Hypocrisy

Matthew 23:27-39

Luke 14:1-6

I want to begin this morning by having you look for a minute at the beginning of chapter 23 in Matthew.  As you can see the entire chapter of 23 is about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  But the chapter  opens by recognizing the authority of the scribes and Pharisees, acknowledging that they sit on "Moses' seat" (v. 2). They are teachers and interpreters of the law in the line of Moses, the original lawgiver and the most important figures in Judaism; they are due deference and respect in religious matters. After all, Jesus came not to "abolish but to fulfill" the law (Matt. 5:17).  As a whole, Matthew labors to show Jesus' reverence for and continuity with Judaism. The problem is not Jewish religious traditions or teachings; it’s not the pharisees religious traditions or teachings.  Jesus commends them to everyone: "Do whatever they teach you and follow it" (v. 3).

The problem here is that the Pharisees misuse their authority, misuse scripture and misuse the law. They behave in ways that are counter to the truth teach. They speak of glorifying God, but they seem most interested in self-aggrandizement. They speak of orienting their entire lives toward God, but they draw everyone's eyes toward themselves. They speak of their responsibility for the people of God, yet "are unwilling to lift a finger" to lighten the people's burdens (v. 4). They proclaim that they are people of God, yet they fail to do the basics of caring for one another.  But what is primary, they are MORE concerned about the laws than they are about the people.  And as Jesus points out, “Sabbath was made for the people, not people for the Sabbath.”  In other words, the laws were made to serve us, to make us better, to make us whole, to help us to be closer to God.  We were not made simply to follow the laws.  That means, in all things, that situations must be brought into account.  In today’s passage from Luke we see this with much more clarity.  Yes, it was against the law to heal on the Sabbath or do anything on the Sabbath that required work.  But Jesus broke this law for the sake of healing.  He did this repeatedly.  His disciples broke the law by picking grain on the sabbath: again, they did work so that they might eat.  I cannot stress this strongly enough because this is very central to Jesus’ teachings: we are to help and love one another.  The laws enforce that.  But as with every construct, every rule, every rigidity, the things that are made to serve us can also be misused to hurt people, to harm them, to injure them.  When that is the case, Jesus was clear, the needs of the people, of God’s people, of all people, MUST and do come first. 

Where the hypocrisy part falls into this is that people are generally willing to bend the laws when it serves them, and then they strengthen and insist on the laws in ways that harm other people.  As Jesus said, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”  Of course they would.  They would break the Sabbath law to save one of their own.  But when it comes to healing or caring for others, they want Jesus to wait for the appropriate day, not recognizing that each day lost is a lifetime for a person in pain, in isolation and in struggle. 

In these actions, the scribes and Pharisees were not unusual or unique.  The Biblical commentary, Feasting on the Word  said it this way: “It is so easy to confuse our interests with God's purposes, our power with God's sovereignty, our standing with God's glory. Whether we are referring to our individual or collective lives, human beings have a strong tendency to create false and sinful hierarchies that displace God's authority; we have a proclivity to ignore or rebel against God's kingdom in order to protect our minor fiefdoms. This is a particularly distasteful, yet common, inclination among religious people and their leaders. Constant reference to God and God's purposes can easily lend our own aims, desires, and identities a semblance of holiness that is sanctimonious and hypocritical.  Pious words and orthodox convictions alone do not make a person faithful…. The true measure of faithfulness is found not in the words one speaks or the doctrines one accepts but in the orientation of one's heart.  Is one's whole heart and life oriented toward God, or is it aimed at something less than God (Matt. 6:19-34)?” – Feasting on the Word. 

I love that.  This is not about our ability to follow rules.  This is about where our hearts are oriented.  Do we walk with love?  Do we see with love?  Do we interact with others with love?  If so, our hearts are oriented towards God.  When we fail to do so, we fail to be oriented towards God.  It’s that simple.  When we are drawing our circles tighter, when we are pulling in and taking care only of our own, when we are reacting out of fear, our hearts are not with God and we will be seen as the hypocrites that we all, at times, can be. 

As I said, we are not immune from this. We all have heard about Westboro Baptist Church.  It gets itself in the news a great deal lately.  This specific church looks “pious”.  They look “religious”.  They are using the bible and quoting rules, and saying things like “God Says”…. But what is coming out of their mouths?  Hatred.  They’ve missed the central message of the Bible and of faith.  And because of that, everyone else sees them as the hypocrites that they are: preaching a God of Love with mouths full of hate.  This is the number one reason people don’t come to church.  Too much hypocrisy.  And we can see it in some of these congregations and we know the public is right to condemn it. 

But the challenge I want to offer today is a recognition that ALL of us have our hypocrisies.  All of us do.  Can you think of something you do that is hypocritical? 

Some minor examples: I have a friend who is constantly complaining about other people’s driving: always, she is yelling about how terrible the drivers around her are.  Yet, I once had the opportunity to sit as a passenger while she drove, and I have no idea how she has made it alive for as long as she has!  Her driving is absolutely atrocious!  She looked at me while she was talking to me, more than she did the road, and then honked and got upset when cars “mysteriously” appeared in front of her!  When she wasn’t talking to me, she was talking on her cell-phone; one, by the way, that did not have an ear piece.  At one point she was holding the phone with one hand, eating with the other, looking at me with her eyes, following inches away from the car in front of us, though we were driving 75 miles an hour (so much for the 3 second rule), swerving all over the place, and cursing and swearing at all the other drivers on the road!  

In my family, we have a number of people who are pack rats.  What is interesting is that each of us sees it in each other, and none of us sees it in ourselves. 

Another friend of mine loves to correct others for failing to be polite.  She is quick to point out, in front of others, I might add, when I or others have been “rude” by failing to use polite-nesses such as “please.”  She seems oblivious to the fact that she is being just as rude by pointing this out to all of us in this public, humiliating way.

 And of course, I have my own hypocrisies.  Some of which I see, but no doubt there are others I don’t see.  I spout love, preach love, stand on love as the law of the land.  I preach about the importance of really seeing people and trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.  But there are times, of course, when I fail to do that and am crabby with others, snippy with others.  Especially when my kids are involved, it is harder for me to really listen to anyone I think has been unfair or has mistreated them (like their teachers on occasion).  This isn’t fair to these teachers.  They have tons of students they are trying to get to know, and stuff happens.  I could have expressed the same things in less cranky ways, but I don’t always. 

I found myself remembering a time, years ago now, when I felt very betrayed by a friend.  I don’t want or need to go into the specifics of that because they aren’t important.  What is important is that I became very self-righteous about it.  I knew I had been wronged and so standing on religious language, I went on the attack.  I let go of all of my years of training that tell me to use “I” statements and instead I “corrected” the other, using learnings that remain meaningful to me, but which, when used as a weapon, frankly do and did more harm than good.  This hypocrisy in myself caused me to become critical of others while failing to look at my own part in the issues.  We do this.  Leaders, especially religious ones, are in a dangerous position because, in standing on scripture, we can become very self-righteous about what we believe to be “truth”, the “truth of God” even.  But taking that stand when it is aimed as a weapon against others can cause damage and harm to others.  There is a reason why the people Jesus attacks most strongly throughout the gospels are the religious leaders: the scribes and pharisees.  From that position of power, it is extremely easy to misuse God’s words in ways that harm others.  It just is.  And when religious leaders fail to be self-reflective, it is an extremely dangerous thing.  We’ve seen this again and again: religious leaders caught in the same activities they are criticizing others for, religious leaders proclaiming that it is okay to destroy or damage other people, religious leaders picking and choosing scriptures and ignoring whole other areas (such as the gospels!!) in order to prove their points. 

All of us have paradoxes within us.  All of us have contradictions, and ways in which we criticize others without seeing the flaws in ourselves.  We all do.  It’s part of being human.  It becomes hypocrisy when the basic beliefs we have, the foundational tenets of our lives do not match our behavior.  When we declare that we believe in the God of Jesus, a God of love and grace, a God who calls us to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned; but then we act only on our own best interests and fail to even try to love our neighbors as ourselves.  And while it is easy to point our fingers at others who do this, especially public figures (and the amount of hypocrisy currently is so much, it’s frankly hard not to point those fingers), looking at our own hypocrisies is much harder.

One of the greatest ways we can avoid being hypocrites, or at least minimize our hypocrisy, is by taking the time to look at ourselves, honestly, openly.  When we cannot do that, fortunately, we have each other to help us out.  For we are in a community that is supposed to care about our spiritual growth.  And as I’ve said before, caring about one another’s spiritual growth means being part of helping one another grow better, grow more honest about our flaws and our gifts, grow in our relationship with God.  The other way we can avoid hypocrisy is to really take private and personal time with God, being honest and open.  We can use that time to listen to God.  We can use that time to work on our “hidden” judgements and flaws.  We can use that time to just BE real - because God knows the real us anyway - better than we know ourselves.

            The thing is that before God we are all equal.  This is hard for us to get because we see inequalities around us every day.  Some are smarter, some are more successful, some are braver, some are happier, some are more popular.  But again, before God we are all equals.  We are all God’s children, all loved, all wanted.  Our gifts, therefore, the things that in this world make us unequal are things we are called on to use to help God’s people, to help the community, to give to the community.  Our gifts aren’t for our own glory.  They are for God’s glory and to help others.  When we start feeling that they somehow make us better, we only get into trouble with them.

The thing that heals hypocrisy is grace.  We are called to remember that everything we have has been given to us not because we deserve it, not because we’ve earned it, but because God loves each of us so much that we are created surrounded by abundance.  As we see throughout the gospels, this extends to loving us even when we mess up as Jesus loved and forgave the disciples again and again for their blindness, their stupidity, their inability to see and understand and follow in the way they were asked to do.  Our worth, our value, comes from a God who knows us completely and loves us completely.  We don’t need to impress others, we don’t need to be dishonest about who we are, what we believe and how we act. 

My challenge, then, for all of us, is to do the work of self-reflection and look at the hypocrisies in our lives.  It is hard work to truly be the Christians we strive to be, especially when it comes to loving people we don’t like.  That is the call, but it also takes a great deal of work to face ourselves.  It takes a great deal of honesty to be willing to look at our own stuff, name it, confront it and work to change it.  But when we do, when we are able to look, we grow, not just in our own beings, but in our closeness to God.  When we can really take the time to own our shit, we open the door to change and to letting God in at ever deeper levels.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Moments of Kindness

       I think right now it can be so hard to see people as kind, as good.  We hear about these outrageous cruelties, many of them perpetuated by our government, but supported by the people in this country: keeping children in cages, tearing them apart from their families, letting them die of neglect, dehydration, sexual abuse; sending people back to countries where they will die from persecution or from lack of medical care; the racism, the attacks on people of different orientations, identities, faiths... the list goes on and on.  I see this in smaller ways by the way people are now acting in their cars.  Red lights out here are merely suggestions and people are no longer feeling they have to obey basic rules of the road.  They take what they want, when they want it, and to hell with anyone else.  It is disturbing.  It is distressing.  When they do this in the name of God, in the name of a God who is, instead, all about love and caring and kindness, it takes on a demonic quality.  It is evil.
         And I find in the face of all of it, that it can be very hard to hold on to any respect for humanity.  I do not understand how we can be so unkind to our own (and they are ALL our own: brothers and sisters whom we are called to treat as such).  I do not understand the greed, the fear of others, the decision to not see other people as people.  It is devastating, it is beyond comprehension.  There are more days than not that I feel a sense of despair for our world.
         In the midst of all of this, I am trying to follow Mr. Roger's encouragement to "look towards the helpers."  But more, I am mixing this with Micah's command about loving kindness.  And while I am doing my best to act with kindness, even in the face of cruelty, I am also looking, constantly, for the ways in which others are being kind.
       Yesterday I was walking across Clayton Rd (a very busy street), and I was seeing more of this crazy driving thing.  I had a green light to walk across, but the cars turning right onto Clayton from Ygnacio did not care that a pedestrian was trying to cross with the green light.  They continued to zoom around the corner in front of me.  But eventually a truck came to the light and stopped to let me through.  I walked very quickly across so he could turn.  We both waved at one another: both of us.  I was thanking him for letting me through.  He was probably both acknowledging that and thanking me for walking quickly so he could turn.  Obviously that wave was a really small thing.  A truly small effort on both of our parts.  But it stayed with me, gave me a vision of hope.  Those tiny acts of kindness... they can mean the world.
       The more I look, the more I see.  And I am hoping that the kindnesses I see will inspire me to also be kinder in turn.  I plan to post new kindnesses, with regularity, on Facebook just to remind people of the good.  I am hoping the kindnesses of others will inspire us all to also be kinder.

On Being Left Out

Jer. 2:4-13

Luke 14:1, 7-14

There was a wonderful scene in an old Big Bang episode ( episode 20, season 8, “The fortification implementation") that went like this:

Sheldon: Do you think there comes a point in life when it stops feeling bad to be left out of things?

Amy: Probably not. It’s an evolutionary advantage to be included in group activities.

Sheldon: You know what? I used to be a fan of evolution, but I’ve since evolved, and now I think it’s dumb.

Amy: Being left out is a terrible feeling. No one understands that better than I do.

Sheldon: Hey, look at that. Even in your example, you’re all by yourself.

Amy: When there was a lice epidemic at my school, everybody got it except me. I tried to fool everyone by sprinkling sugar in my hair, but I just got attacked by bees.

Sheldon: I can just picture them all right now at Feynman’s house, probably discussing Schrodinger and at the same time, not discussing Schrodinger. See? They’re missing out on hilarious jokes like that.

Amy: And at the same time, not.

Sheldon: It reminds me of when my stupid brother and sister would build forts in the living room and wouldn’t let me in. I hated that so much.

Amy: You know, there’s nothing I can do about getting you invited to the symposium, but if you wanted, we could build a fort.

Sheldon: Isn’t that a little juvenile?

Amy: More juvenile than this?

Sheldon: I’ll get the blankets. You Google how to have childlike fun.

       I love what Amy says in this scene, because I don’t think it does matter how old we get.  Being left out feels bad.  And while we consider it childish to feel that way, I don’t actually think it is.  I think it’s very human.  I think that all of us can probably recall a time when we felt left out. Probably many of us can recall a recent time when we felt that way.  Maybe it was friends getting together when we were not invited.  Maybe it was a party we were not invited to.  Maybe there was a group that met once, or even regularly that we were never invited to join.  Maybe there was a time when you were invited but somehow felt like a third wheel.  Maybe there was someone you really valued who had a close inner circle that you just couldn’t seem to break into.  Whatever the situation, I think there are times for all of us that we have felt or do feel left out.  And it never feels good.  No matter how old we get, no matter how much wisdom we gain through our lives, no matter what we tell ourselves: “They’ve been friends much longer,” “Why would I want to be friends with someone who doesn’t want to be friends with me?”  “You can’t please all the people all the time,”… it still hurts when we feel unloved, uncared for, unimportant, and unvalued.

But as bad as it feels, for all of us, to be left out, I think we also like the times when we can be with our own small groups, which means we are also, probably all of us, at times, guilty of leaving others out.  It doesn’t matter that we know how it feels to be on the receiving end of this.  We still do it in a variety of settings.  We justify this in all kinds of ways.  “Well, isn’t it right and important to have time with friends?”  “Don’t we all need safe places and people that we deeply connect with that we spend time with?”  “I’m not going to be my best in the world if I don’t have the love and support of my inner community.” 

All of these reasons sound good.  They all make sense.  We, as humans, do need support from one another, we do need relationships that heal us and nurture us.  We need to have friends or family that we are especially close to.  And yet, we come to today’s scripture reading, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.  Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

What Jesus is actually confronting here is a practice of posturing for position.  The first part of the passage I read you today is connected to the second part: he challenging both the vying for important seats at a hosts table and the inviting of only certain guests because both were a way of claiming one’s status, claiming one’s position.  We know there are people who still do this.  There are still people striving hard to climb the social ladder who work to connect with and associate only with those of a “higher” class or social standing than themselves.  They don’t want to be seen with their old associates for fear of being categorized with them.  The “nouveau riche” work hard, often, to be accepted by “old money” into that clan of upper class, but it is other people as well.  Still, I don’t believe this tends to be a middle class issue as much.  Still, while we don’t focus on social standing in the same way, and I don’t think anyone here is guilty of inviting those they see as “above themselves” for the purpose of raising their social position, none the less, we still are challenged by this passage to avoid isolating or secluding ourselves within our own groups, economically, socially, and in terms of our own friend groups.  We are called to expand our group of influence and association beyond those with whom we are the most comfortable, who keep us easy and who can just be supports and serve us as we serve them.  We are called to associate more with those with whom the relationship will be more one-sided: we will be doing more of the giving and caring, we will be offering what cannot be returned.  We are called to not only care for them at a distance, but to invite them in: to dine with them, to have them at our parties and our gatherings.  And none of us are comfortable with this.  We just aren’t.  We want those around us, especially those we invite into our homes, to have something in common with us, to be people we like.  And we want to be happy and comfortable in our social settings.

When my children were little I joined a local mothers group which divided us into playgroups with women who had babies the same age.  I loved my little playgroup.  When Middle was born, I tried to join another one that had new babies the same age as his.  One I attended kicked me out after the first time because, “well, all the rest of us are first time mothers.  That’s different!”  Obviously, this still smarts a little.  I tend to remember, as most of us no-doubt do,  the times of being left out more than the times of leaving out, and yet I know I am equally guilty of the latter.

While in Cleveland I was part of a wonderful Lectionary group.  We were 12 pastors, all tending to be very like-minded, who gathered on a weekly basis to discuss the scripture readings for the following week, to plan our sermons.  We also ate together, prayed together, supported one another through whatever was going on in each of our lives.  I was and am deeply grateful for that group.  They saw me through very hard times and were really a “house church” in the truest sense of the word in terms of the support, the community building, the fellowship and friendship.  But joining this group was by invitation only.  I understood why it was set up that way: again, we were a safe place in large part because we were like-minded in our reading of scripture and our understanding of God’s call for our lives.  At the same time, I struggled with this aspect of the group.  I mean we were pastors, after all – called to follow scriptures like this one that encourage much greater openness and inclusion.  If others had come, well, yes, the group would have changed.  But perhaps it would have become something equally good, though different.  Perhaps we would have had more learning and more growth by being with people of a different mind-set, a different leaning.  Perhaps it would have become a place where we practiced loving those who are different from ourselves.  Again, it would have meant change.  And change is uncomfortable.  But that is what Jesus calls us to do: to expand, to include, and to stop putting up walls that decide who is in and who is out, even at the basic level of who we invite to dinner and who we don’t. 

It’s not just that we want to be comfortable and attractive in our homes and with our friends, we do this in subtle and not so subtle ways even in our churches.  In one of the congregations I served, one of our less “acceptable” members wanted to be a greeter.  She had problems with cleanliness, not bathing often enough she smelled a bit, her hair looked unkept.  She also had problems socially – always standing a little too close, sharing too much, laughing too loud, saying inappropriate things.  But she was very friendly, very outgoing, she really cared about others, and she really wanted to be a greeter.  Several people in my church were afraid that would make us unattractive.  They worried that it would send the wrong message to have someone like that in such a position; that if we allowed this young woman to be a greeter, that the “right people” might not come or want to join the church. While I understood that thinking, I believe this passage attacks that pretty directly.  The “right people” to have in one’s church are people exactly like her: those others don’t want to include, those who don’t “fit in”, those we are called most deeply and fully to welcome, accept, and love.

We exclude in subtle ways too.  We talk over people who talk too much.  We don’t look at people we don’t like or want around us.  We shout down those who say things that make us uneasy.  We are all guilty in one way or another.

In the kingdom of God, the outcasts are equal, or superiors because after all, “the first shall be last,” to those who are more comfortable, who have more money, who succeed more easily, who are socially adept.  Those people who are “not like us” and who make us uneasy sit at the table with us and they eat with us.  Our enemies are the very people we are expected to spend our time with, and the ones we look down on are those we will be feeding.  But we are called to begin this now, in this place, this day.

I look at my Youngest.  She has not yet learned to exclude in this way.  She has a solid friend group at school, but she also has a person in that friend group who is always inviting new people to come and eat lunch with them, to join them.  This particular group of friends seems to delight in welcoming, in including, those who might otherwise be lost at school.  The kids invited seem mostly to be youth who were not part of this school district or school system before: new kids who are searching for their place.  But occasionally they invite someone in who is just awkward and struggles to find acceptance elsewhere.  This wonderful group of friends welcomes these new kids with open arms, with excitement.  They have not learned to exclude.  And in their actions I learn how to be better myself.

I came across a poem I would like to share with you:

(Tattoos of the Heart: p 17)

With That Moon Language

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them,

 “Love me”. 

Of course you do not do this out loud:

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops. 

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us to connect. 

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying

With that sweet moon

Language

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to

Hear. 

- Hafez

               My challenge for all of us this week is to look more closely at the ways in which we leave others out.  And to take the challenge to invite others to join.  When you next have a gathering, invite one or two people you don’t normally invite.  When you go out to lunch next time, think of including someone you wouldn’t normally include.  When you have a party, try to invite someone you know would like to be invited that you really aren’t as comfortable with.  Think about those who might be feeling left out.  See if there is anyone who is needing a friend and choose to seek them out.  Take the chance of reaching out to someone different.  Draw your circles of inclusion in all things a little wider.  And see what gifts come back to you.  Amen.

Mary and Martha

Amos 8:1-12

Luke 10:38-42

            As I reflected on the story of Mary and Martha, a short vignette came to my mind.  There was a man who visited a farm one day slightly before thanksgiving.  He was watching the farmer, whose job it was to dispatch a turkey for thanksgiving.  Sure enough he chopped off the turkey’s head.  And as we’ve heard sometimes happens with chickens, the head-less turkey took off running around the yard.  “You see,” said the farmer, “activity is not a sure sign of life.”

Activity is not a sure sign of life.

            But we tend to think that it is, don’t we?  I was walking with a good friend the other day and we exchanged the usual conversation that we almost always have when we meet, every couple months or so.  “How are you?” she asks.

“Busy,” I answered.  And then I returned the question, “How are you?”

“Also busy,” she answered.  And then she paused.  “Why is it that if we answer any other way, we somehow feel we have failed?  Why is it that we have to prove our worthiness and our work ethic and even our label as ‘good person’ by being so busy we don’t have time to walk with a friend except once every few months?” 

There’s truth in this. Far too much truth for comfort.  My own life is work and kids, work and kids.  I now have a walk scheduled in for every other Thursday morning.  But I do it in such a way that it is part of my job: the “hiking group” that we have here: a time to connect with parishioners makes it acceptable for me to walk. 

While I tend to think this work-mania is worse now that it was in the time of Mary and Martha (though honestly, whose to say?), I think another big part of the issue here is that Martha feels she is taking the higher road.  She is doing what is expected of her. She is, no doubt, getting food ready to feed their guest, she is taking care of the work of the house, being a good hostess.  And yet Mary is the one reaping the benefits.  Martha is doing what must be done.  And yet Mary is getting to sit and listen and learn and just BE with her friend, her teacher, her Jesus.  Martha is outraged by it.  Why should Mary, who is not following the rules as we know them, not allowing herself to be defined by how active and busy and productive she is, not doing what is needed by the household and by the rules of propriety, why should she actually be gaining, be benefitting, be thriving in her scandalous behavior? 

And Jesus?  Well, he does not give Martha what she is hoping for.  He does NOT lift her up and praise her for the work she is doing.  He does not correct Mary for her choice to sit and listen rather than work.  He does not support what everyone knows to be the rules of good manners and good behavior then and now.  Instead he says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  Outrageous!  Frustrating!  UNFAIR.

I understand this.  I think about people I know personally who have what I call enchanted lives.  One in particular is very comfortable, has no need to work, and takes full advantage of that to do whatever he wants to do.  He has a lovely house, a cute zippy little car.  While fairly young, he does not have to work because he was born into privilege.  He does take the time to sit and listen, to walk, to be with people he cares about.  And there are times when I find myself very envious of his situation.  There are moments when, like Martha, I want to shout, “It’s not fair!  Make him do his part!  Tell him to help!”  I am truly grateful for the work I have and the privilege of raising my beautiful children, and the depth of the relationships that I have with them.  In my better moments, I know I would not trade my life of busy and crazy with anyone else's.  But there are moments when I also recognize that he too has been given a gift: the gift of time, and space; he has time to listen and reflect, to choose what he does, to step forward into a new life, a life without responsibility, a life of freedom.  And there are moments of recognition on my part that the gift in that is something I, too, should embrace, and in fact could embrace, with more frequency and more intention. 

Mary, we are told, has chosen the better part.  She has put aside the requirements and responsibilities of daily living in order to be in the moment with Jesus.  She has put aside the busyness of expectations and demands on her time, and has instead chosen to sit and learn and listen.  She has chosen to be alive in the moment, rather than running around, headless, without meaning or true life. 

How often do we pause, do we take the time to just take time?  How often do we say, “No, I’m not going to do whatever the world believes I need to be doing in this moment.  Instead I’m going to just BE, rather than DO?”

In talking with my eldest daughter about this, she has shared with me that, as she is a quieter person, that the business and activity of her fellow students makes her feel that she is somehow failing.  She has already learned to measure her worth by busyness.  Which is unfair, both to her, and to the other students who have forgotten how to find the time to simply BE.  She has much to teach them by her quieter stance.  But what she has to give is harder to learn.

I used to think that retired people were better at this, but as I’ve watched many of the schedules of my retired friends, I no longer believe this to be the case.  We all struggle with this.  Maybe in part because we feel that we aren’t doing anything by just Being.

But science actually tells us something different.  It’s not intuitive, it’s hard to understand.  But science tells us that observing, watching, just BEING changes everything around us.  As an article in Science Daily (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm) said it, “Strange as it may sound, interference can only occur when no one is watching. Once an observer begins to watch the particles going through the openings, the picture changes dramatically: if a particle can be seen going through one opening, then it's clear it didn't go through another. In other words, when under observation, electrons are being "forced" to behave like particles and not like waves. Thus the mere act of observation affects the experimental findings.”  If this is the case at the quantum level, think how much more true this is at a grand scale level.  When we take the time to look, to see, to observe, to notice, to hear one another, to listen, to learn, to reflect, the world around us is affected.  It is changed.  It is often when we do the least, that we do the most.

I think about the trees that surround us.  They are not “active” and yet, they produce the very air that we breathe.  And their ability to stand, quiet, still, silent, can have a profound effect on all of us when we actually take the time to be in the forest, with the trees. 

There is a wonderful book called Touching Spirit Bear, by Ben Mikaelsen (New York: Harper Collins Pub., 2001) about a young juvenile delinquent who is dealt with using restorative justice practices rather than retributive justice.  What this means is that instead of incarcerating and hardening the boy to become a life-long criminal, the community came together, including those hurt by his crimes and decided together that instead of incarceration, he would first make amends, and then spend a period of time alone on a secluded island, with occasional help from wise officers, working through his past in order to make new decisions about his future.  I won’t ruin the story for you by telling you all of his experiences.  But I would like to share with you a segment of his story.  He has had a bear encounter that ended very badly, but now he is searching out that bear, trying to restore and reconcile what has happened to him since his time there.  He calls the bear “spirit bear”.  The story continues with Cole, the boy reflecting…

“… what happened to people in their frantic worlds of noise and hectic rushing?  How much of the world did people miss because they were not calm enough, empty enough, to experience it?...When dawn finally arrived, he hiked to the opening of the bay… As he walked he focused on the patterns around him.  The lapping waves came as regularly as deep breaths, the light drizzle roughed the water’s surface, clouds hung low as fog, and thousands of smooth worn rocks lined the timeless shoreline like a ghost highway that disappeared into the mist.  Cole felt a part of the pattern as he meandered alng the shore.  When he reached the point, he picked a natural saddle between two rocks and sat down.  He focused his gaze on a small whit erock near the water’s edge and breathed in deeply.  To see the [] Bear, he needed to clear his mind and become invisible, not to the world but to himself.  He left his hood down to let his head and senses remain exposed to the air.  The cool drizzle soaked his hair, and soon droplets of water dripped off his forehead onto his cheeks.  When he closed his eyes, the droplets felt warm on his face.  At first they felt like his own tears of anger and fear.  Then he breathed more deeply, feeling the rhythm of the world around him, an endless rhythm where time disappeared.  As the past, present, and future became one, the droplets on Cole’s cheeks dripped to the ground, melting into the landscape to which they belonged.  When he opened his eyes once again, it was as if he were waking from a deep sleep.  Far down the shoreline, where the rocks disappeared into the folding mist, a white object had appeared.  At the place where things visible faded into not-being, there stood the [] Bear, as clear as if it were standing only feet away.  The bear gazed patiently.  As Cole stared back with the same patience, all time, even the present, ceased to exist.  He no longer thought of himself as Cole Matthews, a juvenile delinquent from Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Instead he was part of the landscape, without a beginning or end. …(p189-191).

             I think about my own moments of being so completely in the present that the amazing happens.  Or maybe it’s not the amazing that is happening, but the ordinary that I’m finally seeing.  As you may or may not know, one of the things that gives me the most sense of life is walking, is being outside with nature and with the beauty that God has made.  A few weeks ago I was sitting by myself outside for a few minutes, just breathing in the depth of the air around me and listening to the world.  Just for a moment I was still.  Suddenly a dragon fly came out of nowhere and landed on my knee.  It was facing me, looking up into my face.  I have never before been so close to a dragonfly.  But I looked into its face as it looked into mine.  It squatted down: that’s the only way to describe it.  It had been up on its legs and it kind of bent down, tipped it’s head and looked at me again.  I didn’t want to breathe.  But I did breathe.  And together we sat looking at one another in wonder.  It must have been a full minute.  But suddenly the world around me was back in my mind.  And I went from being present in that moment to wanting to take the dragonfly’s picture, to share the moment with my family and friends.  I went from being present with the moment, to being in the future and into what I should “do” with that moment that was given to me.  The moment my thinking shifted from being there with the dragonfly to thinking about sharing it in the future, the dragonfly spread his wings and left.  Before I had even moved, but the moment my attention became divided, the dragonfly left. And I was the one who was no longer blessed by that special time. 

            Yes, we have much to do in this life. We have responsibilities that need to be done, people who need our care and our attention.  We need to do the things of daily living and not shirk our responsibilities to ourselves, our families, our communities and the world.  But we are also called to sit at the feet of Jesus and to listen; to be present to this glorious, beautiful, amazing world that we have been privileged to experience.  We are called to take it in, to be fed and nurtured by it, so that we CAN do the work of the church in the world, loving, giving, working towards justice.  We are called to eat and drink of the bread of life, to allow the gifts of God to build us up so that we can enter the world with strength, with wholeness, with grace. 

            There will be times of being Martha.  But let us not be so consumed by them that we also miss the times of being Mary.  For they are the “better part”.  And they are an invitation to us to live with fullness.  Amen.

What I would want if I were King.

           I don't know what happens after we die.  I've said this before.  My faith is not about "heaven insurance" and I don't find much in scripture, certainly nothing Jesus says, that I think gives any kind of actual clear image concerning an afterlife.  From a scientific perspective, nothing is created or lost: so my inclination is to believe the same is true of "souls," whatever that may be: and so I tend to think there is some kind of continuance.  But I won't try to imagine what that is for you or for me.
          That being said, I know what I'd like heaven to be... or afterlife, or whatever you want to call it.  While I'm not really a vengeful person, while I don't believe in violence as a solution or revenge scenarios, while I don't even think our retributive justice system with its "punishment" philosophy actually improves anything or makes people "learn their lessons" or even inhibits others from misbehaving, while I cannot accept that "an eye for an eye" is in any way a good idea (and as we know it certainly isn't a Godly one, as Jesus said again and again), there is a part of me that dreams of heaven as a place where people finally see what their actions have done.  I want people, especially those in power, to really understand and see at a deep level how self-serving and therefore how dreadfully attacking, unkind and abusive their decisions have been.  I want them to see that those they have vilified are in fact their brothers and sisters, people like themselves, who are equally loved, valued and cherished by God.  I want them to understand that to be unkind, to restrict access to needed things, good things, life-giving things for anyone is to injure everyone, including themselves.  I want everyone to have the eyes of God who loves us all with a ferocity that defies every way in which we see the world.  I want us to finally and fully comprehend that denying others a safe place to live, enough to eat, good education and health care, community, connection, compassion - is to be cruel and restrictive to God-self; that to build walls that keep others out is to separate ourselves from God in those other people, and to look with eyes of hate on anyone else is to hate God.  I want people to get that when we use and abuse the earth, we are using and abusing our mother, our creator, our core, our ultimate being.  And I want people to fully comprehend, from a deep place, that nothing that we have is "ours" - all of it is put in our stewardship to use for the good of all creation.  This is what I want.  I want this so badly that I lie awake at night envisioning the conversations between God and those who abuse their power and in the process end up killing and destroying people and the earth.  I don't want suffering: I imagine a God who is so full of compassion that She/He/They understand exactly why another can't see in this life-time.  My God has grace and love even for those who have harmed others.  But I do want everyone to see, to know, to have clarity around the choices they've made that have harmed and hurt.  That is my idea of "heaven" - a place of ultimate accountability in the sense of facing the vilification of others, the unjust fears that cause us to act without compassion or love in any situation and which continue to cause rifts that divide, destroy and will ultimately end life on this planet in one way or another.  I want people to see.  And I want it with every atom in my body.
            But the other day, my thinking around this moved a bit.  I believe deeply that God has given each of us free will.  I believe we are called to be in genuine relationship with God, and that means God will not, indeed cannot, control our thinking, control our actions, control what we see or fail to see, what we choose to believe or fail to believe.  I believe that God has given us this free will because God wants genuine relationships with us.  If our thinking/feeling/understanding is controlled by God, then the relationship is not genuine.  Instead we are puppets, controlled and manipulated and played.  I don't experience God this way.  Instead, I experience a God who really cares about each of us as we are, and who wants to know us as the people we choose to be.  I believe that is what the story about Adam and Eve is about: the choice that they made in the story to go against the wishes of God, while not what God desired, was none the less a choice they were given to make.  We continue to have the choice of exercising that free will.
          It suddenly occurred to me that this is a free will given for all time.  God always chooses relationship: that is the nature of God.  And that means we always have free will.  Therefore, even when the truth is right in front of us (and isn't that the case now?) some people can still choose not to see it, not to embrace it, not to accept it, and not to have it influence them.  It doesn't matter if it is in this life or in an afterlife.  This remains true.  This WILL remain true.
         I hate this.
         The visions or daydreams I have had about days of reckoning, especially for our leaders, suddenly expanded to hearing their response when faced with truth.
         God, "Do you see?  These people you are keeping 'out' - they are your brothers and sisters seeking asylum, seeking safety and life for their children.  They should be embraced, and helped, and healed."
        National leader: "No!  They are a threat."
        God: "They are not a threat.  They work hard, they struggle to survive.  They can expand and deepen your life.  Just like you (indeed for they ARE you, as we are all one another, all connected), they are simply trying to do the best for their children. They are my children too and I call you to love them as you love yourself.  Think of what they go through to try to get here.  They don't do this because they are fine where they are.  They are doing it to try to live, to try to create a life for their kids that is safe."
        NL: "No!  I hate them.  I don't want them.  They are not my brothers and sisters. They are trying to take what is MINE. I do not want them here.  They will change my world and I don't want my world changed."
        God: "It is not yours.  It's all mine, put into your hands to share for the good of all."
       NL:  "No.  I made this happen.  This is mine.  I worked for this.  Or you gave it to me for my own use because I am better.  I deserve this.  I will not share.  I will protect what is mine at whatever cost to anyone else."
        God: "Even at the cost to your children and grandchildren?  What you are doing is destroying the earth."
       NL: "No.  It's not my fault and it's not my responsibility."
        And so the conversation continued...
        Every day I am broken hearted by what I see.  Every day I am astounded that anyone could ever think that the separating of children from parents, that the killing of children by neglect and dehydration, that the hatred we send to people of different colors, backgrounds, languages, faith traditions, sexual orientations and places of birth... that we could ever think any of that is somehow okay with God.  Every day I weep from what I witness and strive to find a way to walk differently in a world that is increasingly accepting of hate, division and apathy towards others.  Each summer I am more and more frightened by the changes I experience in the climate, in our environment, in our world and I struggle to understand why some people continue to bury their heads in the sand and to live in such fear of the truth that they deny it altogether.  I want that to change.  I am aware that I am not doing enough to make the changes.  And yet I do not see the way forward into change.  I do not know what I am to do except to continue to speak, to learn as much as I can, and to share both what I know and what I experience, both as a human and as a person of faith.
         But this week I have had to give up on my own "revenge fantasies" of people simply seeing truth.  I have had to give that up as I've come to realize that those who do not want to see won't.  And those unable to self-reflect won't.  And those who do not want to own our part in the suffering of the world and our responsibility to help and to heal, will continue to grab what they can for themselves and will not see the bigger picture of our connection to everyone else and our need to care for them as if they were our own, because they are.  We belong to one another.  If we don't all work together, we will all perish together.  But I came to realize at a deeper level that this is the path that we are on...
        And my heart aches, and I weep.
        I am weary with the efforts, and I have had to let go of much of the hope...

        And then, after writing the above, I talked to my eldest daughter.  She struggles too.  She is my daughter in many senses of the word, and one of those has to do with her level of grief when she loses those she loves, and the depth of her anxiety when she faces change.  This, my girl, who struggles in many ways more than I ever have; who is afraid to return to school, afraid to see those places where friends she loved who have now graduated once walked, afraid to step forward into the new - I spoke with her.  I shared with her some of my fears and my concerns.  And in that place of pain and struggle, she still had the ability to say to me, "No one is beyond redemption.  We all learn and see and hear in different ways.  Different things cause us to grow and learn and move.  But God knows us fully.  And God knows what will help us to see.  We will all see.  All of us.  Including you and I: we will see our blind spots too.  And we will be shown those with grace and compassion and in the way that we can best hear and see.  There is hope.  Maybe not in this life, but there is hope."
        And so I wept again: this time with gratitude for my girl, for her vision, for her love, for her wisdom.  I saw with new eyes.  And what I saw was very good.

Not Peace, but a Sword

Hebrew 11:29-12:2

Luke 12:49-56

            This passage from Luke is a hard one, I believe, for us to understand.  In so many ways, in so many of our scriptures, we hear words promoting peace, promoting love, promoting a care that is full of grace and compassion and acceptance and nurture.  In the beginning of Luke’s gospel, Jesus, we are told has come to “guide our feet into the way of peace.”  When he appears at the end of the gospel, a risen Christ, he offers peace again, “my peace I leave you, my peace I give you.”  He tells parables of reconciliation such as the parable of the prodigal son, and he told his disciples to bring greetings of peace when they went to share the good news.  He brings healing, which is a physical manifestation of peace, and he offers forgiveness which bring the soul peace. 

But then we come to today’s passage.  And instead Jesus says, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”  It’s hard to understand. 

Not only is this passage hard to understand, it’s also dangerous when misinterpreted.  This passage has been used by Christians of a more fundamentalist nature to justify the cutting off of children who are different than we expect them to be (such as LGBTQ children), disengaging from family with whom we disagree, and separating ourselves into “us” and “them”.  It has been used to isolate and alienate and create divisions without bridges, without words of understanding or ears to hear.  It has been misused to justify failing to work on relationships where there is controversy or conflict.  It has been misused to give excuses for simply ending relationships rather than doing the hard work of listening, sharing and rebuilding.

            But that is not what this passage is about.

            First of all, I believe this to be another example of a passage that is descriptive rather than prescriptive.  It describes a reality, rather than proclaiming that this is the way we are called to be.  But it describes a reality that accompanies a faith that is genuine and true and active.  That reality is that when you set your heart and mind on following a Christ who stands up for the oppressed, who is not afraid to confront the authority figures of the day (the scribes and pharisees, the money changers in the temple), who speaks TRUTH in the face of injustice, division will be created.  It will.  This is not because we are seeking division, but because speaking truth to authority, upsetting the status quo, demanding justice for those who are being harmed, will cause conflict and division.  We’ve seem this throughout history.  Those people in this country who stood up during the civil rights movement.  The women who fought for suffrage and the right to vote.  Family members creating an intervention for someone with addiction issues.  And now: with all the people standing up against the inhumane treatment of the children at the border.  The people doing God’s will, the people saying “No!  We will not tolerate this inability to treat one another with love.  We will not put up with the inhumane treatment of our brothers and sisters.  We will not allow this kind of cruelty to continue, a cruelty that fails to remember that we are connected, that we are all one, that when one of us hurts, all of us are lessened.”  When people say this, when people stand up for those who have little voice, when people reclaim basic human rights for ALL people – this causes division, it causes strife, it causes disruption.  It is a knife between peoples: between those who are seeking what is good only for themselves and their families, and those who get, as Jesus taught us to get, that there are not people who are more deserving or have more right to the good things that others have.  This sword, this division, is a necessary part of justice.  I wish it weren’t but it is.  And Jesus is clear about that.  If we want to follow Jesus, conflict will occur, divisions will occur.  And we are still called to follow.

            Sojourner’s Magazine had a very interesting article this week in which Melissa Florer-Bixler wrote, “"We wrongly assume we should not have enemies, but the expectation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we will have enemies. We know this because Jesus gives us a command to love our enemies. And in order to love your enemies, you first have to know who they are. Enemies are not the people we dislike or those who are different from us. In the gospel, enemies are those who make camp on the far side of the line that is justice.  And God is beckoning us – ALL of us – to join God among the oppressed.”  She goes on to explain that yes, we are called to love our enemies.  But loving them, true loving and caring about them is “to call them out of the world of denial and oppression, of despots and executioners.  To love your enemies is to help them see the truth about themselves and show them something else is possible.  To love your enemies is to tell them the story of how once we too were enemies of God and that through the lvoe of God who lived, died and rose among us, we are now called friends.  We have enemies because we hope that one day we might call them friends…. To turn from enemies to friends means our lives must change.”

            Again, this is what it means to be people following on the way.  And it is not pretty.  It is not easy. And it does not happen without confrontation and division. 

Frankly, even reconciliation will bring division.  As Audrey West says in Feasting on the Word commentary, “A ministry that reconciles long-standing enemies will inevitably rend relationships that depend on the old status quo.”  She goes on to point out that even in the story of the prodigal son, while the father and younger son had a healed and reconciled relationship, that reconciliation caused a new division between the father and the elder son.  She continues, “Humankind does not always appreciate the gospel's great reversals. We do not like it when those we deem undeserving receive the abundant grace promised to all. We want others to be punished for their sin, while we expect to be welcomed into the heavenly home (nobody expects to see their enemies in heaven!). Jealousy, anger, desire for revenge, resistance to change: these can consume us in the face of the gospel, to the point that we find ourselves antagonists against those whom Jesus welcomes.

“Jesus' teaching also speaks to the reality of a kinship based not on familial blood ties, but on a covenant of Jesus' blood (22:20). Even among his own people, where he is known as "Joseph's son" (4:22), Jesus becomes an outsider when he announces his mission from God. And when his own mother and brothers try to get close to him, he redefines the familial ties that bind his true family to him: "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it" (8:21). What ties believers together is not the covenant of lineage but the covenant of blood, poured out for those who find fellowship in the family of God.”  (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16).)

            It is when we are actually following in the way of Christ that divisions begin, not because we are seeking division but because we are seeking goodness, grace, justice, which will upset the status quo.  It will unbalance the mobile that we’ve come to understand and accept, especially when it has benefitted and served us.  It will not be pretty when the work of the gospel begins, it will not be smooth, it will not be easy.  It will require change, from all of us, and it will demand the best of us to challenge the worst that arises in response. 

            Jesus specifically describes this “division that will come” as a division within families. And this is a reminder to all of us that the “family of God” is not biological.  It includes everyone.  And when we try to protect what is “ours” for “our family” we miss the point.  All of it is God’s, and it is put in our care so that we might be stewards of the resources that come our way, using them for the good of everyone: EVERYONE.  The new family of God will not look like everyone looking out for their own.  It will look like us taking very seriously the call to see that homeless man as our brother, to see that undocumented child as our own child, to see the prostitute and drug addict as our sister, to see the person in prison as our spouse.  And it will mean that we provide the same care for them as we would if they really were our family member because in the new kingdom of God, in the NOW, in the following of Christ, that is exactly what they are.

            In the book Tattoos on the Heart, Father Boyle talks about the upset that some of the older church members experienced when his congregation really took on caring for the poor, for the homeless, and for gangs.  He says,

It was about this time what a man drove by the church and stopped to talk to me.  He was Latino, in a nice car and had arrived at some comfortable life and living.  He knew I was the pastor  He waxed nostalgic about having grown up in the projects and pointed to the church and said he had been baptized and made his first communion there.  Then he takes in the scene all around him.  Gang members gathered by the bell tower, homeless men and women being fed in great numbers in the parking lot.  Folks arriving for the AA and NA meetings and the ESL classes.  It’s a “Who’s Who of Everybody Who Was Nobody.  Gang member, drug addict, homeless, undocumented.  This man sees all this and shakes his head, determined and disgusted, as if to say, “tsk tsk.”

            “You know,” he says, “This used to be a church.”

            I mount my high horse and say, “You know, most people around here think it’s finally a church.” (p73)

            That’s what the gospel looks like.  It offers grace and comfort to those who are afflicted.  And we like talking about that.  We are comfortable talking about that.  This is important.  And if you are suffering, which all of us are in some way, know that the love and compassion of Christ is with you, offering comfort, presence, love, grace and healing.  But the other side of this is that the gospel also offers affliction to those who are comfortable.  Doing the work of Christ is not and will not be easy.  It does not come without cost, and sometimes the cost is relationships with those we love the most.  We know this.  We know as we struggle to get along in an increasingly divided time how hard it is to listen and speak truth in a way that maintains relationships.  We know that as much as we try, if we do the work of Christ we put at risk for people the comfort of their current lives and that challenge costs us at times.  The cost for God-self, for Christ, for Jesus, in his speaking truth and in his standing up for the defenseless, and for his healing of people and confronting the status quo: that cost was death: a death on a cross in a most awful and gruesome way.  And yet, he stepped into that life, with conviction, with strength, because God’s love for us was so great, Jesus’ love for all was so big, that being that Truth, being that Way of unconditional love and strength: these were things he was not willing to sacrifice to make nice or to get along with everyone, or even to keep his life.  He calls us to be willing to follow in the same way.  Again, not easy.  Not pain-free.  Not comfortable.  There is no room for “prosperity gospel” thinking here.  Following Christ is hard.  It is simple, but it is hard.

            So where is the Good News in this?  The good news is that there is peace at the end.  But as Bonhoeffer said it, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.”  The good news is also that when we choose to do what Jesus calls us to do, when we choose to stand up for those who are voiceless, those who are weaker, those who are suffering, that is when we find true peace within our own hearts.  It is truly the “peace that surpasses understanding.” And part of why it passes understanding is that it comes in the midst of the divisions that action causes.

            It is difficult for us to hear passages like today.  I understand that.  God understands that.  But God is not only about grace.  God calls us into a life of radical and complete love.  That means speaking truth, it means acting for the best for everyone.  It means caring about those we would rather not speak to.  It means being willing to give some things up, to step forward into a life of stewardship, sharing, caring that confronts injustices and brings wholeness to all people.  This isn’t easy.  But God wants us to be the most whole, the best we are and the best we can be. For our sake, as well as for the sake of all we encounter.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Returning from the Mountain Top

            We've all had those mountain top times in which we experience something beyond "good," beyond what we expect, beyond what we even imagine.  We've all had those rare but beautiful times when it feels that our lives have been, for a moment, in a "thin" place, a place where the "veil between heaven and earth" or rather, the separation between what is true and good and profound from what is mundane and daily and "life" simply thins out.  These are times when we glimpse what is important, what is real at a whole other level, when we touch the Divine in a way that brings tears to our eyes, changes our breathing, affects our whole perspective on our lives and for a moment feels that it will never let us go back to what we once were.
          The transfiguration story was such a moment.  The disciples were given a vision: they saw Jesus transformed and Moses and Elijah appeared and were speaking with Jesus on a mountain top.  Their response was to say "let us build three shelters here for the three of you!"  They did not want the experience to simply be over: they did not want the vision to end.  It needed to be marked, somehow, with something special and concrete, something that was not the vision but was tangible.  They wanted a way to stay in the moment, or to at least a doorway to be able to return to it.
          Again, this is familiar.  When we have those moments, those "mountain top experiences", those highs, we want to mark them, to make them concrete.  We want to be permanently changed by the experiences in a way that lets the world know what has happened, that shares it.  We want to be able to return to that place within and without where we touched something beyond ourselves.  Given the chance, we would never leave.
       But that is not what happens.  We do leave the mountain top.  We have to descend back into the daily hum drum of life.  We have our routines, we have people who need us, we have our work and our household chores and our relationships.  All of these require attention that bring us back from those highs and push us to return to who we were, at least in the day to day scheme of things.
        In light of this, how do we hold on to a piece of what we experienced?  How do we allow those highs to change us, affect us, make in us something new?
         For the last two weeks, David and I had the incredible privilege and joy of being able to go to Scotland for a belated honeymoon.  I will not make this into a travel log post, though at some point I may write one.  What I will say is that it was wonderful.  We were able to see many Scottish beauties and to participate in many interesting events.  We travelled mostly around to the islands off the mainland of Scotland and stayed, most of the time, in smaller villages.  We saw castles and estates and standing stones, the National Piping Center, a sheepdog demonstration, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.  We experienced a traditional Scottish meal with entertainment of singing and performing.  We travelled with two different tours, met very interesting people, heard much about Scottish history and Scottish culture, heard traditional and new Scottish music, saw the bagpipes play many times, and connected with people in meaningful and wonderful ways.
        But to say all of that is to miss out on the depth of the experience, at least for me.  The depth of the experience connected for me much more to things like the weather (which was wonderful for us), and the incredible beauty of the highlands and the gardens and nature.  It was about being in places that meant something to David and I - a cemetery with the names of family for David, and Iona with all that it represents in terms of faith and spirituality for me.  It was about walking and smelling the smells of Scotland, breathing in the air of history and story and deep connection.  It was a beautiful, meaningful and wonderful couple of weeks.  To talk about it at all feels like cheapening and lessening the experience somehow... moving it out of the realm of the magical and spiritual, and into the realm of a vacation or a trip, a fun time that we were given, in order to celebrate our marriage.
       I've returned then wondering how to share, what to say, and how to communicate in any way what we experienced.  I've returned wondering if the time away can be allowed to change me for the better, and if so, what that looks like and why.  I've returned with more questions than I had before I left, more unresolved wonderings, and a stronger sense of the restlessness that my life produces in me regularly.
       And as I've sat with this mountain top experience, I think my response to it has to, as ever, begin with simple gratitude: gratitude for the time, gratitude for the space, and gratitude for the experiences. I think it is that gratitude that must deepen as I reflect on what lessons I will carry from that time away.  I also hope it will help me to remember when I am struggling or feeling low that life comes with ebbs and flows, highs and lows.  I've had extremes at both ends.  But that, too, just invites fuller living and a deeper sense of possibility within me for growing, seeing, becoming what I hope to be.  I do not know where all of this will take me.  But perhaps the "high", the "mountain top" is just a new beginning, and an invitation to see where my next steps will lead, both within and without.  It is an opening up of the spirit so that what is deep and real may blow inside my being with each new breath.  I will write more as I learn.  But for today, I sit in the gratitude and am thankful for the space to remember, to reflect, and to breath in experiences of joy, light, and love.
     Thanks be to God!