Living and Giving as the Saints

John 5:24-27

Joshua 3:7-17

 There once was a strongman at a circus sideshow who demonstrated his power before large audiences every night.

Toward the end of one performance, he squeezed the juice from a lemon between his hands. He said to the onlookers, “I will offer $200 to anyone here who can squeeze another drop from this lemon.

A thin older lady hobbled up the stage. She picked up the lemon and clamped it between her two frail, boney hands. She squeezed. And out came a teaspoon of lemon juice.

The strongman was amazed. He paid the woman $200 but privately asked her, “What is the secret of your strength?”

“Practice,” the woman answered. “I have been treasurer of my church for forty-two years!”

The Wired Word had an article entitled “25-Year- Old Makes All He Can, Gives All He Can” that described a young man who, rather than volunteering for things like the peace corps, felt the way he could best give to the world was by making as much money as he could and giving almost all of it to charities.  It described the fact that most people say the best thing they could do would be to save a life, and yet it is within our power to do exactly that: to save lives through our donations of money to charities that provide medical necessities, food, shelter, clothing, jobs, opportunities.  Sometimes these services are offered over-seas so they feel so far away that we don't see them, but the opportunities to give and to really make a difference for others are there.  But people in the United States do not give much.  Percentage wise, we donate very little of what we believe we have "earned" through our work to the service of others.

            Today we honor the Saints, we remember the people who have gone before us who have created the way for us to be who we are and to do what we do and to live the way we live.  Today is also the day that is scheduled for our Stewardship sermon.  It is probably the sermon of the year I hate to give most, as it often becomes a lecture and a begging for money to support church programs in a diminishing community.  But I found that as I thought about All Saints day and Stewardship, that there was a deep connection between the two that is providential, at least.  While these two things may seem to have nothing to do with each other, in fact they are deeply related. 

            We as a culture focus a great deal on what is new and exciting.  We are thrilled with the latest technology, the newest iphone, the latest gadgets.  We like the comforts that our homes now have that we couldn’t imagine having when we were kids.  Personal computers, phones we can take with us anywhere with apps that tell us where our kids are at any moment or what the score is in an on-going sports game, or when and where the next earthquake will take place at any time.  We love our machines - dishwashers, clothes washers, coffee makers, microwaves.  We are thrilled to have seat warmers in our cars and hundreds of channels on our TV sets, and international music channels in our cars.  We depend on our GPS systems and we love our pads, our Kindles, etc.  Maybe you don’t use all of these new gadgets, but I am certain that everyone in here uses at least some of them.  We want to move forward in these ways, and we should. As we talked about just last week on Reformation Sunday, change is imperative and a calling from God to seeing in new ways, growing more deeply in our faith and our commitments, being the church this day in this world.

            But we also lose something by a focus on what is new and innovative and amazing when we fail to also learn the lessons from our past, when we fail to find value in honoring what was, when we fail to lose connection with tradition, with history, with the things our ancestors valued and held dear.  In failing to honor what went before we lose deep values, we lose the lessons learned from history, and we often lose a sense of meaning and purpose.  Life becomes so much about NOW that we fail to care for the future, or respect and value the past that has made us who we are.    

            Sometimes, in the midst of the fast-paced changes of society, the rituals and traditions can bring a comfort, a stability that would not otherwise be found.  But it is more than that.  Mitch Albom in his book, Have a Little Faith (New York: Hyperion, 2009) shares about Rabbi Lewis, when he lost his young daughter to an asthma attack found

“The very rituals of mourning that he cursed having to do – the prayers, the torn clothing, not shaving, covering the mirror – had helped him keep a grip on who he was, when he might have otherwise washed away.  He told how the words of the Kaddish made him think, ‘I am part of something here; one day my children will say this very prayer for me just as I am saying it for my daughter.’  His faith soothed him, and while it could not save (his daughter) from death, it could make her death more bearable, by reminding him that we are all frail parts of something powerful.” (182)

Mitch Albom continues, “..ritual was a major part of the (Rabbi)’s life.  Morning prayers.  Evening prayers.  Eating certain foods.  Denying himself others.  On Sabbath, he walked to synagogue, rain or shine, not operating a car, as per Jewish law.  On holidays and festivals, he took part in traditional practices, hosting a Seder meal on Passover, or casting bread into a stream on Rosh Hashanah, symbolic of casting away your sins. 

Like Catholicism, with its vespers, sacraments, and communions – or Islam, with its five-times-daily salah, clean clothes, and prayer mats – Judaism had enough rituals to keep you busy all day, all week, and all year.

I remember as a kid, the (Rabbi) admonishing the congregation – gently, and sometimes not so gently – for letting rituals lapse or disappear, for eschewing traditional acts like lighting candles or saying blessings, even neglecting the Kaddish prayer for loved ones who had died.

But even as he pleaded for a tighter grip, year after year, his members opened their fingers and let a little more go.  They skipped a prayer here.  They skipped a holiday there.  They intermarried (-as I did).

            I wondered, now that his days were dwindling, how important ritual still was.

            ‘Vital’, he said.

            But why?  Deep inside, you know your convictions.

‘Mitch,’ he said, ‘faith is about doing.  You are how you act, not just how you believe.’ (p.44)…”My grandparents did these things.  My parents, too.  If I take the pattern and throw it out, what does that say about their lives?  Or mine?  From generation to generation, these rituals are how we remain…connected.”

We too, honor the past, we honor the saints who have gone before in part by keeping alive the things that they valued and also by giving to the causes and purposes that they valued.  We honor our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors in the church by honoring Church, by valuing it enough to keep it vital and alive, with both our money and our service. 

We also honor them by remembering the sacrifices they have made.  I’ve found myself thinking this week especially about the women who sacrificed health, community and sometimes their lives in order for us to gain the right to vote.  We honor them by using that right that they won for us by voting and remembering their sacrifice.  We honor the work of the civil rights movement by working to make racism a thing of the past, by encouraging our communities to grow in diversity, inclusion and belonging.  We honor those who served in WWII by making sure it never happens again that some people are not seen as full human beings or treated with less than full humanity.

I believe God puts us here, in this place, at this time and in community, for a reason.  We retain purpose through everything that we do, through every interaction we have, through every choice we make.  We also are called to serve and to give not out of obligation but out of gratitude, out of love for God and God’s people.  Until we are called home, we are invited, every day, to find in what ways God calls us to be God’s people.  And we honor what has gone before us by continuing to seek those purposes and reasons out.

These can be hard values to retain in a society that is increasingly about the comforts of “me”, of “I”.  If something does not serve us NOW, we tend to turn away from it.  And giving to others?  That can be especially difficult when we are told that we deserve everything good we can get for ourselves at this moment, NOW.  There was a wonderful article posted recently in a colleague’s blog that was called “7 reasons Church is not for you”.  It went on to list all the things we complain about in church – the music, the preaching, the staff, the communication, the building, the pastor, and the people including the visitors who sit in our pews and come with different ideas and ways to live or dress or be.  It talked about how we expect things to please us, to serve us, to entertain us, to be what we want and when they aren’t exactly to our liking we just don’t choose it.  The article ends with these words, “Sometimes we forget why we are ‘The Church’ in the first place. Sometimes we treat the church like all the other things we consume daily in our lives, and so we try to shape and form the church in our own image. We want a church that meets our preferences, like personalized settings on our computer. Yet, despite all that – despite us – God is still using The Church for God’s purposes.  God is still doing God’s work in world, with or without us.  Sometimes we just need to be reminded of that.  Sometimes we just need to hear again: Church isn’t for you. You are for the Church.”

There is a praise song that often echos in my mind entitled, “Let them see you” by JJ Weeks Band.  The lyrics are:

Take away the melodies

 take away the songs I sing

 take away all the lights

 and all the songs you let me write

 Does the one I am today

 say the words you need to say.

 Let them see you, in me

 let them hear you, when I speak

 let them feel you, when I sing

 let them see you,

 let them see you, in me.

 Who am I without your grace?

 another smile, another face

 another breath, a grain of sand

 passing quickly through your hand

 I give my life, an offering

 take it all, take everything.

 (chorus)

 With every breathe I breathe

 I sing a simple melody

 but I pray they'll hear more than a song,

 In me, in me

 Let them see you, in me

 let them hear you, when I speak

 let them feel you, when I sing

 let them see you,

just let them see you, in me

 let them see you.

We serve God with all we are, all we give, and all we do.  I would challenge each of us to consider that when we think we are done or finished, that we are not honoring the call God gives us to show our gratitude and love of God, we are deciding that God is done with US, and God is NEVER done with us.  God is all about giving your life purpose and meaning, from day one to the day you die.  We honor the saints by living their legacy, giving as they gave, serving as they served, in whatever capacity we can, from the beginning through to the end.

Two men were marooned on an Island. One man paced back and forth worried and scared while the other man sat back and was sunning himself.  The first man said to the second man, “Aren’t you afraid we are about to die.” “No,” said the second man, “I make $10,000 a week and tithe faithfully to my church every week. It’s Stewardship Month at my church. My Pastor will find me.”

So much can be done with what is given out of gratitude and in a spirit of love.

Amen.

Professional Hazards: language.

        While it is not intentional, I spend most of my time with other faith-based people.  I'm with my congregation most of my working life (which is a lot of time and includes evening meetings as well as regular day-time hours, and weekends).  Beyond that, I'm part of a couple of clergy groups of other Presbyterian pastors, as well as a local clergy group that is Ecumenical and I serve on a couple of interfaith boards (one to create low-income housing and support services, and one for advocacy for the poor in our community).  Many of my friends and family are also faith people, some of different traditions, some of the same.  But even those that aren't are probably just used to me, my language, the way I present in the world.  It takes a situation in which I'm thrown into "normal" society for me to realize how much of my person has been influenced and affected not only by my role, but by my associations.  

         I was at a party of a family member a couple weeks ago and found myself in a conversation with a person whom I had never met before.  After a few minutes I realized she was giving me a weird look after something I had said.  I think we were talking about how horrible people are behaving in their cars and I responded by saying, "Yes, but I'm working to try to respond more with grace and compassion, to try and spread kindness through a stance of love, even in the face of their rage.  Not easy, but I try." She gave me this weird look and I realized I was using words, phrases and even ideas that were "churchy" or "religious" without even knowing it.  A little while later, she was talking about her struggles with raising her son on her own.  I mentioned that I had parented my children on my own for many years, too.  And then I said, "But as hard as it was at times, I also see the gifts that have come from that particular challenge..." That too received a weird look.  I've done it again, I thought.

          I've found myself reflecting on this ever since, with two very different thoughts.  The first is that, yes, many vocations have language affectations that develop within and around them.  When David reads me some of the posts of people on his Marine's Facebook page, there is definitely a speech pattern and use of specific words that I don't understand, that aren't part of my world, that are unique to that situation of being a Marine.  When he is talking about work (he's an IT guy), he also uses a code that I don't understand.  We all know airline people have definite inflections and speech patterns that are unique to their trade.  Doctors and nurses use a specific vocabulary in normal speech, not just in the office, that usually informs those of us around them that they are medical people.  Musicians have a specific way of talking, and these are different depending on what kind of musician you are.  Clergy aren't immune to this, though I often hate when I hear that kind of speech in other clergy.  I hate it because it often feels phony to me, put-on, a kind of "holier than thou" way of talking that seems judgmental, superior and manipulative.  I feel like when I use it, I'm trying to talk to myself, more than the other, about how I need to be in the world.  But I wonder if it, too, doesn't somehow come across as all the things that I don't like when I hear it in other clergy.  Which brings me to the second point:

        If we don't want to isolate and alienate people, learning to speak in their language is important.  "Churchy" language can be off-putting.  So I've found myself trying to think through ways that maintain my integrity, my truth, and yet are not in the coded, isolating, and sometimes self-righteous language of the church.  "Grace" is a loaded term for people.  Wouldn't it be just as clear to say, "I want to try to pass kindness forward, even when it isn't deserved" rather than saying, "we need to offer them grace" or "we need to reflect love"?  Wouldn't it be better to say, "I know I've learned some things through these hard times" rather than "I see the gifts in the challenges"?  

       I've been uncomfortable with the idea of having different patterns of speech: one for the "insiders" and one for everyone else.  At the same time, words like "grace" which have deep meaning for me, can be uncomfortable for the larger community.  But is the idea of speaking differently in different situations really that strange or novel?  I remember a time I was in seminary when the man I was dating at the time came up from New Mexico for a visit.  After sitting in on a conversation that I had with one of my other seminarians, my then-boy-friend said, "I've never seen this side of you.  I didn't understand what you were saying at all.  You spoke and interacted in a completely different way."  I was surprised by this.  I hadn't realized that I had adjusted or changed my way of talking when I was with other pastoral students than when I was with him.  We do adjust our topics of conversation and even our speech patters relative to whom we are with.

          Ultimately, I find myself reflecting back on Paul's words in 1st Corinthians 9: 19-23 when he says, in essence, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".   If we want to be able to connect with all kinds of people, if we want to try to build bridges of understanding and community, if we want to work for reconciliation and healing between people, no matter their beliefs, world views, opinions or life-orientations, then being able to communicate in a language that others understand is important.  I also think this means I need to be intentional about being out in the world more, to understand and remember how other people are talking (and not talking).  It's easy to become isolated and comfortable in our own little corners of the world and to fail to build bridges of understanding and reconciliation simply because we have not taken the time to interact with the "other," let alone understand them.  

          I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that we fail to act with integrity, or that we adjust our beliefs or values based on who we are with.  It also doesn't mean that we fail to speak up against injustice or to fail to engage people whose opinions differ from our own with honesty.  What it does mean is that if we want to bring healing and connection, it is important to start from a common ground.  That common ground begins with how we communicate with one another.  Can we work a little harder to make sure others understand the words and phrases and ideas that we are trying to communicate?  Can we take the time to be intentional about speaking in ways that others understand? Can we seek to use language to connect rather than to isolate, pigeon-hole, separate and alienate those around us?

         I'm working on this.  It's not easy for me.  But I'm working on it.  Part of having integrity for me is trying harder to connect rather than to separate.  And that has to start with the way I present myself and talk to others.  Wish me luck.  

Reformation Sunday - 10/27/19

Job 42:1-17

Mark 10:46-52

Today is Reformation Sunday, the day we celebrate that because the Catholic Church at the time was going through a period of being stuck, many people chose to leave that church and begin their own to continue to find life, indeed to continue to find God in their sanctuaries.  Reformation Sunday is the day we celebrate change, the day we honor movement, the day we raise up a banner and say, “yes, we truly are the church reformed and always reforming (our reformation motto) despite how challenging that is for each and every one of us at different times and in different ways.”

Change.  As both the reformation and today’s scriptures show us, God calls us into change.  God doesn’t and won’t just leave us comfortable. God doesn’t call us to be “comfortable”.  In order to understand this more fully, I want to take a moment to look more deeply into the book of Job.  Does anyone remember how the book begins?  It begins with a deal made between God and Satan to “test” Job.  That test involved taking everything away from Job, little by little, to see how he’d react.  

Putting that beginning aside for a moment, let’s look at it from Job’s perspective.  Job believed that if he was good, if he had integrity, if he was righteous that his life would be rewarded.  His friends thought the same.  They all thought that living right equaled riches and prosperity in this life., and visa versa – that having riches and prosperity was a sign that you were blessed by God.  And so, even when things were not going well, Job believed that if he continued to not argue with God, not confront God, that he would again be rewarded.  But as we know, and as we see in this story, this is wong.  Yes, many people whom we call “prosperity Christians” continue to believe that God is Santa Claus, rewarding the good and punishing the bad.  But this is not an accurate reflection, at all, of what scripture tells us, starting here with the story of Job and continuing throughout scripture.  God did not leave Job comfortable.  Instead, Job faced hardships beyond his imagining.  He lost almost everything, he suffered, despite his “righteousness”.  Eventually, God called him to change, to move, to see things in a different way.  God challenged him to act differently.  And as we know from the story of Job, he did act differently.  Rather than being quiet and just accepting, he yelled out, he hollered out at God, and was rewarded by God’s showing up and showing Job a new vision of who God was. 

The Catholic Church also thought that if they just continued on the same path, that they would continue to be powerful and “pleasing” to God.  But as we know, everything changes.  And if we aren’t actively changing, transforming, striving to become more godly, more loving and more compassionate to the needs of others, of all of God’s people, then we are changing for the worse.  Martin Luther challenged what was happening in the church.  He had no intention of starting his own church in doing so.  He simply called the Catholic Church to change the ways in which it was hurting people and failing to take into account the current needs of God’s people.  He called them to task.  But they could not change at that time.  And because of that, they lost a huge number of their people to the Protestant Reformation as people discovered that if they were not going to be able to change their church into a place where they could again find God, they would have to start something new instead.

While all of our churches have changed much since that period of time, we also know that at some level all of our churches also continue to struggle with being stuck.  Seven years ago a columnist I follow named Regina Brett, a very faithful Catholic, wrote an article calling the Catholic Church to reformation again.  Some of what she wrote includes, “most Catholics have already voted with their feet.  They have left or become “C and E Catholics.”  I confess I’ve been tempted to quit for good.  I’m not alone.”  She continues, “The pope has called for a year of faith”…”how about opening our minds to what else God might want to do with us and with this church?...God is still speaking.  Is anyone … listening?”

It is because of this refusal to listen to God, to God’s people, and to be open to change that we had the Protestant reformation.  Diana Butler Bass says, “Luther and his associates were protesters rather than reformers—they stood up against the religious conventions of the day, arguing on behalf of those suffering under religious, social, and economic oppression. …In the United States, Protestantism has often been torn between the impulse to protest (the abolition movement, women’s rights movements, the Civil Rights movement) and the complacency of content by virtue of being the majority religion. After all, if you are the largest religious group in society—if you shape the culture—what do you protest?  Yourself?”

Bruce Epperly put it this way, “Reformation faith is forward, rather than backward-looking, evolving rather than static, at home in this world, rather than in a previous age or a heavenly realm.”

But the unfortunate truth is that Protestant Churches, those who claim to be reformative, are “stuck” as well.  Change is hard.  And we are not keeping “at home in this world rather than a previous age” with a great deal of success.  As a result, there is a new movement “out” of the Protestant Church just as in the Protestant reformation there was a large movement out of the Catholic Church.  While Protestants used to be 2/3^rd of this country, as of 2012, they were at 48%.  That number continues to decrease and one article I read said with all the growing “nones” and “dones” the percentage is now closer to 35%.  Many people are simply leaving the Christian church altogether, but others are just leaving denominationalism, especially Protestant churches.  They are fed up with many of what they call “archaic” practices, and in some cases the archaic theology, in our worship.  They are seeking something new.  And while we could point out the problems with “feel good” worship and with “entertainment” worship, the churches that are not stepping forward into the future are simply not stepping into a future at all.  As I’ve mentioned before, the number of churches that are closing in our country is astounding.  To put it in perspective, 9 Presbyterian churches a week are closing.  That is just the Presbyterian Church.  Other protestant denominations are all experiencing the same thing as our younger members especially leave for more “progressive” worship styles or leave the faith entirely.

God calls all of us to continue to move forward.  Therefore God’s answer to Job, and Jesus’ answer to Bartimaeus did not just leave them where they were or call them to a life of ease and comfort.  Even as God restored Job’s fortunes, God still did not leave Job comfortable.  Job was a righteous man, beyond what we are, beyond what we do.  His integrity was beyond question (even to himself), but Walter Brueggemann points beyond "integrity" and "goodness" to a life of praise centered on God's own goodness. "Yes, hang on to your integrity, Job, for it is never questioned," Brueggemann writes: "But learn a second language. Learn to speak praise and yielding which let you cherish your virtue less tightly" (("A Bilingual Life" in The Threat of Life)).  Job had thought that his happiness, his well-being was dependent on his actions, and on his commitment to living with integrity.  But our identity, worth, and well-being is not determined by our successes and failures, by our actions, by our virtuous living, even, but by God's gift alone.  And so eventually Job was given the sight to see that his “virtue” and “righteousness” was not actually what mattered.  Instead, it was his relationship with God that mattered.  It was not following the rules to a tee.  That is not how he would find meaning and purpose or be “rewarded” with riches or goods.  He had to think beyond the riches and goods of this life to the real gifts of God.  Those real gifts of God begin with relationship with God.  That is the gift.  A gift deeply worth celebrating, and more, worth cultivating.

Bartimaeus, too, was not allowed to just celebrate his new sight.  He was called to radical change as well.  He answered that call by following Jesus after he gained his sight.

I have to say, I realize there is grief involved in change.  Always.  And I need to acknowledge that reality.  Carl Denis wrote a poem called Editing Job that I think describes that loss well.  He wrote:

I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees

To let his opponent, Satan,

Torment our hero merely to prove

What omniscience must know already:

That Job's devotion isn't dependent

On his prosperity. And how foolish of God

If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong,

Will agree to forego his spite against creation

For even a minute.

I'd keep the part where Job disdains

His friends' assumption that somehow

He must be to blame for his suffering,

And the part where he makes a moving appeal

To God for an explanation.

I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade

About might and majesty versus weakness.

The issue is justice. Is our hero

Impertinent for expecting his god

To practice justice as well as preach it,

For assuming the definition of justice

That holds on earth holds as well above?

Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis

For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom,

If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.

Let Job be allowed to complain

About his treatment as long as he wants to,

For months, for decades,

And in this way secure his place forever

In the hearts of all who believe

That suffering shouldn't be silent,

That grievances ought to be aired completely,

Whether heard or not.

As for the end, if it's meant to suggest

That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too.

Or else I suggest at least adding a passage

Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions,

Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving

To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty

To have assumed that Job's new family,

New wife and children and servants,

Would be an ample substitute for the old.

           

Change involves loss.  It leads to grief.  But still, the question is, always, when we come to see who Jesus is, are we willing to go through some grief in order to change our lives into those God calls us to live?  Are we willing to change what feels “comfortable and easy”?  Are we willing to let go of what we think we want, what we think will make us happy, and instead to be open to the path Jesus wants us to go, to follow in the way, in the path of a man who ends up dead before he ends up resurrected?  Does our faith, does our encounter with the living Christ make a difference for us?  The question on Reformation Sunday is, again: are we willing to give up what is comfortable and easy as a church to follow Jesus?  Are we willing to step out to hear what the people of God, God’s children, all of God’s people really need to experience God’s love, God’s grace and God’s presence in this place at this time?

            That is the question that we are constantly called to ask as we continue to seek to be a church that is reformed and always reforming.  Amen.

The Work of Praying Hard - 10/20/19

                                                               Jeremiah 31:27-34

Luke 18:1-8

In a small Texas town, Drummond's Bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.  The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise in its reply to the court.  As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, 'I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.' 

               But prayer is a complicated thing.  There is a very powerful story in the book, Leaving Northaven (Michael Lindvall. New York: Crossroads Publishing Company, 2002) that I would like to share with you.  The backdrop of the story is a woman struggling with Parkinson’s who is being told by everyone to pray for God and trust that God will heal her.  She is speaking with her pastor, named David, at this point. 

“On the 12^th of March, 1918, a prairie wolf followed me home from school.  I was walking the righthand rut of a two-rut road, alongside our cornfield, just stubble in March, of course.  I remember the snow was lying only in the furrows, blown in there by the wind.  It was like black and white stripes.  I saw him in the woods on the other side of the field.  Every once and again, he would move out of the woods, and I would see him moving along with me; he was watching me.  He kept up with me for maybe half an hour.  He was all bone, he was.  Sometimes he would stop and lower his head and just look at me.  I was scared, but I was afraid to run, like running would let him know I was alive.  So, I just walked real steady and watched him without turning to look.  And David, I prayed.  I prayed like I never prayed in my life….  It was 1918.  The Spanish Influenza.  I ran the last hundred yards and burst through the door glad to be alive.  My parents and brother looked up at me from the kitchen table.  Their eyes were red, I remember how their eyes were red.  I’ll never forget it, the three of them sitting there, looking at me.  My father got up and came to me.  I can still see him.  He took me by both shoulders and looked down at me and told me that Gert had just died, not ten minutes ago.  They had just come downstairs from our room.  Then he held me tight, so tight it almost hurt.  I remember that especially, how tight he held me.  And then he sobbed.  Not for the whole of your life do you forget it when you see your parents weep.  That was the only time I ever saw him cry.  I don’t know that my mother ever did.  Gertrude was my older sister.  She was fourteen.  I never even told them about the wolf.  Never told anybody till now….It was like God had answered my prayers when the wolf was following me home.  So the wolf let me go, but he came for Gertrude.  That’s what I thought.  For years, I thought it must have been my fault.  It was like my prayers had caused it.  I know other families had it worse in the influenza, but I adored her, David.  Why didn’t God answer all those prayers for Gert?…  I stopped praying that Parkinson’s would leave me alone because I remembered the wolf, the wolf and Gertrude and the Spanish Influenza.  I was afraid of what my prayers might do.  I didn’t pray for two, three years.  I ached to, but the old words wouldn’t come.  And then finally, after all these years, I finally decided that it wasn’t my fault.  I decided it was never Gertrude instead of me.  I prayed again, but I said bigger prayers.  I just tell [God] what I think and how I feel.  I don’t much tell [God] what to do.  I just tell Him I’m afraid, afraid for me and afraid for the boys and afraid for that old fool of a husband.  I suppose He knows it all already, but words make it solid.  I always whispered them at night when I was awake.”…

(The pastor continued,), I had no quick words in the face of her transparency, but knew only candor would do.  “I do think God answers prayer,” I answered.  “But I’m not sure anymore just what it means.  I’ve watched too many people pray their hearts out and get nothing that looked like an answer.  And then I’ve watched folks pray for miracles and get them.  I don’t know.”

“Well Pastor, don’t worry.  This old lady’s prayers have been answered.”  Minnie MacDowell suddenly switched to the formalities of Protestant address to preach her sermon, “Not the answers I wanted, though.  God didn’t take away the Parkinson’s but he did take away the fear.” (p 116) 

               I believe that prayer “works” but I don’t believe it works by manipulating God, in the way that so many people believe that it does.  About 20 years ago one of the big storms that so often hit the East coast blew through the Eastern Seaboard.  A prominent televangelist took a group of about 12 people down to the coast and they formed a tight prayer circle as the storm approached.  They prayed that the storm would not hit the coast where they were.  Sure enough, the storm went around them.  Instead, it hit the coast a few miles north of where they stood and killed many, many people.  This particular televangelist went on TV spouting his proof that prayer worked, and it surely seemed to for those 12 people.  But what about for those who were also surely praying, further north?  I recently saw a story about a man who insisted that all the climate problems were a result of God responding to the prayers of anti- LGBTQ people by punishing the country.  Then his house was destroyed in one of the hurricanes.  But somehow he did not see THAT as an answer to prayer or as punishment from God or as a message from God.  I feel that prayer used in this way, comments about God’s will as determined by what happens around us – that these are dangerous, and shows a very poor theology.

               Every time someone tells me that someone received healing after being prayed for, I find myself cringing a bit because every single time I remember all of those who were also prayed for who did not survive, did not heal.  Did those other people just not pray hard enough?  Was their faith not strong enough?  I don’t believe that.  Was God just saying “yes” to some and “no” to others?  I struggle with that, especially when it is a child who has suffered.  Does God “need” certain people to be in heaven?  No, I can’t see that either.  God gave us life and wants us to have it in fullness.  I struggle with the idea that there is a God who answers prayers for some but allows the Holocaust to take place, slavery to go on in different places and in different ways, throughout history and even now,  and who is not preventing the damaging of the earth or the extinction of whole species of animals due to Climate Change.  I think we have to understand prayer differently if we are to believe in a good and loving God. 

In the book, Tattoos on the Heart (New York: Free Press, 2010), Father Gregory Boyle tells this story:

              

               Willy crept up on me from the driver’s side.  I had just locked the office and was ready to head home at 8:00pm. 

                              “Shit, Willy,” I say, “Don’t be doin’ that.”

               “Spensa, G”, he says, “My bad.  It’s just.. well my stomach’s on echale.  Kick me down with twenty bones, yeah?”

               “God, my wallet’s on echale,” I tell him.  A “dog” is the one upon whom you can rely – the role-dog, the person who has your back.  “But get in.  Let’s see if I can trick any funds outta the ATM.”

               Willy hops on board.  He is a life force of braggadocio and posturing – a thoroughly good soul – but his confidence is out-size, that of a lion wanting you to know he just swallowed a man whole.  A gang member, but a peripheral one at best – he wants more to regale you with his exploits than to actually be in the midst of any.  In his mid-twenties, Willy is a charmer, a quintessential homie con man who’s apt to coax money out of your ATM if you let him.  This night, I’m tired and I want to go home.

               It’s easier not to resist.  The Food 4 Less on Fourth and Soto has the closest ATM.  I tell Willy to stay in the car, in case we run into one of Willy’s rivals inside.

               “Stay here, dog,” I tell him, “I’ll be right back.”

               I’m not ten feet away when I hear a muffled, “hey.”

               It’s Willy and he’s miming, “the keys,” from the passenger seat of my car.  He’s making over-the-top, key-in-the-ignition senales. 

               “The radio,” he mouths, as he holds a hand, cupping his ear.

               I wag a finger, “No, chale.”  Then it’s my turn to mime.  I hold both my hands together and enunciate exaggeratedly, “Pray.”

               Willy sighs and levitates his eyeballs.  But he’s putty.  He assumes the praying hands pose and looks heavenward – cara santucha.  I proceed on my quest to the ATM but feel the need to check in on Willy only ten yards later.

               I turn and find him still in the prayer position, seeming to be only half-aware that I’m looking in on him.

               I return to the car, twenty dollars in hand, and get in.  Something has happened here.  Willy is quiet, reflective, and there is a palpable sense of peace in the vehicle.  I look at Willy and say, “you prayed, didn’t you?”

               He doesn’t look at me.  He’s still and quiet.  “Yeah, I did.”

               I start the car.

               “Well, what did God say to you?”  I ask him.

               “Well, first He said, ‘Shut up and listen.’”

               “So, what d’ya do?”

               “Come on, G,” he says, “What am I s’posed ta do?  I shut up and listened.”

               I begin to drive him home to the barrio.  I’ve never seen Willy like this.  He’s quiet and humble – no need to convince me of anything or talk me out of something else.

               “So, son, tell me something, “ I ask.  “How do you see God?”

               “God?” he says, “That’s my dog right there.”

               “And God?” I ask, “How does God see you?”

               Willy doesn’t answer at first.  So I turn and watch as he rests his head on the recliner, staring at the ceiling of my car.  A tear falls down his cheek.  Heart full, eyes overflowing.  “God… thinks… I’m… firme.”

               To the homies, firme means, “could not be one bit better.”

               Not only does God think we’re firme, it is God’s joy to have us marinate in that. (p23)

And in that is the truth of prayer.  And yet, there is something deeper here.  I heard someone say once that God doesn’t answer our prayers, God answers US.  Someone else told me, we keep asking for answers, but God keeps sending us people.  Under all of this is what C.S. Lewis says about prayer, “I do not pray to change God.  I pray so that God might change me.”   We open ourselves up to God through praying, through speaking our truth and then listening.  We learn about ourselves through our honest communication with God, and we allow for growth and change to become possibilities as we listen for God’s voice and look for God in our experiences, in other people, in the world and life around us.  I believe that God is more present in our prayers than we can even imagine.  God begins the conversation and we respond to it by praying.  God begins the conversation by creating us, by calling us, by choosing us and by inviting us into relationship with God.  We join that conversation through our prayers, and then, hopefully, by our actions of love and care as well. 

That doesn’t let us off the hook for praying.  I was given a wonderful article by Edward Hayes, written last year I believe called “Thanksgiving Thoughts.”  He wrote ‘friendship takes time, education takes time, meals that are truly holy and wholesome take time – and so does prayer.  We Americans are a people who suffer from a great poverty of time.  We are always short of time: to write letters to visit old friends, to enjoy life.  And the near future, especially for middle-class Americans, will find our clocks running faster and faster.  With husbands and wives both working, numerous commitments to the parish, school and community and with children involved in numerous extracurricular activities, we are left with less and less quality time within the family.  Consequently, we can expect to see, in the coming years, more instant foods and quick worship services.  But just as a 19 ½ pound turkey baked only for a minute will be a disaster dinner, so will prayers dashed off “on the run.”  The soul, like the body, knows hunger, and it will not easily be able to digest even a half-baked prayer, let alone some kind of ‘minute meditation.”   Hayes goes on to describe the different steps of basting, preheating, stuffing and finally cooking for a long time our prayers just as we would cook a turkey.  His point is that relationships with God take the same time that any relationships take. 

Prayer is important, but not because we control God with it.  It’s important because it helps us build a relationship with God, and if that seems meaningless to you, prayer is important because it helps you to hear your own thoughts, wishes, fears, what you are grateful for, who you are becoming, who you have been.  Prayer opens us up to hearing God, to being moved by God, to changing and growing.  Prayer takes time, but it is very well spent and should be a priority for all of us.  The good news in this?  Well, prayer is where we meet God.  And more, where God meets us.  Amen.

The Dishonest Steward - 10/13/19

Jer. 8:18-9:1

Luke 16:1-13

Does anyone find this passage in Luke confusing?  What happens here?  We’ve got a manager or steward whom others are saying has been squandering the master’s property.  The master, in anger, says he’s going to fire the guy.  So, the steward deals with the fear of losing his job by practicing dishonesty.  He robs the master to gain favor with those who owe the master money by cutting the debt of those who owe the master.  Then in a strange turn of events, the master praises his steward for cheating him!

 This is followed by the words, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  Aren’t we supposed to follow and emulate the children of light?  And then THIS is followed by Jesus seeming to encourage us to be dishonest.  He says, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Um…

But then this is followed by the words, “whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.  If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?”  And then he goes on to say that we can’t serve both God and money.  So what do you think?  Was he being sarcastic when he said earlier that we should make friends by means of dishonest wealth?

In researching this parable and different interpretations and understandings, I’ve found that most commentators are also simply confused by it.  Some say Luke just pretty randomly put together Jesus’ sayings about wealth and so his summary words just happen to fall together with this parable making any who try to put them together meaningfully just confused.  But I tend to think Luke is a little more discerning than that.  This story isn’t found in any other gospel, for whatever reason.  But Luke’s placement of it and the placement of the comments Jesus makes which follow it seem important to me.  They do go together and it is our job to try to understand how.

Other commentators say that yes, Jesus was being sarcastic by saying we should make friends by means of dishonest wealth.  Some commentators say the steward was not really

cheating the master, but was just cancelling his own commission in order to lower the debtors’ debt.  But most commentators discount that based on the fact that the steward’s commission was probably not contained in the debt amount anyway, but was a separate fee.

In the end, I don’t think this story can be understood without some history and cultural explanation attached to it.  If you are interested in reading more about this on your own, I highly recommend Herzog as a good source for understanding this parable.  As he explains it:

First, the steward here probably is not being dishonest.  Instead, because he is in a position where he must collect money for the master, and take money from those in debt to the master, he is therefore mistrusted and feared by everyone.  Those in debt have little power or recourse in the face of unfair contracts and monetary practices written by the steward for the master except to use verbal attack.  So, these debtors start an anonymous rumor, not that the steward is dishonest, but that he is wasting the master’s money. The master is not actually concerned here about dishonesty but about the steward mis-using his resources.  At any rate, the steward becomes concerned about losing his job and realizes that for him, this is a death sentence.  He cannot do hard labor or beg for any length of time and survive it.  So, he thinks up a different plan.  He goes out and erases some of the debt of the master’s tenants.  This, in contrast to earlier behavior, may have been considered dishonest.  The amount by which he cuts the debt is important because it tells us what exactly the steward is cutting or disposing of. 

By Jewish law, as recorded in the Old Testament, the charging of interest, any interest, on a debt is illegal, ungodly, and wrong.  The masters knew this.  They would not therefore, because of the importance of the Jewish law at that time, be put in the position of appearing to charge interest on the land and money they lent.  But their stewards or managers were in a position to write contracts in such a way that this interest, 20-50% of the original debt, was written into lease agreements in unclear, hidden, covert ways.  This 20-50% is exactly the amount of money which the steward in today’s story cuts from the debtors’ debts.  If this hidden interest had been discovered, the steward who wrote the contracts, not the master who gained the interest, would take the blame for it.  In this story the steward has basically erased the illegal interest from the contracts of those who owe his master money.  In doing so, he has lowered a hard debt on those who owe the master.  He also credited the master for this reduction of debt and in so doing has gained praise for the master from those in debt to him. Finally, he has also reminded the master who it is who brings him the extra “interest” money, for without the steward the master cannot do so well financially.  While the master is out money because of what the steward has done here, the steward has gained for the master praise from his debtors, and an unspoken, inexplicit debt for “the master’s” generosity from his debtors.  While the master might have been angry at the loss of this interest, in this story, he appears instead to appreciate what has been gained by his steward’s actions: the praise, the implied debt of gratitude from his debtors, the reminder of all the steward has previously done to raise the riches of the master.  In all these ways, the steward has broken down a system of mistrust and even hatred for a while.  Those in debt are now feeling better about the master (whom they believe lowered the debt).  The master is feeling better about the steward for winning him some praise and favor, and reminding him that the steward has brought in extra money for the master in the past.  The debtors of the master are not as oppressed by the large debt the interest previously forced onto them.  In the short run, by this action, the steward has done an amazing thing.  He has broken down the walls and rules which usually structure their world.  For a moment, the reign of God is glimpsed, a reign of trust, honesty, reconciliation, forgiveness, and caring.

We might ask, “has the steward changed an oppressive system?”  No, of course not.  Has the steward really won for himself a place in people’s homes so that if he still is fired, he will have places to go?  Very unlikely.  Those owing the master money would not have the resources or interest in taking care of this steward once he is let go.  Is it really good to make friends through dishonesty?  Well, the rest of the passage for today is pretty clear that you can’t serve both God and money and that dishonesty at any one level in your life can only lead to more dishonesty at other levels.  In other words, no.  The point the parable is making is that God’s presence slips through the systems of oppression now and then and that we should do all we can to encourage, honor, create those glimpses of reconciliation, healing, forgiveness and love, even through creative and unexpected ways.

Rosa Parks, by her simple refusal to give up her seat on a bus, because she believed that equality for all was worth taking a personal stand at great risk, was the catalyst that sparked the civil rights movement.  Her action was illegal at the time, yes, but also the means for God’s dominion to peek through.  Many years after the incident on the bus, the Ku Klux Klan approached the town council in a community in Alabama, volunteering to keep a certain stretch of highway clean.  The town council was in a sticky situation.  If they said no to the offer, it might make them look bad.  If they said yes, it might make them look like they agreed with racism.  So they made a clever decision.  They said yes to the Ku Klux Klan.  Then they renamed that particular stretch of road The Rosa Parks Highway.  A shrewd action and for a moment, they ushered in a glimpse of God’s realm which can forgive and extend love to even the worst of us, but also fights constantly for justice and peace.

Henry Ford, the inventor of the automobile, once visited his family’s ancestral village in Ireland.  Two trustees of the local hospital found out he was there and managed to get in to see him.  They talked Ford into giving the hospital $5000 (which in the 1930's was a great deal of money).  The next morning at breakfast, he opened his daily newspaper to read the headline: “American Millionaire Gives $50,000 to Local Hospital.”  Ford wasted no time summoning the two hospital trustees who were very apologetic.  “Terrible mistake” they said, and they promised to get the editor to print a retraction the very next day declaring that the great Henry Ford had not given $50,000, but only $5000.  Hearing this, Ford offered them another $45,000, under one condition: that the trustees would erect a marble arch at the new hospital entrance and place on it a plaque that read, “I walked among you and you took me in.”  Another little glimpse of God’s presence (and humor!) that breaks through, sometimes through shrewd ways, but always breaks through.

The passage in Jeremiah for today shows a God who is grieving for God’s people.  God seems in this passage almost trapped by their dreadful situation.  God is sorrowful at their pain, angered by their stubbornness, perhaps wanting to simply walk away.  But God stays.  God stays so that the people might still catch a glimpse of God in their lives.  Where have glimpses of God’s love, God’s reign, broken through into your life?  Where have you helped that reign poke through in unexpected ways?God’s love is amazing.  And God does always make appearances, often when we least expect it.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Moments of Shame, Moments of Grace

           It really wasn't anybody's fault.  The adult in me knows this.  We hadn't really practiced together at all, I'm therefore not used to the way she directs and I mis-read her cue.  What I thought was a "prep-beat" was her downbeat. The result?  It was not good.  The concluding, triumphant exit music for this beautiful service began as a disaster.  The choir began to sing as I played the last beat of the introduction, which meant that I and a couple of the other musicians were a beat behind.   And in the end, I stopped playing altogether, unsure whether to keep playing with the musicians who were with me, or to play with the choir and director.  By the middle of the first verse we were together.  None the less, this happened in front of a huge number of people who'd come for a very important memorial service.  I left feeling humiliated, but more, ashamed - I had failed a group of people I cared about at a memorial service that was important to me as well.  I had practiced, worked to play well, and the performance was not up to my expectations.  I was so upset that, rather than stay for the reception (which I had planned to do and which I had wanted to do), I just came home and ate pie after the service.  Yes, I know that eating pie is not the healthiest way to deal with problems, but it made me temporarily feel a little better, so there you have it.  We all have our coping strategies: pie eating is one of mine, so try not to judge it.  Perhaps another "coping" strategy is thinking up stupid, unhelpful ways of dealing with the shame, "Okay fine!  If this is how you are going to play for important services, it is obviously time for you to quit playing altogether.  You aren't good at this anymore.  This was a message to you.  And the message is 'DONE!'  You are done.  Finished.  Letters of resignation to be sent out in the morning."
           Fortunately, I'm slightly more grown-up in my behaviors than I am in my head.  I know this situation wasn't really anyone's fault.  It just happened that our lack of knowledge of each other and our limited time to practice together caused a misunderstanding, a misreading of cues.  There are other ways to prevent this problem in the future than just quitting.  This may be the first time I've played under this director, and my guess is it won't happen often, if ever, again.  If and when it does, we'll deal with it then, and we'll both come to it with a deeper understanding of the potential problems we might have.
          But, now that I'm moving out of that shame-place, I'm also able to take a step back and reflect a little on the power of shame in our lives.  We all make mistakes.  Some of them are met with feelings of guilt, sometimes we deal by blaming those around us, and sometimes we move more deeply into places of shame.  The difference?  Guilt is an "I've done something wrong that I feel bad about"  response.  Blame can be a number of things: inability to self-reflect, or guilt and shame transferred onto the other.  Shame on the other hand is "I am innately wrong.  Something about me is wrong.  I am bad, I am not right."  That is a deep place.  What causes a person to go there?  Probably years of conditioning that has told us that mistakes are not okay and that they somehow mark us as bad people.  Maybe our faith communities historically have had a hand in this: some faith communities tell their folk that we are innately "sinful," wrong, not deserving of God's love, and that can be embodied in us as shame.
          But our faith should instead, I deeply believe, help us to focus on our creation as good beings.  We are created good.  We are loved into being.  Yes, we make mistakes, but nothing, nothing is so big that it stops God's love for us.  God sees deeper, and I believe, with everything in me, that what God sees is the good, is the beautiful, is the "holy" even.  We are not mistakes.  We are not "wrong" as people.  We are loved.  Even something as big as a crazy music mess up in a memorial service should be treated with grace, with laughter, with a recognition that maybe these mistakes are calls to not take ourselves so very seriously.  Life happens.  And it is messy.  But in that mess is beauty.
       More importantly, it is often in the messy that we find God.  God comes to us in the least expected places: among the poor, among the disadvantaged, among the outcast.  Might that not also mean that God comes to us in the mess?  In the mistakes?  In the chaos and confusion and clashes of life?  It's easier to see it when that mess is taking place in others... we can see God, for example, in children who've been playing outside so hard that they are covered in dirt.  It's easy to laugh and delight and see God in their joyful, soiled, messy faces.  We can see God in funny or humorous situations that involve other people or animals: again we feel God in our own joy and delight.  When people misspeak and say funny things, our laughter is often God-filled happiness.  But when we ourselves make a mistake... it's hard to laugh at it, hard to delight in it, and even harder to find God in it.  
         So today I am looking for God in the mess.  And what I see is that we celebrated a man today who was described again and again as joyful, enthusiastic, fun, playful.  He was said to be filled with laughter, to include humor in every service.  So, we tried to make a service for him that was more perfect.  The laughter came in some of the stories told, but perhaps that was not enough.  No, perhaps it was not going to run perfectly because that would not have been a true service reflecting the joy and humor of Father Mat.  His service needed some chaos, some mess, some unexpected and unanticipated moments - moments where God could break in in a new and different way.  So having the choir sing a beat ahead of the accompaniest?  Well, maybe there's the humor for you.  Maybe Father Mat was laughing at us despite all our efforts to be perfect and great.  And maybe he was delighting in our humanity, in our flawed attempts to be just right.  It is inevitable in my life that the times that I try hardest to be perfect are the times I fail to be so.  I struggle and strive to stop seeing those times as moments of condemnation.  Instead, they are invitations to see as God sees, and to delight in our goofy, imperfect selves; to relax my own rigid rules of what is okay for myself, and instead to enjoy our crazy world for what it is.  Those moments of imperfection are also invitations for grace to come in.  There is no room in perfection for grace.  It is only in the chaos that there is space for grace to come swirling in with healing and light and compassion.  The invitation for grace is an invitation for God to be even more present with us.
       So, while I still wish the mistake hadn't happened, that we hadn't gotten off a beat, that the service was picture perfect in every way, I recognize that it was what it was: another opportunity to ask for, seek, find, and accept God's grace.  And today that grace comes in the ability to laugh at myself for ever thinking I could be perfect, even just for a service, and to rejoice that I was able to be there in the celebration at all, doing my best, no matter how it came out, and honoring an important man for the gifts he gave to this community.