Disagreements and Conflicts

5/10/20

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Mark 12:1-17

It is not easy being a person of faith in this time.  I would say this is the case in many different ways.  We hear about Christians being judgmental, we hear about Christians being really stupid.  We hear about Christians doing really dumb things, and personally, I find myself embarrassed by many of the other people of faith who call themselves Christians.  For example, you’ve probably all heard about the pastors in California who sued the governor for his “shelter in place” ruling because they feel this restricts their ability to worship together.  This kind of non-feeling, refusal to care for the people in their communities and the people around the world embarrasses me and makes me afraid to call myself a Christian in some places.  And this behavior is frankly just the least of the embarrassing things that people of faith have said, done, or proclaim in the name of a loving God that I find horrifying, unkind, and certainly unloving.

But the truth is that all of us, ALL of us who claim to follow Christ are in the process of becoming Christian.  What I mean is that none of us, not one, has perfectly learned yet to love God with all our hearts, soul and minds, let alone learned to love our neighbor as ourselves.  None of us has yet perfected healing one another with our listening, with our touch, with our love.  None of us remembers in every moment to thank God, and to be God’s completely faithful servant.  We are all learning to feed the hungry, love each other, see each other person as the brother or sister that they are, give beyond ourselves.  Becoming a Christian, having a relationship with God, going to church every week: no matter how far we are on our journey, none of these things makes us perfect - none of these things makes us as Christ-like as we strive to become, once and for all.  But they are all a start, a part of our journey as Christians.

We continue to strive and struggle to be loving, giving people.  As Jesus himself said, he did not come for those who are well, he came for those of us who are not yet there.  Church, faith, is not a haven for the righteous.  It is a place where people who know they are limited and that they have failings come together in mutual support, in love, in service to one another and to the greater community.  Throughout my life I have had many different people tell me that they don’t go to church because of the hypocrisy they find there.  When pushed on what that means, they tell me that the people they met in church were like everyone else.  They weren’t better than other people.  They made mistakes, did things wrong, did not always even see that they did things wrong.  Sometimes they were unkind, sometimes they were unloving.  As a result, people stopped attending church.  I have to admit, I find this responses very confusing.  Of course, we are not better than others, and you will find unkindness and lack of love everywhere.  We are here because we are on a journey, striving to love God and one another.  We will never reach that perfection, and, truthfully, neither will they.

This struggle to be whole, this struggle to be Christ-like, this struggle to love and be in relationship with one another is not anything new for Christians of any age.  The passage we read today from 1 Corinthians addresses that. While our struggle to become Christian takes many forms, in this passage Paul is talking about the challenges Christians had at the very beginning, and that we still have,  to be in loving relationships even within our Christian community.  We hear Paul admonishing a congregation for failing to get along with one another, for fighting with each other.  Paul’s solution is simply to tell them all to agree with one another. But we know that is not so easy. Even before Paul, we see in the gospel lessons for today people of faith who were struggling with Jesus.  And Jesus is telling us parables of conflict, of anger, among people who should have been loving to one another, should have seen their dependence and connection to one another, should have shared, and been kind and loving to those sent to collect for the master.  But they couldn’t.  They didn’t.  And the same remains true for us today.

I read an article this week by Karoline Lewis in which she wrote,

“We are no strangers to the kind of division in communities of which Paul speaks -- racial, denominational, and political. And our strategies for negotiating these divisions leave much to be desired. It often comes down to choosing sides, as if the spectrum between the two poles did not exist. It would be better if we only chose sides. Instead, we choose which side we are on and then, to make ourselves feel better or justified about our decision, we proceed to suspect, demonize, and tear down the other side. But as Elias Chacour (Father Chacour is the Archbishop Emeritus of the Melkite Catholic Church for Akko, Haifa, Nazareth, and all Galilee, an advocate for non-violence, working toward reconciliation between Arabs and Jews with whom our group had a chance to meet) says, “The one who is wrong is the one who says ‘I am right.’”

We are also no strangers to the kind of division that the gospel provokes. And sometimes we forget just how divisive the gospel can be. Choosing regard over rejection, respect over diminution, love over hate, peace over conflict is not as easy as we hope it could be, as we wish it would be. It seems like it should be easy -- and that’s the problem. Why is it that we find it so difficult to make what appears to be a rather obvious choice? A choice for love? What stands in our way? What is at stake for us that we are reluctant to admit or to say out loud?”

She went on to talk about a group that she is with of Palestinians and Israelis who’ve lost loved ones in the conflict and she said one of the fathers of those who had died said this: “No wall, not matter how high, can stop two kinds of people, one determined suicide bomber and the one determined peacemaker.”  http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4249

Paul and Jesus are both calling us to be the peacemakers who cannot be stopped.  But we know from personal experience that getting along with one another is hard.

Truthfully, even hearing one another accurately is not easy.  Most of you, no doubt are familiar with the childhood game, which we called “operator” when I was a kid.  A group sits in a circle and one person whispers a message to the person on their right.  That person then passes that message on to the person on his or her right.  The message passes all around the circle until the last person finally repeats the message out loud.  It has usually become something very different from what it was originally.  As this simple child-hood game shows us, even hearing clearly the words of one another can be challenging. 

               Hearing the message within our words is even harder.  I have found myself reflecting during this time when there is more quiet for reflection, on a relationship I’ve had with someone I’ve known now for 30 years.  This is someone who simply never understands what I say to him.  I will think I am telling him the sky is beautiful and he will become offended thinking I am telling him that he is not beautiful.  I keep trying to have conversations with him, but he is always offended by what I say, and always insistent that I am being uncaring with my words.  I don’t know why my words affect him like this.  I will probably never know.  But I know that communication is just hard.  Today is mother’s day, and we know that even within our families, it can be so hard to hear and understand one another.  Communication is challenging.  We are all watching this service today because we believe in a marvelous, amazing, wonderful God who has called us to be here, whatever that looks like for you, to be on our spiritual journeys, to be in a state of prayer and praise together.  But that wonder, that gift, that awe does not mean that it suddenly becomes easy for us to really communicate, to understand one another, or to then choose to be in relationship with one another.  Our churches have struggled with understanding one another and with divisions between us from the beginning.  That continues as we move through time.

I’m also not convinced that all disagreements are bad things.  When we can be in the place of hearing the different opinions, hopes, dreams of one another, we can grow from the experience.  Without those challenges, growth is not as forthcoming.  Hearing only our own thoughts and feelings, we can fail to see the amazing places God would show us and move us.  But getting to that place where we can hear those differences and share them is not easy. 

I have to admit, even for pastors, though part of my job is to love the entire congregation and to be able to listen, hear, and support every person in a congregation who seeks that support, there have been times when this has not always been easy.  It has not always been easy for me to be in a community of very differently minded people.  And it can be especially hard when those differently minded people are very vocal about those opinions, and sometimes are unkind in the expression of those opinions, as some people in our churches tend to be.  For a year, many years ago, I served as an interim music minister in a congregation that was in a difficult place: many parishioners were elderly and dying, the congregation was very diverse in ways that brought both gifts and, in their case, much conflict into the fellowship, they were a redevelopment church that wasn’t quite ready to make the radical changes necessary to keep it alive, and they had gone through a series of challenging relationships with previous pastors and music directors.  Because of all they had been through, they did not trust others easily and were especially suspicious of people they didn’t know, especially if they had been hand-picked by outsiders to the congregation, and had been “assigned,” as I was, to serve in that particular church.  When I was hired on there was, predictably, a lot of hostility thrown my direction.  One example that might illustrate the point -  I came on board about a month and a half before Easter.  At our first choir rehearsal, I brought out Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus to see if it was an Easter possibility and to get a sense of the abilities of the choir.  We ran through the piece one time, after which I began to make suggestions, as choir directors are supposed to do, on ways we might improve our performance.  But just as I got the first sentence out of my mouth, one of the choir members demanded of me “How old are you?”  Stunned by the interruption, I answered that I was 30, which at the time, I was.  She responded, “Well we’ve been singing this longer than you’ve been alive so we don’t need you telling us how to do it!”  A fine start to our friendly Christian community relationship.  As I said there was a great deal of hostility and it came from several corners.  It was not long before I could identify my self-appointed “assistant choir directors” and could count on their “suggestions” and other comments as one might count on the structure of any organized group.  But I also began to try to befriend the especially hostile members of the choir.  And, also predictably, their hostility lessened in almost direct proportion to how much time I took to hear them, how accurately I listened, and how deeply they felt I understood.  Unfortunately, there remained a couple women that would not let me in.  In the end, their continued hostility probably formed part of my decision to leave at the end of that first year, though I was an interim music director and at the time I told myself I was leaving because the interim work was finished.   I look back on that experience with sadness.  It was hard to get close to these women.  It was hard to want to get close to them in light of their hostility.  But I wish I had tried a little harder.  As their personal stories were revealed to me by others in the church, I learned that they were in a lot of pain, pain it was not easy for anyone, within or without of the church, to break through.  But in that painful place, these parishioners needed others to hear them, they needed friendly caring faces to acknowledge them, they needed someone to say, “even when you hurt me, I still love you, accept you as my sister and will stand with you.”   Instead, I allowed their anger and hostility to drive me out, and in so doing, I added, I learned later, another layer to their feelings of abandonment and pain.

 Even in Christian community there will be times when we cannot work through differences and find we have to worship and love God in separate places.  But we are called to love and to work at wholeness in all our relationships, no matter how they end, with everything we have. Perhaps if I had worked harder, if we had worked harder, even with my leaving, there might have been healing that happened for myself, these women and the community.  Perhaps, had we worked harder, we might have seen God’s action in this situation, God’s movement in each other, God’s face in one another. 

I don’t think that we are required to always agree with one another.  Sometimes being in relationship with each other looks like agreeing to disagree after we have heard and loved one another.  Sometimes being in Christian fellowship will mean we have to work, searching even harder for solutions that are acceptable to everyone involved, despite our differences.  But God is in the challenging people of this world and in their work, as much as God might be present in our own work.  God loves those we do not understand as much as God loves us.  And God calls us to love and to be in community with all of our neighbors, even those who make us see red, those who hurt us, those whom we feel we cannot agree with. Maybe God presents God-self most firmly in people we struggle to hear and know.  For in that struggle we grow in our patience, we grow in our ability to see God as bigger than we knew God to be before, we grow in our ability to love and therefore we grow in our process of becoming Christian.  It is part of our Christian call to sit in those uncomfortable places with those people who anger us and look for where God’s face and God’s words are even in their words, even in their messages. 

Brian Peterson said, “True love is not measured by how good it makes us feel: it would be better to say that the measure of love is its capacity for tension and disagreement without division.”

Psalm 27 ends with the words, “‘Seek God’s face!’  Your face, O God, I will seek.”  In the end this is our call.  When we seek God’s face in each other, even in those we struggle to love and understand, our struggles with one another will be different.  For in listening to each other, we open the space for God’s words to come in, for God’s face to shine, for God’s help in our journey to become Christian.  Amen.

Choices or "What will we do with the time that is given to us."

        In a sermon recently, I found myself quoting from Tolkein's Lord of the Rings one of my favorite passages: (p 51)
      "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
       "So do I," said Gandalf, " and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."   
       This has been present in my mind as I have reflected on the pervasive sense of helplessness that many are feeling during this time.  I feel it, too.  There are things we cannot change about life at this moment.  We cannot change the virus, its progression, or how it will affect us or our loved ones if we get it.  We cannot change if we have lost our work because of this, or if we've kept our work but have to adjust how, when and in what way we do that work.  We cannot change who chooses to follow the rules and who does not, and how that might impact us.  The list goes on.  There are many, many aspects to this over which we have no control.
      When we feel this way, I think it is easy for us to end up reflecting on our pasts as well, looking at the curve, the arc of our lives and the many things throughout our lives over which we have had no control.  We can't change other people, as much as we would want to.  We cannot change how they react, how they treat us, what they say or what they do.  We cannot change the doors that have closed in our lives, the opportunities that we have missed, the unkindnesses or cruelties or injustices we have experienced.  We cannot even control things that we have had done in the past.  Once they are done, they are done, and we cannot go back and undo them.
      But I found myself thinking this morning that it is never the case that we therefore have no choices.  It is never the case that we have no agency in our own lives, no decisions, and no power.  There are things we can't control.  But there are always things we do have choices about.  Still, it remains the case that people often feel they have no choices, and are often unable to see the choices they do have.  I think about the movie, "The Devil Wears Prada."  The main character slips down a path of bad actions constantly throwing out the phrase, "I had no choice," but the choices were always hers to make.  Yes, if she chose differently she might have lost her job.  But is that the worst thing that could happen to a person?  To lose a job that you hate?  Of course, this was a movie.  And sometimes the choices we make have even worse consequences.  We could make a choice to stand up for what's right and end up facing abuse, imprisonment, or even death.  We could make a choice to be in a relationship that ends up being harmful to us, or to follow the advice of someone we think is wise and discover we would have been better off not to go that route.  But these are still choices we have, and choices we make.  I think about the scenario of someone holding a gun to a person's head and trying to force that person to do something.  Even in that scenario, there is a choice.  Do you do what the other is insisting that you do?  Or do you choose instead to be shot?  Do you whimper and plead for your life?  Or do you say, "there are things I value more than living and I will not choose to be forced into what you are telling me to do."  In those rare situations where we are physically being forced to do something, when we are being physically controlled and have no options over what our body is doing, there is still choice.  And this is the choice of our minds.  We choose, constantly, always, how we will deal in our own hearts, minds and souls, with the things over which we do not have control.  This includes any time we might have been physically forced to do something, but this also includes the behaviors, words and actions of other people.  We choose how we will respond to the feelings that rise in our own hearts, minds and souls.  We choose how we will frame the situations that occur in our lives.  Like Frodo, who did not choose for the ring to come to him, he had to choose what he would do with the evil before him.  And we have that same choice.  How will we deal with our situation?  How will we choose to see, to frame, and to understand the things that happen to us, that come our way?  How will we choose to understand our lives and to walk through the choices that we do have?
       Paul Pearsall writes about this in his book, The Beethoven Factor.  He says that people choose one of three responses to everything bad that happens to them in their lives.  They can choose to be victims, they can choose to be survivors, or they can choose to be thrivers: people who learn, grow and choose healing and health.  He is quick to say that choosing to be thrivers does not mean that you are always happy, or that you are never depressed, despairing or down.  What it does mean is that you choose to integrate into your life your experiences in a way that helps you to be the most whole that you can be, a person of agency, engagement, and ultimately, of peace within yourself.
      Corrie Ten Boom discussed this also, though she phrased it differently.  She said that after World War II, she worked as a nurse with many of the survivors of the Holocaust.  And what she found was that those who could work through and find forgiveness in their hearts for what they had experienced, that they were able to heal.  And, very simply, those who could not forgive, could never heal.  This doesn't mean that a person doesn't become angry, or even enraged.  I think rage can be the first step towards ultimate forgiveness: naming the hurt, naming the pain.  But if they could never choose then to walk through that anger to the other side, to a place of letting go of that hate or anger, they simply could not heal.  If they chose to stay a victim of their experiences, rather than a survivor or thriver, they would never be whole in their lives.
       Twelve step programs in many ways reflect both of these ideas.  When you look at the twelve steps, they are almost completely focused on self-reflection and on naming one's piece in whatever traumas one has experienced.  They focus on naming our own faults, confessing them, making amends for them to the very best of our abilities, and then trusting God's forgiveness to heal us. The twelve steps begin with the recognition of powerlessness over whatever addiction a person is dealing with.  They recognize where a person has no control, but they then move into a place of claiming the power one does have: to self-reflect and to change one's understanding, viewpoint, vision and choices in this life.
      I'm not saying that claiming our own power, or even recognizing our own power is easy. I'm also not saying that we have total control in our lives.  As I said, there are many things over which we do not have control.  What I am saying is that we do have some agency, some choice in how we will deal with the times we have been given.  And my hope for us all is that we would choose to be thrivers, people who see the choices we have, claim the choices we have, and choose love, compassion, courage and justice in the face of whatever is happening in our lives.
     Right now we are struggling with those things over which we have no control: the virus, the changes in our lives and culture.  But I encourage you to have a bigger vision of what we can control, how we can walk through this time with grace and courage.  Where are your options?  And what will you choose to do with this time that has been given to you?

When the Struggles are Overwhelming

           This is a difficult time for all of us.  For some it is manageable, but for many, especially as the time goes on, it can start to feel overwhelming.  The number of people who are expressing different levels of anxiety and depression is really high right now and that is understandable.

In reaction to the challenges life throws us, I write about thriving through adversity and I believe we are called to do that. I write about the joy and support that God gives us in the midst of pain, and I know that this is real. I write about the fact that it is through crisis that my vision and understanding of life has deepened and changed.  I now believe with every fiber of my being that life is about growing - growing in love, understanding, and in our ability to forgive, growing in our relationships to God, growing in our compassion, empathy and relationships to others, growing in our relationships to ourselves.  I believe all of this.  I believe it, I feel it, I hear that it is true, I experience it.  I write about being thankful and being more able than ever before to see the gifts and blessings that surround me every day - including the challenges.  This, too, is a truth, deep and powerful, that keeps me connected with God, with Good, with amazing and loving people.
     BUT...
     But...
     We know that the saying "God never gives you more than you can handle" is just about as bogus a statement as there is, for a number of reasons.  First of all, I do not believe that all of the junk we go through in this life was "given" to us by God.  People are born with free will and as a result, people hurt each other, they mess up, we create pain and problems for each other that God does not wish anyone to suffer.  Where is God when we are in pain?  On the cross as well, suffering too.
    Second of all, we all know that there are things that people can't or don't recover from.  We know this. Sometimes people do experience "too much" and they have break downs, or they commit suicide, or they lose their minds.  To a lesser degree, some people become bitter, cranky, jaded...they fail to live full lives because they've been "broken" by their experiences.  We try to support each other and care for each other enough so that this does not happen.  We encourage a faith that is life-giving and meaningful so that people experience the love and insight that they need.  We do what we can to help one another and ourselves grow through pain and develop scars that are places of strength rather than open wounds that are places which get picked at and continue to bleed.  Still, I think that everyone has moments when they just have to say "enough!"  "No more!"  "Done!"

Where is the good news in this?  Where is the message of hope when what we are given seems to be over the top, over the limit, of what we can endure?
    There still is Good News.  The Good News is that "this, too, shall pass."  Having a larger vision - a vision that says that while today is hard, tomorrow is a new day - I think that vision is essential.  Annie's trite, cute song "The sun'll come out tomorrow" may seem Pollyanna-ish, but it is a truth.  If we can hang on for another day, another month, another year, things will change.  There's no choice in that.  Tomorrow will be different.  And while at times that may fill us with fear, mostly I think that is a great message of hope.  To put it in Christian terms, God does bring the resurrection out of death.  Yes, Jesus died.  Jesus died.  He suffered as we suffer and it was "too much" for him as well.  It overcame him and he died.  Unlike some of the Old Testament stories (like Daniel in the Lion's den and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego who are saved from the fiery furnace), death does claim Jesus.  For three days evil does win.  But I find this much more hopeful than the stories of Daniel, et al, because we know this is real.  We usually aren't rescued from the furnace.  We usually aren't saved from the lion's jaws.  We have to go through it.  We do go through it.  The hope is not that we can avoid the pain.  The hope, the promise, is that there is life on the other side of it.  And while the three days that Jesus experienced in the tomb may seem unfairly short in comparison to the three weeks, three months, three years or even three decades that we sometimes experience, none the less, we need to keep our eyes open for that day of resurrection.  Our faith promises us that it will come.  And that is the Good News that can pull us through.  Hope.  Hope for tomorrow.  Hope for the sun to come out.  Hope for a new day.

First, Last, Heroes, Call

Acts 17:1-9
Mark 10:32-52

               Christian Herter was running hard for reelection as governor of Massachusetts, and one day he arrived late at a barbecue.  He’d had no breakfast or lunch, and he was famished.  As he moved down the serving line, he held out his plate and received one piece of chicken.  The governor said to the serving lady, “Excuse me, do you mind if I get another piece of chicken.  I’m very hungry.”  The woman replied, “Sorry, I’m supposed to give one piece to each person.”  He repeated, “But I’m starved,” and again she said: “Only one to a customer.”  Herter was normally a modest man, but he decided this was the time to use the weight of his office and said, “Madam, do you know how I am?  I am the governor of this state.”  She answered, “Do you know who I am?  I’m the lady in charge of chicken.  Move along, mister.”

What happens in today’s story?  In that time and place, the disciples believed as did the other Jewish people at the time that the Messiah was going to come concretely to earth and rule in a physical and concrete way.  We’re not talking about heaven here.  James and John are asking to be the generals, ruling alongside Jesus, being in charge, ushering in the new era.  That is what they are asking Jesus if they can do.  What do you think about James and John after hearing this story?  Or maybe a better question, how do you feel towards James and John after hearing this story?

Do you have big dreams?  Do you have hopes and dreams for yourself of success?  I think many of us, perhaps most of us, at one point or another had dreams of being great.  Maybe we just had these dreams as children but most of us at some point in our lives, have had hopes of succeeding, really succeed at something.  Many children hope to be movie stars, rock stars, models, famous for their acting, their music, their beauty, known by the world as wonderful, successful.  What are some of the things you hoped to be as you grew up?  Hoped to do that would be famous and successful as you grew?  I had a huge goal as a little kid.  It was none less than to save the world.  In particular, I hoped to save the world from hunger.  And in my six-year-old mind, that looked like going to India and teaching people to farm.  Because in my six year old mind, the world really was that simple, that easy, and I really could very easily fit into a heroic place in that image. 

Bu as we grow we usually get some jolts of reality along the way that tell us that we will not be a world famous ballerina, the first woman on the moon, the President of the United States, the next Julia Roberts, or in my case, I realized that the problem with hunger was not that people didn’t know how to farm, but rather it had a lot more to do with complicated politics and economics, large corporations buying up arable land, those corporations having the money to buy government support as well, and that the only thing that could really stop world hunger would be lots of money thrown into political work.  And then I realized that politics, economics and fund-raising: these were areas I really had no interest, or skills, in.  It can take a long time for us to outgrow our own dreams of potential greatness.  And for some, those images are met, exceeded even.  There are people who do become famous or who do make a difference in the world that is huge, tangible, and recognized.  But I think for most of us our childhood or even teenage dreams must be modified in some way.  Instead of seeing ourselves as the next Dr. Phil, we become satisfied to become a well-paid, but not so famous, psychologist.  Instead of seeing ourselves as the next Julia Roberts, we become satisfied being a star in local theater productions.  Instead of seeing ourselves as the personal catalyst that will change the education system and grow healthy, educated, happy kids forever, we realize the gifts in being a local school teacher and making a difference in the lives of those children we can teach in our classrooms.  Instead of seeing ourselves as the best parent in the world, we accept the fact that we are parents striving as all parents do to be the best we can be, knowing we are flawed and less than perfect but enough none the less.

Even with these concessions, though, most of us still have dreams.  In the case of James and John in today’s story, their dreams of grandeur may have changed some but none the less still thrived.  Some might say that their dreams of grandeur didn’t just change but actually grew.  And obviously, looking at the reaction of the other disciples, some of them were also sharing in these dreams of grandeur and were upset at James and John for trying to claim a higher position than themselves.  While when we read this story we may have judgements or even some outrage, like the other disciples did, at James and John (I mean, really, who do they think they are that they can go to Jesus, over all the rest of the other disciples and ask to be seated in charge of all Israel, next to Jesus?!!)), none the less, at some level I think we can relate to having those dreams.  We may not be able to relate to having the courage or audacity really to ask for those things for ourselves, none the less in our hearts we can understand the hope.

Having those dreams is not a bad thing.  It is good to dream for better things for our lives.  It is good to dream of succeeding in what we do.  It is often those dreams that do push us, ultimately, to take on a job that might otherwise seem a little risky or outside our comfort zone.  It is those dreams that push us to go back to school, to reach for something better, higher, to work harder at our jobs, to work harder at our relationships, to learn something or try something new.

At the University of Florida in the early 1960's one of the football linemen, Jack Katz was the fastest lineman on the team.  One day he asked if he might run sprints with the faster backs.  Every day he ran with them he finished last.  No-one was surprised and the coach asked if he wouldn’t rather be a winner with the linemen than a loser with the backs.  But Katz responded, “I’m not out here to outrun the linemen.  I already know I can do that.  I’m here to learn how to run faster, and if you’ve noticed, I’m losing by a little less every day.”  Dreams can push us to do better.

But the point that Jesus makes in this story is that the problem with James and John here is the reason WHY the disciples are reaching for this new goal.  Are they striving to do something better for the world or are they wanting to be famous and wealthy?  Are they striving to be the best people God wants them to be, or are they wanting the kudos and the respect of other people?  Are they wanting to help a specific cause or are they wanting the power that comes from running the world?  If what you really want is world success, well we know that many people get this in not so godly ways.  Many movie stars must prostitute themselves to the top.  Most truly successful people step on other people to get to the top.  How many of  you have seen the movie, “The devil wears prada?”  How about “Working Girl?”  There are tons of movies as well as the real life stories out there that show us again and again that there is much truth to the proverb that says people buy their way to the top, and get there usually by cruelly stepping on the heads of the little people. 

This is not what Jesus is offering.  This is not what God is offering.  Jesus’ life ended in death.  And he tells the disciples that if they really want to succeed in God’s way, if they really want to follow Jesus in what he is accomplishing, if they want to be part of changing the world in a way that may not be obvious right away, that won’t involve a military coup, that won’t look like leading as a dictator does from his high position but will, none the less, change how people see one another and who people care for, they need to be willing to give it all up: all of it: everything: even their very lives.  If the goal is caring for the world, if the goal is following God’s call, if the goal is to be great in God’s eyes, you can do this.  But it probably won’t be pretty.  It won’t look like riding into Jerusalem on a white horse and being seated on a throne to rule in power and be served feasts and riches.  It’s not going to look like fame and fortune.  It’s not going to look like earthly power and prestige.  Instead, it looks like riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, the sign of humility and perhaps even humiliation, and of hearing people shout curses at you, throw stones at you, ask for your crucifixion.  It will look like pain, and even martyrdom.  But in the end, you will have succeeded in God’s terms, in the end you will have helped human-kind, in the end you will be a part of ushering in the very kingdom of God, raising the oppressed, bringing down the mighty, changing the world. 

This morning I read to the children the Dr. Seuss book, “Yertle the Turtle”.  I think about which turtle succeeded in human terms vs. which turtle succeeded in God’s terms.  As you heard Yertle was going for worldly fame and fortune, power and prestige.  And he didn’t really care who he stepped on, literally, to get it.   And he did succeed in getting it. Yertle the Turtle is the one whose name gets put on the title of the book.  He was the one who saw the world over from a great height.  He was the one who was king of the world.  But in the end, he ends up in the mud.  The ordinary turtle named Mack was not about making himself big.  He was about helping himself and everyone else out of a terrible position.  But he was the hero in God’s eyes. And he made life better for the other turtles.

Most heroes, most real heroes, go unnoticed.  The people who really do God’s will and are heroes in God’s eyes usually are not the ones who are famous.  Of course, there are noted exceptions: Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. Rogers.  In our own area, perhaps Glenda Hope we developed Network Ministries in San Francisco.  But often the real heroes don’t get mentioned, don’t get noticed.  They are the people who visit those in prison, who teach special needs kids.  They are the people who spend a life-time searching for a cure for some disease and then have their names forgotten though the cure lives on.  They are the people who care for the orphans and those forgotten in nursing homes, the lonely and the disabled.  We personally know some of these heroes.  When you go to the hospital, who spends the most time with you?  While it is the names of the doctor’s we remember, it is in most cases the nurses who make the difference in how you feel, and whether or not you can really heal, at the hospital.  They are the ones who listen to you, care for you, sit with you on a daily basis.  They are the ones who come in with a smile (or not) and make a difference in your stay at the hospital.  Often we leave without knowing their names.  But the nurses are the unsung heroes.  Who made the biggest differences in our lives as children?  It’s not really the movie or television stars we saw on TV and aspired to be.  It was our parents, but also the teachers and other caregivers who took the time to teach us, to hear us, to talk with us.  Who makes the biggest difference in the lives of the homeless?  People like our mission folk who actually go and spend time with them and serve them on Sunday afternoons.  Who makes the biggest difference in the lives of the women at the shelter?  Those who make them meals whose names they may not know but without whom they might not eat.  These are the heroes of our times.  What other heroes do you know?  Who are people who have been heroes in your lives or in other lives whose praises are not usually sung?

These are the people who have succeeded.  These are the people who are successful in God’s eyes.  These are the people who may find themselves seated next to Christ at some point in their lives or after this life.  And even if they don’t, these are the people God smiles on and celebrates.  Let’s hold fast to our dreams.  But ground them not in personal fame, fortune, power or prestige.  Ground them instead in caring for your neighbor.  Ground your dreams instead in serving God.  For that is our call. 

The Ability to Affect Change in Those We Encounter

       As I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday, my son and I have been watching MASH episodes.  I have always enjoyed the show and I continue to do so.  But I'm also seeing them from a slightly different perspective as I grow and become older.  While the sexist and demeaning remarks of the men in the show towards the nurses used to be funny to me (and that was their intention), they now bother me a lot more as I see them for what they are: harrassing, objectifying, and again, extremely sexist.  At the same time, these attitudes expressed in the show do improve as the show progresses through time.  Additionally, the women become less of an "accessory" and more central to the show.  Margaret's character, in particular, moves from a one-dimensional, unintelligent sex-object into a real person who is not only powerful and strong, but also confronts some of these attitudes that come her way.  I woke up this morning thinking about the ways in which her character not only challenges the behaviors of those around her, but actually makes a difference in who they are, in the ways they treat her, and possibly all those around them.  This happens many times, more so as the show progresses, but there are three times in which it especially stands out for me.
        In Season 5, Episode 19, "Hepatitus", Hawkeye has to give Margaret a shot for hepatitus.  These shots are to be given in one's rear end and Hawkeye litters the conversation with these objectifying remarks.  But Margaret ends the scene with these words:
        "How dare you! You come in here on the pretext of giving me a shot and then stand there ogling me as thought I were a side show attraction!"
        "Margaret, I'm trying to show you some appreciation and you hit the roof!  What do you want from me?"
        "Respect.  Simple respect.  I expect nothing more, and I'll accept nothing less."
         Hawkeye looks like he's been hit.  He looks like her words impacted him in a way that nothing else in their relationship had up until that point.  And he shows this to be true by his response when he then says: "That's pretty good.  You got me with that.  You really did.  You know in some ways you really are magnificent, and not just on the outside."
       In season 10, episode 5, "Wheelers and Dealers," BJ is struggling because his wife at home is having to go to work to pay some of their bills.  He is extremely upset and is acting out by being unkind to everyone around him.  Eventually he gives Hawkeye and Margaret a lecture explaining how they can't possibly understand his suffering because they don't have a family at home.  Margaret comes back at him with these words: "How dare you!  How dare you stand there acting like your brand of suffering is worse than anybody else's!  Well, I guess that's the only way you can justify treating the rest of us like dirt.  Well let me tell you something, sad sack!  If the worse thing that has happened to you is that your pretty little wife has to help pay the bills for a while don't come to me for sympathy.  Maybe you do have the most to lose.  But that's only because you've got the most!"  And again, we see that BJ hears her.  He brings a gift to his friends of cookies that his wife made and as he shares them he says, "I'm still full from last night's serving of humble pie."
      Finally, in season 8 episode 14, "Stars and Stripes" Margaret is having a romance with Scully until he dismisses her work and her profession as unimportant, less-than, and almost "play acting."  He says, "You're a nurse.  Being a major is an honorary thing, so you can boss around a bunch of nurses.  But not real soldiers."
      Margaret responds with "Is that so?  Well, let me tell you something, Private. I'm damn proud of these." (pointing at her major pin)  "Nobody gave these to me.  I earned them. And I'm just as much a major as any other major.  You'll notice these leaves come in gold.  Not pink for girls and blue for boys."
      And then later when they have another conversation in which he is again trying to put her back into the singular role of subservient woman, she says, "You take it for granted that everything you want is yours.  What about what I want?  What do you suppose I am deep down?  I'm me: sometimes a nurse, sometimes a major, sometimes a woman in love, sometimes all three at once... and sometimes that's lonely. Cooking eggs and playing house used to be fine for an afternoon.  But now I want more out of my life than an afternoon..."  Scully leaves.  Perhaps she doesn't change him with her words this time, but my guess is that she does: it just takes longer for those words to have an impact, to make it inside to that place where he might become a bit more self-reflective and might grow and learn a bit.
     There are other times too, when Margaret is able to truly impact those around her, with her strength, and with her wisdom.  Since this is a TV show, I have found myself wondering, more realistically, how many people the character's words actually affected through the airing of these thoughts, ideas, beliefs and even values.
      I think for me, that ability to make a difference, to change ourselves, but through that to impact others in ways that help them to be kinder, more self-reflective, more understanding, more compassionate, more grace-filled - that is my deepest goal and hope.  This isn't really measurable.  I will never know if my words have impacted or changed others.  My life is small, the ways in which I affect the larger world are small.  I will never know if I have been able to make a difference in the lives of those around me.  But it is my goal, my hope, that my impact in this world is positive, and makes change for the better.
      At the same time, I had someone remind me today that we pastors are not the "source" but are the medium, like a river bed, for the river to flow through.  That our goal, really, should be to move ourselves out of the way so that the river can flow through us to those we encounter.  While it can be hard to put our egos aside, any goal that lifts up our own success or our own ability to make a difference is not following that deeper call from God.  So, I am trying to sit into this, to listen to those words of wisdom and to move myself out of the way.  Still, I think God works through us, no matter our flaws and our humanity, whenever we are open to God, and whenever our intentions aim towards Love.  I will continue to value the character of Margaret in MASH because she is able to change her world for the better.  It is something I would wish for all of us; that we can become the mirrors reflecting the Light, that we can become the arms, holding one another in love; that we can become the river bed, a shute for a river of compassion, grace and justice to flow through us into a broken and hurting world.

Taking Care During Times of Crisis

        As most of you know, our family crashed into devastating, life-changing crisis at the very end of 2010, a crisis that lingered and continued really until early 2013 when we started to finally get a grip on a "new normal" and settle into lives that were different, but were starting to feel okay.  Many people during and after that time asked me how we survived it.  I look back and the answers are really clear to me:
    1.  I had a great deal of support from friends, counselors, family.  I relied on that heavily, calling, emailing, and spending time with people who were there to help.
    2.  I played the piano almost every day.  Yes, it was part of my job, but it became much more than that.  It was an emotional outlet for me, a way of expressing feelings I couldn't otherwise even name, a way to "create" out of chaos and express out of dark pain.
    3.  I danced with my daughter.  Every morning as we were getting ready for school, we would put in music after her older siblings had left for school and my daughter and I would dance around the kitchen and family room.  This too was creative expression, as was the music.  But this was a time also of engagement with my beloved child, exercise, time together, an outlet, and an opportunity for a lot of laughter.  This also often involved singing, stretching those vocal chords and making joyful noise, despite how we were actually feeling on a day to day basis.
    4.  I wrote.  I journaled, mostly in the form of letters to God: I put everything down that I was experiencing, used it as prayer time, talked to God about my feelings, my thoughts and experiences and what I was going through.
    5.  I walked.  Sometimes alone, sometimes with others, I hiked and got myself out in nature and into the air, breathed, surrounded myself with creation.
    6.  I slept.  I went to bed by nine every night.  I often took long naps on the weekends.  I needed the sleep to process.  But more, I was just exhausted from trying to hold myself and my kids together, and I needed that extra time to recoup.
    7.  I spent time each day reflecting on the good things that were in my life, reaching out with thank yous to those who had been helpful, expressed gratitude, both to God and to people for their presence in my life.
    8. I found myself searching for and finding ways to give back, to offer care to others, to find meaning in being a helper, a pastor, in the world.  I would add to this that the fact that my kids really needed me to be okay, to help them through the crisis, to support them through the trauma, was absolutely essential to my well-being.  It wasn't an option for me to NOT be okay.  I had to get through each day, for their sakes, and so I did.  Having others dependent on me gave me the strong sense of not having a choice about if or how I handled the trauma.
    9. There were also a lot of things I stopped doing during this time: I didn't watch TV.  I completely stopped listening to the news.  I didn't engage Facebook, and even closed down my account.  I didn't eat junk.  And I think that all of these things I didn't do were as important for me getting through that crisis as everything that I did do.
    But the thing that I want to say about all of this is that, at least for the first 6 months to a year, none of these things that I chose to do or chose to avoid were conscious decisions.  I automatically did these things, out of what felt like necessity or compulsion.  I needed to do them and I did.  They helped me to not only survive, but to thrive through the challenges that we faced: to grow, to bloom, to become a person I am much happier being.  It was only after I was beginning to really recover that I started reading about the gifts of choosing gratitude, of exercise, of writing, singing, dancing in times of crisis.  It was only after I started feeling a "new normal" that I learned that TV is a depressant and should be avoided when we are struggling, and that it is important during trauma to step away from the news.  It was only later that I learned that extra sleep is essential during traumatic times and that I remembered how eating well makes a huge difference to one's emotional as well as physical health.  It is only recently that I've found myself focusing on the importance of art and laughter in dealing with trauma, whether that be making music, dancing or creating art in other forms.  And I remembered that it is in giving back to others that we help ourselves the very most.
     Now we are all in crisis, in trauma time again.  And I find myself once again choosing behaviors, almost despite myself, that are survival tools.  I find myself daily being called to go "play in the dirt" - to be outside gardening, digging around, breathing the air, exercising.  I am walking and doing yoga.  I am again intentionally spending time with my kids, baking healthy foods (and sometimes comfort foods), finding funny things to share.  I am limiting my time with the news again, as well as with Facebook (as much as my work will allow).  The TV holds much less attraction for me than normal, and I am writing: daily notes to my congregation but also in my journal.  I'm reaching out to people once more for support.  I'm sleeping more than usual.  I'm being more generous with my resources, especially to those most in need.  And I'm trying to find time to make music with my kids.  Once more I am aware that they need me to be okay through this (as does the congregation) and so it is not a option I can choose to NOT be okay.
      As I reflected on all of this, I was struck with how strong my inner survival instinct really is, or from a faith perspective, how loud the leading of God was that led me on a daily basis to choose healthy, necessary behaviors.  I do what I need to do to make it through this time, or any crisis time.  I wonder that I can't continue in these healthy behaviors during normal times and I am aware that my life would undoubtedly be better if I could keep these up during normal times.  But I am amazed at how strong the pull is, in crisis times, to choose these healthier and important ways of moving through life.  Again, from a faith perspective, this is one of the reasons why my faith and trust in a loving God is so strong.  I hear that voice, constantly, urging me to do what will be best for myself, my family and the larger community and world.  It encourages wholeness and well-being for everyone, no matter what is going on that is disruptive and painful.  It reminds me daily of our interconnection and need for all of us to work for health and wholeness for everyone.
      I hope that you, too, are finding yourself doing the things that you need to do to move through this time.  If you need help, we are here to support and offer suggestions.  But I think the biggest advise I would give is to notice your own choices.  What are you feeling impelled or compelled to do?  What does that small voice encourage you to do to take care of yourself, your loved ones and the world?  How are you surviving and even thriving through each day?  And what is guiding those decisions that you make?
      These are not easy times.  But difficult times are fertile ground for deep learning and deep connecting with God and creation.  Take time to rest in that, to learn from this time, to be open to what life is telling us this day.

Healing in Many Forms

Acts 3:1-10

Mark 10:17-31

            What things did Jesus do in his ministry?  Teaching, preaching and healing.  Why healing? 

            Jesus, and then as we hear in today’s story from Acts, the disciples, spent a lot of time touching, caring for, listening to, and engaging people that other people rejected.  Those with leprosy were outcasts.  They couldn’t live with their families and it was assumed that someone in their family or the person themself, must have done something wrong and that is why this person was sick.  Disease was seen as punishment.  Some people still have this thinking but they call it Karma.  While some have a different understanding of what Karma is (so I’m not knocking the idea itself), others believe that while it may not be clear why some suffer and others don’t, they must have done something to deserve it, either in this life or in a past life.  But Jesus first confronted it with words like “the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.” and “He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these … proves that they were more sinful than all the others?  No, I tell you!”  But he went much further than just declaring that it wasn’t their fault that they were afflicted.

            He touched, he talked to and he healed any who were in need – the rejected, the outcast, the condemned, the judged, the dismissed.  He made contact with them, included them, treated them as the incredible and beautiful people that they were, regardless of how others treated them.

            I have a ten dollar bill here.  If I mangle it and squish it and stomp on it, if I make it dirty or even filthy, what is it then worth?  It is still worth ten dollars.  The appearance, the condition, the outward attributes of this money don’t change it’s worth.  Well, Jesus was able to see that this is the same with people.  He saw beyond the outside of the bill.  He saw beyond the dirt, the scrounge, the disease.  He saw beyond the vocations, the judgments, the rejections.  He saw beyond their mistakes, their sins, their choices.  He saw beyond all of that to who they WERE.  And who they were is the same as who you are – you are a child of God.  Worthy of infinite value. 

            But just as we still look at the monetary numbers stamped on this bill to know its value, people get very confused about what is really important.  We are not worth whatever monetary value we might be given.  We are not worth whatever value someone else assigns us.  We get confused about what things determine value, about what really matters, about what value is…until those we love or ourselves are threatened in our bodies, threatened in our health.  We think that silver and gold – money, is what is important and we think that our money, and having “enough” money is more important than healing, more important than living.  We think success is more important than connections and community and fellowship.  We think fame, or fortune or what we have are more important than relationship and kindness.  We think that having a “good time” and even being happy are more important than finding wholeness and well-being, finding peace.

But sometimes even in the midst of physical or other kinds of crisis, we think it’s easier to throw money at a problem rather than addressing it.  In the story from Acts that we heard today, the crippled man expected to be handed money to deal with his problems.  That is not what Peter chose to do.  He gave the greater gift of healing.  As my Ohio lectionary group was discussing this passage this month, we were talking about the fact that when someone asks for help, whether they come to the church or approach us as individuals, in many ways it is the EASY thing to do to give them money.  Sometimes they really do need money.  But we are also and primarily called to give the harder thing, the more needed thing - to offer healing.  One of our group said, “Well, I’m not a healer!”  This is a woman who has worked tirelessly with the disenfranchised in our communities.  She has been an advocate for people struggling with addictions, with abandonment by family because of their sexual orientations, for the homeless and the poor.  She builds relationships with these people, she helps them get their stuff together, to land on their feet, to know they are LOVED, and to heal their families rejections.  She gives them a home, a church, awareness of God’s deep caring, food and true community.  And while she could not see it, it was obvious to me that she IS a healer.  She does the same kind of healing that Jesus did again and again.  We are called to this as well.  When we do the laundry program, one of the big pieces of our work that our mission chair David emphasizes is the importance of conversation with the folk who come in.  Just paying for their laundry is not enough.  It is a start, but what is much more important, much more valuable is forming relationships, is talking with them, is creating a place where they know they are valued.  What they really need is healing. 

We have some choices to be made as a country right now.  In some ways the choice is between healing and money.  Of course it is not that simple.  People with the most money are the ones most likely to be healed, so when jobs disappear, healing disappears too.  But there is a bigger issue.  The ones pushing for reopening of everything are the ones least likely to be impacted, hit, to have the disease and especially to die from it.  They can afford to reopen, just as they can afford to stay closed.  Once again the ones suffering the most are those who are poor.  And if anything this disease is shining a light on the much much deeper disease of greed.  That, too, is a disease we are called to strive to heal: and not through paying the rich more money or taking what little the poor have away from them. 

In the New Testament story for today, Jesus’ healing looks like freeing the rich man from his money, from his greed.  This was not a healing that the rich man wanted.  But it was the healing the Jesus was offering: a much more complete healing.  The healing of his soul.

            I was watching a MASH episode with my son last Sunday.  The episode is called Blood Brothers and in it, one of the patients is trying to help and support his friend who is very ill and needs blood.  In testing to see if he could donate blood to his friend who is ill, the doctors discover that the patient who is trying to help actually has Leukemia.  When the patient is told, he makes the choice to stay at the MASH unit to be with the friend who needed his support in the first place.  Hawkeye wants him to go to Tokyo for treatment.  But he insists on staying behind.  As he says, “My being here is helping Dan.  Seems to me I have a right to do what I want with the time I have left.”

While all of this is happening, Father Mulcahy  is having his own crisis because the Cardinal is visiting and Father Mulcahy desperately wants to impress him.  He desperately wants this mans’ approval, but because of the timing of the Cardinal’s visit, Father Mulcahy doesn’t have a sermon ready, the whole camp is acting out with gambling and drinking and he has spent all night up with the boy who’s been diagnosed with Leukemia.  But he goes to give his sermon and says this, “Well, here we are.  It’s Sunday again.  I’m sure you’ve all come expecting to hear a sermon.  I have to admit I’m not as prepared as I’d like to be…. You see I was working on my sermon, which I’d hoped would be particularly inspirational in honor of the cardinal but I was called away and I never got back to it.  So, if you’ll just bear with me, I’d like to share the reason why.  I want to tell you about two men, each facing his own crisis. The first man you know well.  The second is a patient here.  Well, the first man thought he was facing a crisis, but what he was really doing was trying to impress someone.  He was looking for recognition, encouragement, a pat on the back.  And whenever that recognition seemed threatened, he acted rather childishly.  He blamed everyone for his problems accept for himself because he was only thinking of himself.  But the second man was confronted by the greatest crisis mortal man can face: the loss of his life.  I think you’ll agree the second man had every right to be selfish, but instead he chose to think not of himself but of a brother.  And when the first man saw the dignity and selflessness of the second man, he realized how petty and selfish he… I… I had been.  It made me see something more clearly than I’d ever seen before.  God didn’t put us here for that pat on the back.  He created us so he could be here himself , so that he could exist in the lives of those he created in his image.”

            I came across an article in Sojourner’s Magazine that was talking about Henri Nouwen.  Henri Nouwen was an amazingly gifted priest, professor and writer.  I love his books, I love the way he thinks.  He has a brilliant as well as deeply faithful and spiritual mind.  But after teaching for many years, he was invited to become pastor to a community of people with intellectual disabilities.  He soon discovered that they didn’t care how brilliant he was, and all the wonderful things he had written and taught just didn’t mean that much to them.  He told the story in one of his books, Life of the Beloved, of one particular woman, Janet, who one day asked Henri for a blessing.  When he tried to bless her with the sign of the cross on her forehead she became very upset and said, “No, I want a real blessing!”  He didn’t know what to do with that, but that evening at worship, he mentioned that Janet had asked for a real blessing and she marched up to the front and gave him a huge hug.  In that moment, he found the words that were needed.  “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s beloved daughter.  You are precious in God’s eyes.  Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house, and all the good things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are.  I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.”  She gave him a satisfied smile, but as Nouwen then turned away, he found himself bombarded with the others in the community also asking for blessings.  Henri gave each a hug and affirmation that they are loved as they are.  And Henri walked away a changed man.

            There is a praise song with these words, “This is what I’m sure of, I can only show love When I really know how loved I am. When it overtakes me, Then it animates me, Flowing from my heart into my hands.”

Frederick Buechner said this about healing:

The Gospels depict Jesus as having spent a surprising amount of time healing people… 

This is entirely compatible, of course, with the Hebrew view of man as a psychosomatic unity, an individual amalgam of body and soul whereby if either goes wrong, the other is affected.  It is significant also that the Greek verb sozo was used in Jesus’ day to mean both to save and to heal, and soter could signify either savior or physician. 

Ever since the time of Jesus, healing has been part of the Christian tradition.  In this century it has usually been associated with religious quackery or the lunatic fringe, but as the psychosomatic dimension of disease has come to be taken more and more seriously by medical science it has regained some of its former respectability.  How nice for God to have this support at last.

Jesus is reported to have made the blind see and the lame walk, and over the centuries countless miraculous healings have been claimed in his name…  You can always give it a try.  Pray for healing.  If it’s somebody else’s healing you’re praying for, you can try at the same time laying your hands on him as Jesus sometimes did.  If his sickness involves his body as well as his soul, then God may be able to use your inept hands as well as your inept faith to heal him.  If you feel like a fool as you are doing this, don’t let it throw you.  You are a fool of course, only not a damned fool for a change….If God doesn’t seem to be giving you what you ask, maybe he’s giving you something else.”

            Jesus not only healed bodies of the outcast, of the oppressed, of the disadvantaged, of the physically broken.  He healed their souls by showing them, reminding them, acting in a way that said beyond a doubt that they were loved and valued, that they were worthy, that God still saw them as more important and beautiful than anything they could imagine.  We are invited to do the same.  As we are called to follow, we heal others by showing them how loved they are.  Go into the world, affirming, uplifting, and healing one another.  Amen.