us.  When we come to understand that our worth comes from simply being in this world, a child of God, a brother or sister to all of creation, we carry ourselves differently.  That confidence changes us, flows through us, and challenges us then to be more who we really are, more true to who it was we were created to be.
      As I'm writing this, I find myself reflecting on a children's book written by Max Lucado, You are Special (Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, 1997).  The story describes how every day the Wemmicks walked around giving each other dots or stars.  They would put a dot on another Wemmick if they didn't like them or thought they were ugly or bad.  They would put a star on another Wemmick if they thought they were pretty or talented or good.  The Wemmicks sense of worth was determined by how many dots and stars they each had.  But one day, a Wemmick who was covered with dots and who therefore mostly hid away from the others met a Wemmick who had no stars or dots on her.  When others tried to give her a dot or a star, it would simply fall off.  As you read on in the story, you find that her ability to let the dots and stars roll off of her came from a strong sense of self-worth, of value given to her by spending each day with her maker, the one who loved her into being.
     I wish in reality it really were that simple.  I wish that our faith would simply wipe away any hurt or sense of worthlessness or ugly dots given to us by others that we might experience.  The truth is harder.  Since we were created also to be in relationship with others, if those relationships are going to be genuine, they will involve a level of vulnerability that will leave us open to being hurt, rejected, and even scarred by others. But while grief at a loss is healthy, the devastation to our sense of self-worth is not.  And that is something we can work on, even as we strive to stay open and vulnerable.
    In Lucado's book, the solution for the Wemmick covered in dots was to daily spend time with the one who loved him into being.  That would be good for us as well: to daily spend time with the One who loves you, who wants you, who values your existence, whatever that looks like for you. Meditation, hiking in nature, talking to the trees or your pets, quiet prayer, Yoga, Tai Chi - however you get in touch with that which breathes life into you, centers you and brings you back to yourself, however you allow God (or the Universe or whatever you want to name it) to remind you that you are loved - spend time with that, preferably daily.  But for today let me also be the one to tell you:  You are worthy.  You are loved.  You are valuable.  You were created to be you because you are loved just as the person you are.  Try not to let others define who that is for you.  Try especially to not let others tell you you aren't worth much.  You've been loved into being.  And each day that you breathe, you are loved into being again.  Hold that truth in your heart.
          And watch the dots roll off...

Judging Others Part I: Women and Size

        I want to start this post by acknowledging that I am a small woman.  I've always been a small woman.  At my "biggest" (pregnant) I was still only about 20 pounds more than I currently am.  Some might say therefore that I really have no place or no right to write about this.  But I'm going to anyway because I think that if we don't stand WITH one another in whatever we are going through, then we truly will fall alone, each and every one of us.  Also, I am hoping that maybe as an ally, as a "stand alongside" person, that maybe more people will hear this message than otherwise might.
        So here's the bottom line - a person's size should not matter.  Period.
        For women especially there is such attention to size, such "concern" about size, but frankly, I see no real justification for this. It is blatant prejudice, judgment, meanness.  But we hide our prejudice and judgments under the guise of "concern".  We are "concerned" about the health of bigger people, we say.  That's why their size matters to us, because we "care" about their health.  That's B.S. Sorry, folks, but it is.  If this judgment is out of concern about people's health, why are we not more "concerned" about women's health CARE?  Why are women's health care issues so much more expensive to address?  Why do we not fund more proactive women's health care if we are truly worried about this?  Also, why are we not concerned about women who wear high healed shoes all the time, thus injuring their backs?  Or those who spend so much time in the sun, thus exposing themselves to skin cancer? Why are we not more concerned about how much alcohol or caffeine others consume?  Why do we not care more about artificial sweeteners and pesticides?  Why do we feel it is okay for women to inject their faces with a poison in order to minimize wrinkles? Or to have elaborate surgeries to change their shape when it is unnecessary for health reasons? And the thing is, even when we are concerned about those things, we are concerned about those things, not about the people who participate in them.  We don't carry the same judgments, and we certainly don't express those judgments.  We understand that would be rude, would be unkind, is frankly none of our business.  But somehow we justify our prejudice, our meanness towards larger people under the guise of "concern" for their health.  (A big part of the irony of this is that if we weren't so attacking and judgmental, people would probably find it much easier to lose weight if they chose to do so.  That judgment itself makes it so very hard to shed the pounds that can sometimes act as a buffer between ourselves and those judgments.)
       But as I've thought about women and size, I've wondered if the issue might not go deeper.  Why is it that we want our women to be so small? Again, I do not accept the answer that we are worried about their health.  That's bogus.  No, I think it may come back to power, to fear, and to control.  We have valued women being so small that they almost disappear.  Too many women have died from anorexia or bulemia, too many women suffer health issues for being underweight (but again we aren't judging them are we?).  I wonder if there isn't instead a fear of women becoming too big because size is power, is influence.  We shrink our women by paying them less.  We shrink our women by setting a glass ceiling beyond which it is hard to rise.  We shrink our women by taking away reproductive rights and control over their own bodies.  We shrink our women by blaming them for their own abuse, rape, victimization, thereby allowing their abusers to continue to claim "power over" by not holding them accountable for it.  And we shrink our women literally by insisting that they are not worth as much, that they are not worth our time and attention, that they are not worth being paid as much, or being able to do what they want (especially if that involves going into acting, singing, modelling, etc.) if they are not tiny.
         Some women are bigger than life.  And somehow that scares us.  So we control it.  In my humble opinion it would do us well to rejoice in that bigger than life quality, to celebrate it, and to see what amazing things women (all people, really) can do, regardless of their size. We are the ones who miss out by shrinking others, or even by allowing them to be shrunk by those around them. Personally, I'm moving from being a person who was always careful about staying small, to finding that there are times I wish I were bigger: bigger in confidence, bigger in courage, bigger in joy. Maybe that needs to start by claiming the space that I take up rather than striving always to be smaller than I physically am.
           I want to own that all of us are affected by the judgments that our society has about bigger people, and so I apologize for anything I may have inadvertently said that judges size.  I will strive to do better, too. But as a society it is something we need to work on.  People of all sizes are beautiful. Let us strive to not be intimidated or scared into meanness by the power, the size, the beauty of others.

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After writing the above a friend sent me this link to a program that NPR did on this topic.  It was very well done and worth listening to as well!!  Click the link below to hear or read it:
"Tell me I'm Fat"

Sunday's Sermon - praying for forgiveness

Before you read this, I want to say that in light of what happened over the weekend this was not a time appropriate sermon.  However, I was only aware of the events in Orlando as of that morning, slightly before worship.  So I did edit what I said (because I never actually say what gets posted here...I preach more impromptu and only refer to my written sermon as an "outline" of sorts or when I am quoting someone else and need it to be exact) but I'm still posting here what I wrote.  It would be better for another week, but because these are posted to our website as well, I'm going ahead and putting it here.  I apologize for the lack of a timely sermon.

Luke 7:36-50

Matthew 18:21-35

            Most of the time I’ve preached on forgiveness, I’ve focused on the human need to forgive others.  That is incredibly important because, truly, it is only in our acts of forgiveness, our choice to let go of our anger, our hatred, and our resentment that we can be made whole.  But while that is a worthy topic of conversation, today instead I want to focus on God’s forgiveness of us.  The title of today’s sermon, “praying for forgiveness” sums up what I want to say, which is that there is purpose and meaning in praying for forgiveness. 

            I say this, and yet I am aware of the many problems that have been created, especially for some people, through the weekly ritual of the prayer of confession.   My caveat before I begin here is that I am speaking in generalities and quoting studies that also spoke in generalities.  I realize that no generality can apply to every person or even any person all the way. 

That being said, much had been written at the time I was in seminary in pastoral counseling books and other counseling books which emphasized that men’s greatest flaw, or sin, is to blame others for the bad things that happen to them in their lives and to fail to look at their own issues, contributions and their own faults in creating problems for themselves and others.  When men were the majority of those who attended church, then it made a great deal of sense to remind them weekly that they weren’t the great, unerring creatures that they may, at times, believe themselves to be. 

But in study after study, women (and again this applies to others as well, but in this study it was predominantly women) behave and understand the bad times in their lives very differently.  Women tend to blame themselves for everything wrong that happens to them.  Women, on the whole, are overly quick to name their flaws and to take responsibility for almost everything that can possibly go wrong. For those who know Amy Schumer, she has recently done a parody on the number of times, for example, that women say “sorry”.  It is a constant and often completely unnecessary part of their conversation.  Someone interrupts a woman, she is likely to respond with “sorry”.  Someone bumps into a woman, she is likely to respond with “sorry”.  Someone takes something she was reaching for, she is likely to say “sorry”.  Women do this, one study said, partly as a learned behavior but also partly as a way of claiming control in situations where they have little to no control.  If this problem over here is my fault, than I can fix it or I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.  But whatever the reason for it, the prayer of confession that we say every week has sometimes failed to serve women because of their different orientation to the pain and problems in the world.  Women’s greatest flaw or sin is taking on too much blame and responsibility.  And so the prayer of confession, which may confront the flaw of those who do not claim enough responsibility, caters to the flaws of those who claim too much.  It can reinforce for those who are already too down on themselves that they are to blame for everything and that it is their own errors that make the world less than perfect.  This, too, then, can set them up as more than human.  They see themselves as more powerful, more in control of the pain in the world because it is their fault.  Now that 77% of our church attendees in the United States are women, this weekly prayer can become a problem.

            While these studies were done a while ago, while I was in seminary, I would say that for many people this continues to be truth.  Many of my close friends have shared with me that they often feel a constant strong sense of not being good enough.  They share with me a sense of failure, of guilt, a feeling that they have disappointed God.  One women in particular told me, “I know that God loves me.  I know this.  But I have come to the place in my being where that love is not enough.  I am acutely aware that I have disappointed God; that I have not and cannot live up to God’s hopes and expectations for me.  God is not proud of me.  God is disappointed in me.  Knowing that God loves me, if anything, adds to the pain when I realize I don’t deserve it.  God loves me in spite of myself, not because of myself.  How can I possibly continue to live with God’s disappointment?” 

Honestly, have any of you felt this?  Have any of you been so filled with a sense of unworthiness, of guilt, of failure that you feel God’s disappointment to be overwhelming?  How  would you respond to this? 

Hildegarde de Bingen, was, among other things, a Christian mystic in the 12^th Century.  I pasted this quote on my blog a few weeks ago, so some of you may be hearing it again, but I love this particular quote of hers.  She said, “A divine voice spoke to me, saying, ‘How fragile you are, Human, made of dust and grime, but I am the living Light.  I make the darkness day, and I have chosen you to see great wonders, though I have humbled you on earth.  You are often depressed and timid, and insecure.  Because you are conscientious, you feel guilty, and chronic physical pain has thoroughly scarred you.  But the deep mysteries of God have saturated you, too, and so has humility.’
    “When I heard the Voice, I began trying to live a godly life.  The path became difficult as I questioned myself again, saying, ‘This is pointless.’ I wanted to soar. I dreamed impossible dreams and started projects I could never finish.  I became dejected, so I sat and did nothing.  My self-doubt is my greatest disobedience.  It makes me miserable, and I struggle with this cross daily.  But God is by my side, reminding me that (God) created me.  So, even in the middle of my depression, I walk with wise patience over the marrow and blood of my body.  I am the lion defending itself from a snake, roaring and knocking it back into its hole.  I will never let myself give in to the devil's arrows.” 

I love that line, “My self doubt is my greatest disobedience.”  For many of us, if there is anything that we need to confess, this is it…that we take on too many of the problems of the world as our own fault, that we are too ready to live in guilt and a sense of our own failure, too ready to see that we are not enough rather than just as eager to trust that “God don’t make no junk.”   We do not trust that we are beautiful and good, and called with a Godly purpose that we can accomplish.  I love this quote from Hildegarde de Bingen because it challenges us to step beyond guilt, beyond self-doubt and into the forgiveness which God hands us in every moment.

            Is this to say, then, that there is no value in the prayer of confession for those who torment themselves with their flaws?  Of course not.  But what I am saying is that I think we have a work a little harder to find the gift in it.  If we choose to wallow in the errors we believe we have made, then we are missing the point and it will not serve us.  If instead, we can use our prayers of confession to truly let go, to really release any guilt that we have keeping us from growing, keeping us from loving, keeping us from resting in God’s loving arms; in other words, if we can accept into our hearts the forgiveness that God is offering us, then we can truly be healed by our prayers for forgiveness.

            About six years ago I went to see a movie through the International Film Festival called “Bomber”.  The plot of the story involves a man haunted by something that he has done, needing to apologize, needing to let go of a past that has imprisoned him for over sixty five years.  He was, through the course of the movie, able to go and make the apology that he needed to make.  More importantly, perhaps, he was able to receive forgiveness from the one he had harmed.  The result of apologizing, the result of receiving the equivalent of human forgiveness, the result of releasing his guilt allowed him, through the course of the movie, to change, deeply and honestly.  How much more is this the case when we can receive God’s forgiveness?

            God’s forgiveness is there, offered to us before we can even ask for it.  We say the prayer of confession so that we can accept that forgiveness into our hearts.  Then we can allow that forgiveness to heal us.  God’s forgiveness is complete.  It is a wiping of the slate.  In this moment you start again.  In this moment, you are made whole, again.  In this moment you have the opportunity and the chance to really live by what you say you believe, to live a life of love to God, others and self.  God does not stand in a spirit of disappointment in you.  God stands in a place of grace and forgiveness, loving you completely, accepting you completely, forgiving you completely in every moment and making you new and whole again every time.  Can you take that to heart?  Can you accept that we are called to follow God’s law of love not only to make the world better but because God wants the best and the most for each of us?  My prayer for all of us is that we can realize our flaws so that we can move towards wholeness for ourselves and the world.  But I pray even more that after our self-understanding, we can feel the amazing, life changing power of God’s grace and forgiveness; and that from that place we can begin whole again. 

As the passage in Luke pointed out today, the consequence of the women’s loving much was that she was also much forgiven.  Jesus then continued by saying that the consequence of being much forgiven is, in exchange, an increased ability to love.  Accept God’s forgiveness, be renewed, begin again, and you will find you are able to fulfill God’s law of love more and more.