faith | Preacher on the Plaza

February 21, 2013

Abundant Life

Jesus says to his disciples: “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

It’s one of those scripture passages that I’ve had in my head for years thanks to all that time spent in church.

It’s one of those scriptures that prosperity gospel types like to quote when they’re seeking to prove that what God really wants to give us is abundant wealth. Joel Osteen anyone?

It’s also one of those scripture passages that altar call preachers use to talk about “getting saved.” Oh my.

It’s a passage that conjures up visions of heaven and hell– who is going where.

I dislike it all of these uses.

Yet, lately I find myself sitting with this word “abundant” with fresh eyes, thinking about the movements in my own life and those around me too.

And this is what I think: we are scared out of our pants of the word “abundance.” We really like our poverty instead.

Of course this phrase sounds contradictory. Who doesn’t want to have something? Who doesn’t want to receive blessing? It’s rare that you meet a person in poverty who says, “I’d like to live in the slums for the rest of my life.”

But, honestly, I think so many of us do! It is often much easier being miserable than it is accepting the vulnerability of healing, especially when that healing asks our life movements to change. Because poverty is what we know. We feel comfortable with our pains, even if they are pains nonetheless. We like being left alone and no one bothering us with the challenge of asking for more.

Recently, I’ve found myself in several conversations with two camps of people. Those who have pushed through difficult times in their life toward abundance and those who are stuck in muck and just don’t want to get out.

Just yesterday, I looked a friend in the eyes who I know has worked hard to fight for her own life (even when it meant facing difficult days of doubt, depression, and even wondering how in the world she’d make it to the other side) saying, “I’m so proud of you. . . . I”m so happy for the joy that I see in you. . . . Please don’t ever stop fighting for abundance life and kick my ass if I ever stop either.” It was a moment to look back on the past and with gratitude for all that God has done.

I was in a similar conversation with another friend a couple of weeks ago who said things to me like, “I’m just don’t think my life is ever going to get better. . . . I guess I have to get used to this. . . . Nothing good in life happens to me. . . . I can’t imagine trusting people again.” And yet upon hearing these litany of words, my heart just sank. Because I knew abundant hope had been completely taken off the table for the person.

Sure, in life we are all on a journey. We go through seasons. Sometimes we must just hide in our caves for a while and be sad, angry or bitter. Sometimes these seasons of hopelessness last for a long time, even longer than we would like. And it just is what it is. And sometimes those dear ones in our life like pastors, friends, or family members hold up our hands (just as Joshua and others did for Moses in the wilderness) just have to be the ones who keep us going.

But then there comes a time when enough is a enough. A time comes when we need to look up to the hills from which comes our help. Our calling is to say yes to abundance. Our calling is to say yes to hope– even if we can’t see the way ahead clearly. Our calling is simply to receive. And in the process surround ourselves with others who can help us move in this way– for abundance is so big that often we just can’t take it in alone.

So, I ask you where are you today? And what is holding YOU back from God’s best for your life?

And, for those of you who were wondering– I had a lovely birthday yesterday. A perfect day of abundance to savor for a long time!

Posted in gratitude, making it all work | Leave a Comment »

Tags: depression, faith, hope, life change

October 24, 2012

Why Do You Pray?

As a child, I was taught that prayer was talking to God. It was right to give thanks to God for food. I was encouraged to pray for those who were going through difficult times. I learned that if you didn’t confess sin before you prayed then God wouldn’t be too happy with you.

And, while I learned to like God and all through these years of Christian education at church– all of the “rules” of prayer seemed to be just that, rules. I didn’t understand why I was told to have a relationship with God, but yet there were so many particular rules. As I grew up and learned to make friends, I came to realize that relationships are always in flux, changing over time, growing as life beats on. So, then, why then did God want me to talk to him at 20 the same way that I did when I was 5? This is what my church lead me to believe.

I took a break from prayer for many years in my 20s, at least serious prayer that is. I know that’s not something that preacher types usually share; for they fear it will ruin their holy complex. Well, if you have a holy complex about me, let it go now. I’m just a human being like everyone else.

And, it’s so true. For many, many years, I didn’t really “get” prayer, at least private prayer. Sure, I could stand up in church on Sunday mornings and ask God to bless the sick in my congregation, those with troubles in the world and find a way to end with the Lord’s Prayer– but things weren’t so intimate with God and me. I didn’t see the point, especially as I walked through difficult situations and nothing about my situation seemed to change . . .

But over the last year or so, this has shifted. And I now pray for completely different reasons.

My baby steps back toward prayer centered on praying for those I love.

I don’t know if you are like me or not, but when I love, I fiercely love. I love my congregation members. I love my husband. I love my dears kindred spirit friends. I love dear ones of all kinds that find a way to intersect my life in unique ways. And for me, sometimes, it is hard to know what to do with that love. I truly want the best for them. I want to see them thrive. I want life to be as good to them as it possibly can. However, there comes a time when relationally I have done or can do all I can, but yet my heart isn’t at peace for them. So I pray. I find joy in giving those I love to God.

And, so I’ve learned to pray– love by praying. To ask God, who I believe is the divine parent of us all– to watch over those I know are in need of peace, support or wisdom in their daily lives.

A funny thing has happened to me along the way. I have found myself wanting to pray more. It’s no longer a chore. It’s a sweetness in my day. It has become a relationship between God and my community.

While many might think, it’s shallow– to just pray for people who you love– I say, don’t judge too quickly. In getting the conversation going again, God has come near to me in other ways. I’m beginning to get back to all the other stuff too like “Oh, God I have fallen short of your best for me in this way” or “Oh, God bless those in need in far away places” or “God bless so and so who really annoys me.”

So, why do I pray now? I pray out of relationship. Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I really mess things up. But, I keep learning to pray because I long for the Creator of this world to bless those whom have touched by life so profusely. I pray because it is an act which connects me to the soul of others like nothing else. I pray because as my compassion muscles are able to grow for others, I truly believe I come and learn more of who God truly is. God comes near– the best gift of all.

Posted in Personal, prayer | 1 Comment »

Tags: faith, fundementalism, prayer

October 16, 2012

To Love Mercy

Mark 10:17-31

Last week, we began by asking ourselves some big picture questions as a congregation: who are we? And where are we going? Following the lead of Micah 6:8, we answered by remembering that our first calling as a community is to do justice by simply opening our eyes and seeing people that we might otherwise overlook. Justice begins with opening our eyes to see. But this morning, let’s take the conversation one step further—asking again, who are we?

If you are like most, you probably would answer this question based on where you find yourself in this moment of your life. I am a grandmother. I am retired. I live in Reston. I work in Tysons. I live in a brick house. I drive a Honda hybrid.

Though we know intellectually that we are more than our jobs or more than our titles or even more than what we own, it is very easy to talk about who we are by the stuff around us. It very easy to be people who are always out for the hunt for something more—just as a recent survey of American reported than a large majority feel that they deserve right now a 20% increase in pay or that if they made at least 20% more money than they made right now then they’d be happier.

But Micah’s exhortation encourages us today—that our second call as congregation is to be a people who “love mercy.” People who not only see the needs of those around them, but begin to use their resources they have—whether they be time, talent or even finances to come to the aid of others.

And in this calling, as we consider living it out, can come in direct assault to the ways and the stuff around us that we normally define ourselves by. What if we didn’t buy the new I Phone 5 and instead sponsored a child monthly through a relief organization in lieu of that extra special data cell phone plan? What if we waited to purchase a vacation home and instead agreed to assist our grandchildren for paying for college? What if we left our high paying job (and thus guarantee for an early retirement) for a career in the non-profit sector where we knew we could use our talents for the great good of our community?

Ouch! This “love mercy” stuff is no easy calling . . .

However, as we take a closer look at our gospel lesson for this morning, we know that we are in good company. The earliest disciples suffered from the same struggle too. The cost of discipleship was in fact harder than their check-list faith paradigm from the past might have otherwise imagined.

As recorded in Mark 10, Jesus has had a hectic day of ministry but a man comes running toward him after the blessing of the children. This man was a courageous young fellow as he risked ridicule by humbly approaching this Teacher everyone was talking about. Clues from other gospels help identify him by the title of Rich Young Ruler.

And because of his wealth, this was also a guy who we can imagine got everything his heart desired—only the best social status, the best camel his dinari could buy, and handsome garments to wear to prove to the world that he was somebody. Basically, his life was on a direct path where everything was as it should be. (Though I’m sure he still thought he needed 20% more!)

Furthermore, from this passage, we gather that even in the religious realm, the Rich Young Ruler was the kind of guy with every t crossed and i dotted— he followed the commandments of his faith doing everything that was expected of him.

However, one huge unanswered question mark remained. Was he completing the right to-do list? The Rich Young Ruler wanted to know if his efforts to be a godly person were enough to get him on the “Who’s Who of God’s People” yearbook.

Thus, we hear him uttering this question to Christ: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” in verse 17.

And this question is not just one that 1^st century Jews were asking themselves—it still lingers as one of the most pondered questions in the modern-day.

Answer the question in a book of 150 pages or less with good marketing and you’ll be a bestselling author. Speak prophetically about the nature of salvation with specific dates about Jesus’ second coming and you’ll be the founder of a new branch of Christianity. Preach a five step salvation plan and you might just be a pastor of a growing mega church.

But why? I believe it’s because there is something in all of us that craves a checklist faith: we want concrete answers. We want a rubric that leaves us with a chart full of gold stars from God at the end of our lives. And we want all of these achievements in a package we can easily understand, so we’ll have time left where we can cram in everything else in our lives that we think is important.

In the same way, the Rich Young Ruler truly got this desire of ours. In his craving to know what Jesus’ bottom line was for salvation, he was just asking to see the black and white meaning of eternal salvation. So, why couldn’t Jesus, this good teacher, just tell him? He knew whatever it was, he could do it.

In typical Jesus fashion, he steers clear of an easy answer and adds an impossible addendum to the commandments he was already keeping in verse 21: “Go, sell everything that you have and give it to the poor.”

“What, are you crazy?” the man must have thought, “This is NOT what I expected to hear!”

For, he knew he could not give up everything as Jesus said. Jesus was asking for ownership of ALL of his life, not just the part he could easily give him.

Having a conversation about money and faith . . . Oh, this would be too hard. Impossible in fact, for a guy like him, as everything in his life was tied in some way to physical possessions.

Asking this man to give up his stuff was more than just a call to poverty (as this passage is not just about money), but it was a call to complete surrender of his life. It was a call to acts of mercy, to a lifestyle of mercy.

Thus, we read in verse 22 that the man’s “face fell” upon hearing Jesus’ exhortation. He journeys away saddened by the proposal. For, he could do nothing.

And, the Rich Young Ruler was not the only one for whom to love mercy would be difficult.

The disciples found themselves confused too. Was there any possibility of salvation for them either? Peter (as always) quickly speaks: “We have left everything to follow you!” Peter wants to make it clear that if anyone had made great sacrifices, they certainly had. Wouldn’t that certainly be enough for his kingdom? And while Jesus says their efforts will be recognized, he doesn’t directly answer the question. Because to love mercy was not something that could be translated into a black and white spread sheet or action that could be qualified by human standards . . .

Because perhaps because Jesus’ life provided a completely new paradigm of loving neighbors that would not be dependent on human ability to follow the law . . .

Perhaps because salvation would take its cues from the cross— a place of self-emptying, a place of unselfish love, a place where the mercy of our Lord the gift given for us all!

You see, the type of kingdom the Rich Young Ruler, the disciples and even you and I are often looking for is one where we don’t have to suffer. A kingdom where we can be sure of our salvation we had the right answers or a kingdom where our faith does not have to change our daily to-day lifestyle, vacation plans or shopping trips to the mall. Many of us live on fixed incomes after all. We’ve made decisions about what to do with our finances years before we retired. There is no way we could change now!

I feel I would remiss if I didn’t interject here that I totally understand how hard this is, to open up a conversation on acts of mercy that flow out of our pocketbook.

Not even pastor types, with a Revs in front of their names are experts at mercy. We too like our stuff as much as the next person. (It is true, that I have been accused on many occasions of having a love obsession with my IPad or my purse collection).

Maybe this is why Jesus said in verse 25, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Did you know that in Jerusalem there is an eye in the needle gate? Kevin and I saw it ourselves a couple years ago on a trip to the region.

In ancient times, the needle of the eye gate was purposely built with a very small entry way so to prohibit invaders from coming into the city. However, this safety feature was not without its disadvantages. What if they wanted to get necessary goods into the city?

When traders wanted to come into the city of David with their camels (or other animals) loaded with goods, they could not fit in the gate. The only way for the camels to get in “the eye of the needle” gate was for the owners to unload their goods and leave it outside until someone else was able to bring it in through another way.

So, to is our work if we are going to be people who enter the kingdom of God as lovers of mercy. If we are going to be people who live in the city of God, then we are going to have unload on a regular basis, so to make room for of God’s ways in our lives.

But, why? Really, why mercy? Could that just be left to someone else?

Biblical commentator, David Lose, answers the question in this way—we love mercy because:

The way we spend our money (and I would add here time and talents) “has a great impact on the welfare of our neighbor. Notice that Jesus doen’t just tell the man simply to give his wealth away, but rather he tells him to give it to the poor. . . . Jesus invites not just the rich man but all of us to imagine that we are, indeed, stewards of our wealth, charged to use all that we have to best care of all the people God has given us as companions along the way.”

We love mercy because there are those whom we need to assist that will not otherwise have what they need unless we give. Simple as that.

He also adds that we are to love mercy because:

The way we spent our money (or our time and talents) has a great impact on our own welfare as well. Consider [how our relationship with what we earn ourselves] can mask our dependence on God and each other by creating a sense not just of independence, but actually of not needing each other. . . . Jesus knows there are few things more important than for us to do than to share our abundance.”

We love mercy because it is good for us. We remember who our Creator. We remember to whom we belong which is to ALL our human brothers and sisters. We remember that just as we give, we receive.

How did this passage end? Look with me at verse 31. It’s a favorite of mine: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

This my friends, is THE radical message of the teachings of Jesus. Our life is found loving mercy. For as we give we might just find that no matter how much money is or is not in our bank accounts, retirement funds, or how much our savings bonds are worth, we’d rather love mercy than be in love with our new car, dream vacation or even season tickets to our favorite sporting team.

Hear me not say today that Jesus is not anti-stuff or anti fun. God, I believe wants to us to enjoy what brings us delight and what we’ve been blessed with. What good is it to have anything if we walk around feeling guilty about it all the time?

But, in the end, we are to love the most is mercy. Our lives as Christians are to overflow with mercy. Or church is to overflow with mercy—not just when we have enough in savings or our building suddenly stops aging or when our pledges get over a certain amount for the year ahead or even when we have a certain number of people in worship, when we think we can afford it. Nope. Mercy is never about cost and benefit analysis. Nope. Jesus says, “Be merciful now. Be merciful now. It’s what I’ve asked you to do if you want to follow me.”

AMEN

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Tags: faith, Jesus, mercy, poverty, riches

September 23, 2012

I’m Not Smart Enough

Excuses Series: I’m Not Smart Enough–Mark 9:30-37

Have you ever found yourself in a situation or a conversation with someone and have wanted to throw up your hands and say, “This is all just over my head. What you are saying is beyond me!”

Maybe this was a time you were in Algebra in high school and your teacher put up the formula, x+y= ? and pointed to you for an answer. The clueless look on your face said it all. “I’m not smart enough to answer that. Math is just not my thing. Could you ask someone else?”

Maybe it was a time when you moved to a new place—a place where the primary language was not the one you learned since childhood. Someone directs their attention to you, seeking to have a rapid fired conversation and all you can say with the confused look in your eyes, “I’m not smart enough to understand you. Could you please just talk to someone else?”

Maybe it was a time when you found yourself at a dinner party with some well-educated folk. Before too long the conversation goes in the direction of topics or current events to which you know nothing. When it seems to be your time to contribute, your dazed expression says back to the group, “I’m not smart enough. Could we please just talk about something else?”

In all these situations and countless others that you and I could encounter in a given week, the most human response is silence. We are people who disengage when we don’t understand something. Our excuse that keeps us from greater depths of relationship or knowledge is simply, “I am not smart enough.”

In the same way, in our gospel lesson for this morning, we encounter a group of Jesus’ disciples who were also fans of using the excuse, “I’m not smart enough” when the cost of discipleship intensified. They too allow silence to be their response.

And this is the scene: Jesus has just returning from a long trip to Caesarea Philippi has come home to Galilee—Capernaum to be exact, the only place throughout the gospels where Jesus is known to have had a house during his entire three-year ministry. Jesus’ ministry is climaxing. Like the moment the dramatic music begins to play in the middle of a movie, signaling “now is the time to pay attention” (can you hear it now?) so to was Mark 9’s place in the larger plot.

Jesus knows that his time on earth will so be coming to a close. He needs his disciples to not only to be prepared for all that is to come, but also to see things more clearly. Previously, Jesus had asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s answer of “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God” had shaken the foundations of this ministry. But, there was more. This was it (look with me at verse 31): “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days later after being killed, he will rise again.”

And is the case with Jesus, every moment was a teachable experience, every moment was an opportunity to life to life to fullest—to help his followers truly understand what life in the kingdom of God was really like.

But, like a tough Algebra lesson or an over intellectualized dinnertime conversation, verse 32 tell us the disciples’ response, “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask.”

Jesus, you see, had just let them in on the future and the glory of all that was to come, but what do they do? They SAY NOTHING. Their silence speaks to their excuse of—“We’re not smart enough.” And by this I mean, not that the disciples had mental or intellectual challenges or disabilities, but that they allowed their own fears of the unknown to keep them from going the next step in their relationship with Jesus. They held on to the crutch of the excuse of, “Whoa, wait a minute Jesus . . . what you’ve said is just a little too much for us. We just started to love you and commit to follow you for the rest of our lives and now you tell us that you are going to die and then rise again. We just don’t comprehend.”

The problem wasn’t the confusion. It wasn’t even the lack of understanding. It was the ego. It was the disciples being too fearful of what others might have thought of them that they wouldn’t even ask their questions aloud. Fear held them back.

Jesus, I believe, would have had no problem entertaining their questions IF they’d only been courageous enough to say them.

Instead, the disciples opted for another way. They clung to these pristine images of themselves—as the chosen, as the put together ones, as the ones who were of course smart enough to know everything that they already needed to know that they said nothing. They couldn’t dare ask Jesus a question because what if they admitted their doubt, what would this say about them? (Met someone like this in church lately?)

As we keep on reading, it all becomes plain to us. Because when the disciples and Jesus finally got to Capernaum, Jesus takes them aside. “Hey boys, what have you been fusing about with one another on the way?” Though they’d not fess up to it (again there’s silence) scripture tells us that they’d been busy debating who among themselves who was the greatest.

Can stop right here and call out the ego once again?

This band of travelers were so concerned about where they fell in rank, how folks around them sized them up, and how important they seemed in the mix in the end that such sentiments led to an argument. Their greatest concern was looking bad in front of Jesus.

No wonder then, when Jesus is giving them such a “come be part of my life, my future, and see me for who I really am” kind of moment that thy let the excuse of “I’m not smart enough get in the way.” For, they were embarrassed to be seen as they really were—scared, confused and clinging to the excuse of not wanting to seem less than.

Because in the end, it didn’t matter, to Jesus how intellectual they were. Or what they did or did not understand. Rather, it was if they brought their whole selves to God—their doubts, their fears, their questions. Because if they brought all of this to God Jesus was able. He was able to transform their doubts to faith, their fears to belief, and their questions to life-sustaining peace.

In fact, Jesus takes this conversation one step further—giving the example of including children in worship by calling over a small one in this teachable moment. Jesus declares in verse 37: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Or, in other words—hey, boys, take some lessons from the children. Maybe you don’t need to worry so much about who is the greatest or where you rank. Just be.

Several weeks ago when Kevin and I were in Africa with Feed The Children, we had as you might imagine countless opportunities to spent time with and observe communities of children. On our first full day in Nairobi, Kevin and I along with the rest of the staff in the US delegation spent time at the Dagoretti Children’s Center—an orphanage run by Feed the Children for those who have been abandoned by their parents. The children, who live there, though faced with great pains of wondering why their parents abandoned them as they grow up, are among the lucky ones. They are fed, clothed, and loved unconditionally by a staff of committed caregivers. According to the World Food Program statistics, a developing nation like Kenya, one in four children are underweight due to malnourishment. Children under 5, are regularly not feed properly because their families fear these babies won’t make it to their 5^th birthday (so why bother to share such valuable resources with them?).

It’s truth to say that children are vulnerable.

But it’s also truth to say that children can be some of our greatest teachers—for they tell us the truth.

So, on the day that Kevin and I were touring the Center, we spent some time playing with the children around the center. However, as Kevin made conversation with his usher for the day called Moses—an elementary school aged boy at the center whom had been assigned as Kevin’s buddy for the event, Kevin asked him what he thought of the food we had for lunch. Kevin thought he was just making conversation with the child, asking what he thought would be a simple question with a simple response of something like, “I like it very much.” But instead, he heard about how slow he felt the kitchen staff were in bringing out the food and wasn’t as good as it used to be, much to the embarrassment of the center director. But children can not be controlled as any parent knows– they say what they feel. (We later learned that this child only recently started attending American school where he’d grown accustomed to the pace of life being much faster than African standards).

I think this kind of honesty in our vocalizing our thoughts—though it may be shocking to our adult sensibilities is exactly what Jesus was getting at when he encouraged the disciples to welcome the children.

Didn’t Jesus also once say that “whoever finds his life will lose it, but who whoever loses his life for my sake will find it?”

Or in other words—we can’t be people who are so concerned with saving face that we miss out on the peace, the joy, the hope that only Jesus can bring to our souls. We can’t be so concerned with looking stupid by asking questions that we don’t speak up. We can’t be so concerned about what our neighbor in the pew sitting next to us would think if we truly got into the quietness of the prayer time or the hymns that we are kept from worshipping.

Because truly, today’s gospel lesson asks us how it is that we are going to deal with the big questions of life. Are we going to be held back by our egos? Or are we going to tell the truth about what we think, where we are, what we hope for and what we most need? And if we are going to do this, we have to start asking some better questions–

Anne Lamott, one of my favorite writers and spiritual teachers says: “Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you’re going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”

So, what about you today—are you going to be silent? Are you going to shuffle around trying to find your rank among your peers—hoping that you are the top of the list, the greatest if you will?

Or are you going to trust in Jesus to work out what you can’t—what you can’t understand, what you do not know (and may never know)? Are you going to speak up and as God the big questions when you need to?

Questions like: why do children suffer in this world? Why do good things never seem to happen to me? Why doesn’t my husband seem to love me anymore? Why can’t I seem to find a good job? Why do I not feel your presence, God when I pray? Why can’t you make my wife, God, come to church with me? Faith, I just don’t understand how you get it, God! And the list could go on and on. God can take our questions—any of them—there’s no shame in simply asking!

Today, let our excuse of “I’m not smart enough or I’m don’t understand” not hold us back any longer to the relationship that our Lord has for us today and for all the days to come.

AMEN

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Tags: children, excuses, faith, Feed the Children, Math, questions, smart

September 17, 2012

I’m a Defect

Mark 7:24-30

As our series of messages continues about the excuses we can offer God, today’s excuse is hits to the heart of what we really think about ourselves. We say that God can’t use us or do anything meaningful with our lives because in some way we think we’re defective.

We reject the callings of God upon our lives because we simple think we’re not fit for the task. We look around us and see countless others of us who seem to jump farther, run faster, or fly higher with their gifts or talents than we could ever dream of being. We compare ourselves to those who appear to have their life in order with what our culture deems as praiseworthy accomplishments. We focus our thoughts on what we can’t do a lot more often than on what we can.

Our excuse goes back to the heart of believing that something is wrong with us. God doesn’t love us much as the rest.

I met a woman a few years ago. She sat in my office in tears. It looked as if she’d gathered up all the strength and energy she could muster up just to come and talk to me. I have something to tell you, she said, as she blurred out, “I’m gay. I wish I weren’t. I prayed and prayed, pastor that God would take way this part of me, but nothing has changed. I wish I could just be like everyone else in my family—meet man to marry, grow up and have grandbabies to make my mom happy, but I can’t. Why did God make me a defect?”

As I handed this sobbing woman Kleenex and sought to be as kind of presence as possible to hear the rest of the story and the mounds of spiritual, emotional and even physical pain she brought to my couch, I couldn’t help but wonder how her life might change if she left behind the “God doesn’t love me because I’m a defect” label. How was this one excuse keeping her from the abundant life that God had already prepared for her?

It’s a tough road in life, isn’t it when you think that God doesn’t love you because you are defective?

In our gospel lesson for this morning, we meet a woman whom many in her day and time would have called defective.

She could have given every excuse imaginable and had every reason to think in God’s eyes something was wrong with her. But, instead, scripture tells us that she charted a life course of not letting anything stop her from seeking out the Lord. Even when Jesus was rude to her . . . but I’m getting to ahead of myself here. Let’s stick to finding out what we know about the woman first.

Mark’s Gospel does not tell us her name. All we know about “this woman” is that she hails from the region of Tyre, a region outside of Galilee (where Jesus spent most of his ministry), an urban center, a coastal town. It was not a place where many in the Jewish community were known to live. It was Gentile country for sure.

And so besides the woman not being the typical type of person that Jesus had previously hung around in Mark’s gospel, we also know about her that she’s a mother. She may or may not have been married. If she wasn’t married, life would have been one economic hardship after another for her. Why? Because not just any mother, but a mother with a daughter who suffered with a demon . . . When our modern ears read this, we might be immediately alarmed—a demon? Possessed by a demon, what’s that? Well, considering that in ancient times, any sort of unexplained mental health issues or unexplained seizures, for example, would be automatically label the person as demonic and most certainly defective. This girl would not have had friends. She would not have had anyone to play with her. She probably would not have attended school. And, as a mother with a daughter with a “demon” she was an outcast herself. How could she make anything of her life either with this suffering child and a stigma placed over her home?

And to this prominent Gentile town which was known to have issues with the politics of Jerusalem for centuries, Jesus, encountered this woman alone. No mention is made of the disciples accompanying him on this trip— a trip which many Biblical scholars feel was an attempt on Jesus’ part of some vacation rest. But as was typical with Jesus’ three year ministry—he didn’t get a lot of rest. The crowds followed him wherever he went, even if he said: “Don’t tell anyone where I am.” The neediest always seemed to find him.

This woman approaches Jesus. The woman hears that Jesus is in town and drops all of her plans to come and see him. All excuses of “I’m defective, my family is defective” were put aside. She was the original pushy momma, without any shame of asking for what most wanted. And she sensed Jesus had just what she was looking for—healing.

And this was her request. Look with me at verse 26, “She begged [Jesus] to cast the demon out of her daughter.” Plain a simple right? It wasn’t like Jesus had never been asked to do this before. Remember the man he encountered early on in his hometown—the man possessed by the demon who he healed, to the sending the demons into the herd of pigs?

But Jesus was on vacation. He was tired. He wanted a break. He needed to regain mental focus. And someone else needs his help. Sigh.

Jesus’ response might have shocked you as it did me in verse 27, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

What?? Jesus just compared this woman’s child to a dog? This is not the sweet and loving Jesus that you and I know and love. What exactly might he mean?

Of course, such has been a topic of Biblical scholarships for the ages. Did Jesus really mean “a dog” or was he simply saying something much sweeter like a “puppy?” Did Jesus plan on healing her all along and just say such a harsh remark to see how she responded? Or did Jesus have his mind changed by a persistent woman?

We’d have a lot of studying together to explore each option but for now, this is where I want to take our conversation: Jesus didn’t intend on healing her, but his mind was changed.

Though it might cause us to shake a little in our pews this morning, I have to think that this was a moment when Jesus grew up just a little more, was forced to reconsider some of his ideas about God’s mission for this life, and God revealed through Jesus that life in the kingdom of God was truly more than it first seemed.

Consider this, when Jesus said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs,” what he was referring to, I believe, was the relationship between Israel and the rest of the known world at the time—those who weren’t Jewish. Previous to the encounter Jesus had with this woman; his ministry had primarily focused on the mission to call out those within Israel to understand their relationship with God in a different way. But, now, was Jesus in Tyre—and someone whom was not a person included in that group was asking for his help.

So the question before Jesus was what was he going to do about it?

We know the woman fires back to Jesus’ comment by saying, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” which is another way of saying, “I know I’m a Gentile. I know my city is not known to love your people. But I believe you can help me. I’ll take even a crumb of your help because I believe.”

Do you hear any sense of “I’m defective” in her words?

I don’t. She reasons with Jesus with the words in which he spoke to her first—and helps him understand that she believes she is worthy of his help and will take nothing but what he can offer.

And what is the response? Jesus tells the woman to go home and find her daughter healed. The ill daughter is ill no more and Jesus sees before his eyes the movement of the kingdom of God on earth through him. Sooner than he imagined—the witness of his ministry becomes an inclusive statement of God’s love for all people. Jews and Gentiles alike. Men and women alike. The well and the sick alike. The children. The old people. The in between people. All people.

But, I dare say, we’ve wouldn’t have known or seen any of this if it weren’t for the courage of the woman who was bold enough to make her request known, who was courageous enough to be fully herself, even if others laughed. And, most of all was willing to pled with the Lord to consider her and have mercy on her beloved daughter.

If you watched the Olympics like I did weeks ago—you might have found yourself mesmerized by the unlikely track and field competitor, Oscar Pistorius. Pistorius, an athlete representing South Africa— had every reason to not be there. He had every reason to think he was defective.

Oscar, was born with congenital absence of the fibula in both legs. When he was 11 months old, his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles.Thus before Oscar even had the opportunity to learn to walk, like his peers, this opportunity was taken from him by the sheer bad luck of genetics.

However, being a natural athlete, loving to play and be outdoors, Oscar first learned to do what the other kids could naturally do, adapting, even without legs. He began playing water polo in grade school. After later being fitted with prosthetic legs, he took up other sports like tennis and rugby too. Eventually when he was fitted with even more advanced prosthetics, he took up track as well.

But, Oscar’s dreams were bigger than just being on the field. He set his sights on the greatest athletic scene in the world—the Olympic Games as a runner. Oscar took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall 100-meter event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 meters, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final with a world record time of beating American runners with a single amputation (remember he had two!). And Oscar continued to have success like this—blowing away the competition at future Paralympic events. So much so that when wanted to take it one step even farther. Oscar set his mind on competing against completely able-bodied athletes.

Everyone told him he was crazy. He should stay competing with those most like him. But, Oscar did not think was as defective as others labeled him. He was not disabled. He was abled.

And even though his attempts to apply for and enter the 2008 Olympic Games failed as the controversy over his prosthetic legs ensued, Oscar kept going. He was persistent. Just a month ago, Oscar became the first amputee runner to compete in the Olympics truly fulfilling his nickname,“the fastest man without legs.” He was chosen to carry the South African flag at the closing ceremonies.

Excuses, excuses, you and I have a lot of them throughout our lives about why God can’t use us, why God doesn’t love us. But if we take our cues from courageous ones like the woman with the sick daughter and stories of those like Oscar Pistorius, we remember that our excuses are just that—excuses. They don’t get us anywhere. They don’t get us anything. They don’t amount to much. Because if we are persistent, because if we are bold, and because if we keep talking to our Creator about what we need, there’s always hope.

There’s always hope because in the kingdom of God, just as Jesus’ ministry began to show at this juncture—no one is left out. No one is called defective. And no one gets to sit on the sidelines thinking this experience called living abundant life is not for them.

There’s an old hymn that I bet many of you have sung before—“Just as I am” made famous by how much Billy Graham like to have its verses played over and over and over and over again at his evangelistic crusades. It’s a hymn I personally associate with the practice of emotional manipulation, which I despise by pastors. I don’t usually like to sing it in church anymore.

But nonetheless, this hymn was written by a woman by the name of Charlotte Elliot, who too knew the pain of feeling like a defect. The story goes that the composed the words of this hymn after waking up in the middle of the night with a dreadful dream. She was in charge of a bizarre at her church the next day and the anxiety of her dysfunction came over her like a ton of bricks. She said to herself, why do I even try to serve? It’s useless. I’m no good for God. But the Spirit came to her, encouraged her and reminded her of her relationship with God and salvation.

“Just as I Am” became her testimony of no matter how wretched she felt about herself, Jesus felt otherwise. For God loved her, just as she was. She didn’t have to be afraid anymore. Her life had great hope!

Today, I give you a God who says the same thing to you. You are loved. You are treasured. You are not defective. So let the excuses cease. Come home just as you are as together we sing, just as we are.

AMEN

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Tags: Billy Graham, Defect, faith, hymns, Just As I Am, Oscar Pistorius, Self-Esteem

August 19, 2012

I’m Spiritual but Not Religious

I’m Spiritual but Not Religious: James 1:17-27

Today’s excuse in our ”Excuses” series is among the most commonly cited why people don’t come to church. I’ve heard countless versions of it during my tenure as Pastor at Washington Plaza, even.

“Pastor, I don’t think I need to come to church. I’d rather commute with God by watching the birds on Sunday. This is my spirituality.”

“Pastor, I don’t think I’m coming to come to church anymore. It’s nothing against you or the church people. You all are nice and all. I just don’t need a church and it’s religion for my faith.”

“Pastor, I just don’t know how you can stand working for the institutional church. Have you read history books? Have you read the news lately? The church hurts people. I just don’t get how you could be in the ‘religion’ business.”

And, as I’m preaching to the faithful this morning, a crowd gathered here to worship God in August (yes, the traditional low attendance month in churches across the country), I know I’m preaching to the choir. I’m preaching today to a congregation of folks who apparently aren’t hung up in all of the “spiritual vs. religion” cultural debates because you are here. You understand the importance of a communal spiritual life. And different from some of your peers, you’ve been able to reconcile the idea of your spiritual life finding a home in an institutional house of worship, in particular Washington Plaza Baptist Church.

But, today, I’m musing about this statement, “I’m spiritual but not religious” in hopes of opening up a larger conversation that I hope we can continue together later around the lunch tables in the Plaza room. It’s a conversation we need to have and keep having together. Because most of all it’s a topic that we in the modern church must stop fighting snarky word wars over. Instead, we must commit ourselves to understanding why the “spiritual but not religious” folks are among the fastest growing group of seekers in our country.

The thing is—you can find very passionate, insightful and God-loving people on either side. Though we are quick to judge, no matter where we stand on it.

Those of us who choose to practice our faith in the context of a community called a church often do so for more than just reasons of “It’s what I’ve always done” or “It’s what my parents brought me up to believe.” Those who make church membership and attendance a priority in their lives often say that God meets them in worship, in study groups with fellow disciples, and in close-knit fellowship of community life. We aren’t necessarily without a rich inner life that those in the spiritual community boast they only found outside the church.

And in the same way, spiritual but not religious folks, are good people too. Many of them think Jesus is a pretty rad dude and frame their lives around his teaching. Their lives aren’t void of faith practice. In fact, they often are full of them! The seriously spiritual pray, read, meditate, etc. with great furor and discipline. And because of this emphasis on preparation for the divine, they often use their keen intuition to seek out God wherever they find themselves—places those of us with our heads in the church might miss. It’s not a question of laziness—but in many cases actually a choice based on hard work that puts the “religious” to shame.

But, even with this true—we in the church often feel like our spiritual but not religious friends are the distant step child that we’d just wish would get with the program, stop being so independent and critical of our structures and join our membership rolls.

We often feel tempted to criticize their faith, especially as their attitude of “My faith can survive without your unnecessary institution” seems like a big slap in the face, to what we’ve worked so hard to hold together all of these years. We feel tempted to talk about their egos without even considering our own. And, in light of this, I could easily stop this sermon this morning and invite us to all go home and re-read the Prodigal Son story from the perspective of the older son who got mad when the son left home and the father loved him the wayward younger son the same . . . But I’ll wait for that exhortation for later.

But regardless, our culture seems operate with these assumptions—spirituality is good; religion is bad.

Spirituality equals pure faith and God’s presence. Religion equals corruption, human made flawed structures.

We find religion in churches. We find God in spirituality.

Yet, into this conversation enters our New Testament lesson for this morning, taken from the book of James, most likely written by James, the brother of Jesus. And while it’s a book that Martin Luther was known to say is the “epistle of straw” for its practical approach to faith instead of theological—it’s ancient text wrestling what might not be truly modern problem after all.

To the community in which James wrote, a group of believers in Jesus struggled with how much this new movement called Christianity was about truth statements and how much it was about actions which spoke without words.

Though there were many who said: “We’d better get our theology in order. We need to write more doctrine.” There were others who said, “Theology is well and good, but what does it mean? What does it look like?”

And to these questions James answers by saying let me tell you more about who God is and what that means to you. It’s not that I want to throw out all the great work that Paul has done, helping us to understand the essence of faith. But, I do want to tell you something else and that is this basic wisdom: you can talk a good game for a long as you want, have all the right answers with what you think Jesus meant about this and that, but if your life doesn’t show what you believe then it’s all rubbish. Pure rubbish

Look with me at verses 26 and 27: “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

James is getting to the heart of the manner which is religion for religion’s sake is worthless. Yes, truly! If we keep up tradition, for tradition’s sake, it’s worthless.

If we conduct church business in a particular way because it how they did it back in 1995, it’s worthless.

If we maintain our buildings for the sake of maintaining our buildings, then it’s worthless.

And it’s not that traditions are bad or religious structures like church buildings are evil. But, rather, James exhorts us, that if we do not consider why it is that we do certain things and have certain things then, we really shouldn’t call this faith. We should call it religion for all we are doing is maintaining the framework of what has led us to God in the past but is not necessarily what is going to lead us to God in the future.

And these are the kind of questions we’ve been asking ourselves as a church together over the past year. Questions like:

“Why do we always to have all of these standing committees? Why not staff the committees/ positions of church leadership where we have energy in our congregation to serve and are essential to our life together as a community?”

“Why do we always have to worship just as a single church? Maybe there might be other churches like Martin Luther King Christian who would want to worship with us from time to time?”

“Why do we always have a full meal at coffee hour? Might there be weeks when just bagels will do to provide the same kind of life-giving table fellowship?”

And I truly believe we have more “Why do we always do___?” questions to ask ourselves in the future.

But notice what I didn’t say. I didn’t say that the structures are bad. Rather, mindless choices we make in the name of religious tradition never up for reconsideration are. Because sometimes traditions and religious teaching and practice can be indeed just this—practice from human hands, flawed and in need of a fresh wind of the Spirit upon it over time.

Because the Spirit moves in our world, we believe, right? And if we believe that the spirit moves then, what God wanted from us and what we spent so much time building in 1980 might not be what God wants from us in 2012. When we hold tighter onto tradition than we do Spirit we often have religion. When we hold tight to what the traditions of our religion offer us with room for the Spirit to shake us as needed, we have spirituality.

When it all boils down to it—James begs the church of his day and the church of our day to ask ourselves—are you spinning your wheels on building up what matters or are you just spinning your wheels?

Is your religion that of caring for orphans and widows i.e. those in need of compassionate justice in this world? Is your religion of following the teachings of Jesus or just debating them or pointing out how other Christians aren’t living into them? Is your religion that of building bigger buildings and structures that leave a mark of “we were once here?”

If so, then, James tells us to re-think our religion.

Anytime I do a funeral service, I find myself repeating a phrase of exhortation to the mourners—a phrase, I hope at least some of them might remember later because it asks them to channel the grief and loss of their loved one into well lived personal lives that bring glory to God. I guess I should get some new material but I can’t seem to find a better way to say it.

“When you and I die, only one thing matters: not how much money we have, not how many flowers decorate the alter, not how many people attend, not how many groups or societies we belonged to—only one thing—is it well with our souls? Are our lives in harmony with God? What will profit a man or woman if he or she gains the whole world and loses their own soul?”

So, this brings me to the place where I really want to say to those people who tell them they are too spiritual for church—I understand. I hear your frustrations. And you really want to find more God in your life and it just seems like a purer search to go at it on your own. I realize the church can be a messed up place. Institutions are like this. Sometimes we make good decisions that bring us together and other times we miss the mark painfully. And I consider myself a spiritual person too.

But, I also claim my religion as much as I claim my spirituality. I am a Christian. And with that comes the place called the church where generations of other believers before me have lived out their faith too. Is the church perfect? Has it made way more mistakes in its formation, declarations, and judgments than it has for the good of the world? Probably.

Yet, I won’t leave the church, though; it might be a lot easier in the short turn with a lot less meetings. Why? My faith is communal. It’s communal with the saints and sinners who have gone before me. It’s communal with the saints and sinners who fill the pages of my life right now. I believe the Christian journey, like that of the Jewish journey or the Muslim journey, is one at requires a lot more “we” than “I.” I need the church’s religion for my spirituality to have a home. It may not always be my only home, but it’s my home nonetheless.

So this morning, I’m asking you to consider again how much the spiritual but not religious among us are right—sometimes church we have our noses so deep in the sand that we forget the vastness of God that can only be found outside these four walls.

But our calling to be the church—to love each other, to love God and follow the teachings of Jesus together continues on, no matter who validates our togetherness or laughs at it while riding their boat or reading the paper on Sunday morning. Yet, knowing when our faith is lived out – being doers of the word, not just hearers only, it might just might look 100% different from any church we ever expected to be. So if you are with me on this, hang on to your seats and get ready, change is coming. It always does. It’s just a part of our spiritual journey together.

May God continue to lead our church by the Spirit with courage to go wherever Jesus leads us.

AMEN

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Tags: church, faith, religion, spirituality

August 16, 2012

Reading, Re-reading and Dreams

In our consumer driven everything culture, we often treat reading as just another thing to conquer, to finish, to master. In seminary, we marked our progress by how many textbook were on our shelves. Colleagues ask me at conferences, “How many books have you read lately?” Congregants ask me: “What books can you teach us more about?” I’ve often fallen into the trap of reading just to be done with something or just to teach something. And then, that is it. I cast the book aside.

Not all words written down on a page are meant to be treasured (fluff beach reading, for example). However, sometimes words do hold lasting power. And just need us to pick them up again to find the gems.

I’ve found myself doing a lot of re-reading lately instead of picking up new texts. Books can be like old friends, coming back into our lives to provide comfort or simply reminding us who we are. And I think this is true of fiction and non-fiction alike.

Several years ago, I picked up at a fall DC library book sale a copy of Renita J. Weems’s memoir, Listening for God: A Minister’s Journey Through Silence and Doubt. How surprized I was to find this book! Though I was not going through a season of doubt at the time, the title sucked me in. Seemed like an honest text (I’m always looking for these) worth the dollar price tag (what a steal!).

I was familar with the author’s name. Weems, a preacher, scholar and formerly a professor at Vanderbilt University, also wrote, Battered Love which I read in my Women, Theology and the Church class at Duke Divinity.

That September, I remember speed reading through it, feeling so happy as if I’d found a long-lost soul sister. Weems, coming out of a conservative tradition that didn’t necessarily affirm her gifts for ministry, writes about her struggle to stay connected to spiritual wisdom, even as her well ran dry and her faith shifted. After finishing it, I was quick to recommend it to friends (as I usually do when a treasure is found) and put it on my shelf again in the “has read section.” I didn’t touch it for years.

However, in picking it up again this summer, I’ve read slower. I’ve stopped myself to process some of her nuggets of truth in short chunks. I haven’t rushed. And, yesterday, I came across this reflection about the meaning of dreams which was perfectly instructive to my life right now. I keep having the most vivid dreams in color and in details that I can actually recount in the morning. And, I hoped for some wisdom to begin to make sense of them. And so how perfect that Weems wrote:

Wherever dreams come from, and I don’t pretend to know where that is, it’s a place within each of us, down within our souls, a place that won’t take no, shut up, not now, you again? for an answer. It’s a place that demands our attention and resolves to get it, whether with laughter or terror. It’s a place within which insists that we remember the lives we have lived, says Frederic Beuchner. It calls us to remember memories emotions, remember moments, remember things we’ve tried furiously to avoid or to forget. Dreams beckon us into a still room within us where it is safe to remember where our journeys have brought us. It’s safe because it is safe because it’s a place where we can face our fears, anger, and dread and see them for what they were and are: feelings that needn’t last forever. It is safe because no one , God is has access to that room, save you and God. And there in that room filled with our greatest anxieties, God meets us and beckons, “Come, it is time to be healed.”

Each time a dream has enough current in it to awaken us, God is speaking to us through some chamber within us, beckoning us to come in. It’s time. It’s time to remember. It’s time to lighten up. It’s time to sort through. It’s time to heal. It’s time to let go. It’s time to learn how to laugh at ourselves.

Thank you Renita Weems. I’m thinking more about some recent dreams of mine as I ponder your words, hoping that as you say they might lead to more healing in me and others too.

You see, sometimes, reading can be the gift that keeps on giving.

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Tags: books, dreams, faith, Renita Weems, women

August 13, 2012

This is Not the Life I Expected

This is not the life I Expected: John 6:22-40

I don’t know if you’ve been staying up late like me watching the Olympics every night for the past two weeks or not . . . but it has been so easy to do, even if I already knew who won the races. The drama, the personal narrative stories, the commercials about the athletes mothers that make me want to run for a box of Kleenex.

Throughout the games, no matter whom the athletes are and no matter from what country they’ve come, they’ve all seemed to share one emotion in common. And that is expectation. Benjamin Franklin once said this about expectations: “Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they will not be disappointed.” And this is true of some athletes. Yet for others, they come to the games, expecting just to enjoy the moment of being at the games—who cares if there is 0% chance that they’ll win a metal? Their expectation is just to compete and do their personal best. But, for some, they traveled to London with greater expectations of making it to the finals or the quarterfinals of their competition, getting their feet wet so to say in Olympic completion so to be on top in four more years. And for other well-trained and talented athletes they came expecting gold.

But what has happened when expectations have not been met? What has happened when swimmers have slow starts off the blocks, or gymnasts fall off the beam, or volleyball players miss a dig and nose dive into the sand? Disappointment and tears of “This is not the Olympic games I expected” have sent athletes home deeply unhappy.

Several nights ago, if you were up late watching gymnastics or have seen the countless replays since, vault specialist on the women’s team, McKayla Maroney won the silver metal for team USA. This is of course a wonderful feat, being second best in the world after all. But to McKayla, her actions after the fact spoke louder than any interview she could have given to reporters.

Though hailed as the best vaulter thin the world prior the Olympic games with a world championship title under her belt, she made a mistake on her second vault—a fall on her butt which went on to cost her the top finishing spot.

However, instead of displaying sportsmanship after the fact, hugging back the girl who beat her and at least putting a smile on her face at the metal ceremony, McKayla pouted. She seemed to want to get out of the hug position from her competitor as soon as possible. And, displayed what is now her famous “I’m not impressed look” when her competitor’s national anthem and flag were raised higher than her own.

She expected to win gold and simply did not. Life did not go for McKayla Maroney as she planned. And, we all knew it.

In our gospel lesson for this morning, we also find a group of people gathered who were dead set on getting what they expected—searchers full of determination that in Jesus they’d get exactly what they’d be hoping for too. Though I can imagine different from the Olympic athletes, these members of the crowd, weren’t well trained for their moment , as recorded in John 6. They just stumbled upon it and soon expected a lot.

As John 6 begins, while Jesus has just crossed over the Sea of Galilee to spend some quality down time with his disciples after a crazy couple of days, soon they the peace and quiet they sought would be interrupted this crazy crowd of searchers—a crowd as a fired up and motivated as a collection of athletes from the home country of an Olympic games feel about winning metals.

With these crowds, though, why all the fuzz? What did they expect from Jesus all of a sudden? Hadn’t he been around for a while? The reason revels itself when you hear the back story.

It’s a story you know—Jesus has been teaching on the hillside and the crowds simply won’t go home yet. The gospel writer tells us those gathered expected food and none is to be found except from one, a little boy who offers all that he has. A disciple connects with a little boy and brings him to Jesus. Jesus takes the simple lunch– bread and fish and presents the food both to the crowd and to God, blessings it and as a result of this miracle all gathered around (at least 5,000 or more) have enough to be full with baskets of leftovers to spare.

Like you and I might have felt if we had just experience such a miracle, the crowds were amazed and stunned at the sight of what Jesus did for them. They more than just had their stomachs filled– this Jesus whom they had encountered was something else and they were ready for more. Was this Jesus too good to be true?

As we know from community dynamics, when a speech, sermon or action happens in a group, or in this case a miracle, there are as many different perspectives of what is heard as there are people.

Look with me at one response of the crowd found in verse 34: “Give us that bread every day of our lives,” was the corporate cry of one sector. First, there were the folks gathered who really liked the food—they followed Jesus that next day because they liked the food he served (know anyone who feels that way about church here?)

For them, the bread tasted great. And not only this, but the means of its coming to them reminded these types of folks of the stories they heard from their grandmothers that their grandmothers had heard from their grandmothers and so on, about the manna that came from heaven. It was religious comfort food at best and practically speaking what they’d seen Jesus do the previous day was like food stamps of modern times without end. Who wouldn’t want that? If brother Jesus would just stick around and take care of them, they knew the expectations of their lives would be met.

And also among the crowd were those who complained. What’s a good communal gathering without a complainer or two, right? Well this group of complainers identified as “the Jews who began to complain about Jesus.” (What a way to be remembered, huh?).

This second group expected from Jesus the answers to life’s deepest questions that they did not understand. They were rational and so they wanted rational nourishment and rational teaching that they could take back to the synagogue and teach with three points and poem about what they had seen and experienced with this up and coming Rabbi.

And, they expected a Savior that they could rationalize. And in this expectation, they were very concerned that Jesus, “claiming to be the one coming down from heaven, was merely the “son of Joseph whose father and mother they knew.” It seems from how the narrator describes this scene to us, we recognize the possibility of this sector of the crowd believing in Jesus as God’s Son after the miracle took place, but it wouldn’t come blindly or without clear scholarship about how the divinity of Jesus could be proven and proven in words they understood. Without such “proof” they’d be in search of Jesus no longer.

And, last, there were those that day who expected from Jesus exactly what they’d had in the past. These were the realists among the crowds—they were ready to believe, but only if what Jesus was saying or doing clearly lined up with what they knew.

These were the folks who reminded Jesus that Moses made sure their ancestors had manna in the wilderness, so more than looking for spiritual comfort food, they were looking for history. They wanted Jesus’ ministry going forward to look, taste and to feel like the stories of faith they’d been told happened in the past.

These were the folks who soon would be throwing the childish tantrums—either literally or just in their heads, asking why couldn’t Jesus produce for them the security and dependability in ways they could wrap their minds around? It would be nice.

The bread falling from the sky had worked well once before—when the children of Israel were wondering in the dessert—so why wouldn’t this same miracle work again every day.

But, in each of these types of expectations, problems would soon emerge. Problems would emerge because each expected for what could potentially fill them in the moment, what made sense and could be counted on in the short-term, but what could not always satisfy.

And we too in our modern context know how the folks gathered around Jesus that day felt. For we’d been there too—there have been countless times in each of our lives when we’ve wanted to throw up our hands too and say, “This is what I expected. . . . But why God did you not give me exactly what I wanted.” And we use our lack of met expectations as excuses—excuses that keep us from intimacy with God.

Remember Jesus said to them here, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believe in me will never be thirsty.”

Which was another way of Jesus reversing the expectation list of the crowd by telling them: “I’m glad you are here. But, in following me, remember that there is no gold and the end of the rainbow, win every gold metal when you compete in the Olympics or meet the man of your dreams the moment after you pray to meet him and live happily ever after scenario that you can demand of me, or work up on your own. Instead, come and taste and see that I am good. Know me. As you get to know me, you are going to be fulfilled.

For no, I am simply not some hand-out bread kind of God.

Nor, I am not nor never will be rational or explainable nourishment for you.

Nor, am I nourishment like what you’ve ever tasted before, even at your finest spreads or most glorious spiritual moments in your history.

I AM the bread of Life.

But, why would you and I accept such nourishment from Christ? You might be saying, “Pastor, your sermon today seems kind vague to me.” But this is exactly the point!

For the more you and I live the more we realize that the best laid plans of ours are often fleeting moments. Life is in fact never full of “always” guarantees, even if every sports commentator says on paper, you’re going to win the gold. Not that having expectations is bad or that we shouldn’t have them—but if we are going to move forward in our lives in the ways of Jesus, then OUR expectations for our life must come under the banner of what God has already prepare for us, and where our God-given life seeks to take us, instead of what we think we want first.

For as much as we want to be folks who think we can get life together enough for ourselves, for as much as we think that our approach IS the way that will fix what is broken and as much as we want to rely on what seems like quick fixes, Jesus says, I am your living bread. And, I gave you a meal to remember me.

I know that last Sunday was communion day, according to the tradition of our church. And this is the second Sunday which means it is not communion Sunday. But, I couldn’t preach a sermon this morning about the Bread that gives Life and not give all of us an opportunity to receive our nourishment from Christ. Because maybe just maybe as we receive it today, we can each participate by offering back our expectations to God for our lives. So that more of God’s expectations can be made known to us as we eat and drink together, and, as we take it:

It’s a meal that can give us the “I’m full” feeling like nothing else could . . .

It’s a meal that causes us to sit and hear this mystery of faith, each into our own ears. The mystery of “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

It’s a meal that says lay aside your struggles and your need for security for answer is here when Christ says to us, “This is MY body broken for YOU.”

So come my friends, the table is set, let the feasting begin. No matter if you are here today because you just are excited about the food after the service, or you are at a place in your journey that you are in need of some assurance and security in your faith, or even if this church is what has been a part of your past and you want to honor this but aren’t really sure to the Jesus talk we are up to here, the invitation to feast is still the same. Come just as you are. Keep asking your questions, but leave your expectations here with our Lord. For today, you are offered the bread, the bread that gives life.

AMEN

Posted in sermons | Leave a Comment »

Tags: bread, communion, faith, loosing, McKayla Maroney, Olympics, winning

August 6, 2012

Deacon Ordination– a New Washington Plaza Tradition

Yesterday, we held our second deacon ordination service in the tenure that I’ve been pastor here. It was a great celebration service to welcome Marie Mercer onto the deacon ministry team, and a good opportunity for us as a congregation to remember why it is that we call servant leaders out in our churches. When we held our first deacon ordination service (in over 20 years!) in November 2010, the church body as a whole was a bit skeptical, I believe of this type of ordained leadership but I think what the congregation has experienced since is delightful surprise. We are blessed by our deacons at WPBC!

Acts 6:1-9: Deacons Needed!

There’s nothing like a good church fight to get God’s plans for a community moving in the right direction, isn’t there? Well such was the case as we look into our Acts lection for this morning. The beginning of the first deacon ministry came out of a church fight.

Though when many of us think of the title of deacon, nice and hallowed images come to mind of saintly folks who serve in leadership positions in churches, the role of deacon within the church community evolved out of a conflicted situation that only some attention to administration could fix.

The church, as it began, was centrally located in Jerusalem and new believers to the family of faith emerged almost daily. Everyone shared their possessions with one another. Powerful healing and teaching regularly existed as part of daily life. Yet, found itself at a moment of crisis: not everyone got from the community what they most needed.

When communities of faith are filled with diverse people, we know that conflict is inevitable. And, the community of believers in Jerusalem had never been homogenous from the start. Remember that the day of Pentecost occurred on a day, afterall when faith Jesus gathered from all parts of the known world at the time, speaking more languages than just one. In summary, some members of the community spoke Greek, others Aramaic. Natural barriers led to patterns of poor communication, mismanaged expectations, and unspoken resentments. Specifically, the widows who lived outside the city center of Jerusalem felt they weren’t receiving the same treatment as those who lived closest the 12 apostles.

And so the murmurings of complaints became so loud that a church hall meeting was necessary. What were the apostles going to do to fix this problem? The crowd of believers demanded to know.

Together, they discerned the answer: the birth of the diaconate: a group of selected, training and ordained believers who felt a call by God to the service tasks of the community including but not limited to: caring for the often neglected widows, orphans, the powerless, the destitute. And though the word “deacon is not specifically mentioned within this text, it is a word used in other places in scripture. Deacon comes from the Greek word diakonos which means servant or helper.

For what was going on in Acts 6 was THE development of how Jesus-centered community life could flourish in the long-term. It was about an organization with an “ineffective infrastructure” that needed rebuilding before it could move forward to the next level of God’s best for it. And this was the discernment process: would the church be ruled by a few with assumed superpowers to do EVERYTHING or would the church be a place where gifts of service of ALL people could be celebrated and utilized for the community’s edification?

Depending on what church background we were raised in or experienced before coming to this church, we might not be on the same page with the word, “deacon.”

If we came from high church traditions, like found within the Catholic church, we might imagine deacons as those who serve in official capacities under the ordained priests– preaching assisting with communion preparation, wearing vestments, etc. Deacons often as those who are set aside as a “pre-cursor” to the ordination of the priesthood, a position which is set above the congregation in terms of personal calling and expectations of spiritual leadership.

If we came from traditions within mainstream Protestant life, deacons are often present within the fellowship of the church, but you often don’t know they are even there! The care for members of the congregation when special needs arise. Many times, deacons receive theological education in form of a seminary degree or attending a lay leader institute. They are often ordained, but never for administrative tasks– only for service.

If you grew up as I did in a traditional, low church tradition, you experienced a deacon in more of an elder role– serving as an administrative leader alongside the pastor (often hiring and firing the pastor!). In this context, sometimes deacons are asked to administer the caring ministries of the church, but most famously the deacons are those who emerge in all their glory on the day when the Lord’s supper is served. Deacons in churches like these are only allowed to serve communion to the congregation, a long with their pastor.

While I celebrate the diversity of church tradition and interpretation of this scripture text, what REALLY were the first deacons asked to do?

Despite all of the modern-day confusion, the first deacons, as we can tell weren’t asked to sit on the church council or serve as protective lawyers of the church’s assets.

The first deacons weren’t asked to make theological statements of doctrine about who was in the community and who was out.

The first deacons weren’t asked to pick out what color the altar table would be or if they’d sit in comfortable pews or hard ones.

The first deacons weren’t asked to be scholars in theology before beginning their time of service.

And most certainly, the first deacons weren’t given special clothes to wear.

The simple answer is that deacons were asked to serve. They assisted the apostles so that they could get back to the preaching, teaching and healing ministries of the church and not get bogged down in who did or didn’t get enough rice that month.

What were the qualifications of these persons. Deacons were to be of good standing in the community, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.

Notice what part I left out– the qualification of gender. While the cultural practice of a particular time and place revered men only, a better interpretation of this text for our time readers, “select for yourselves seven individuals”).

In a nutshell, deacons were to be the persons who lived their life in such a way that their sound character shone through first. And so today, it is our honor to ordain this one whom our deacon body has called out for service, Marie.

Our prayer for her this day and for all of us who will benefit from her ministry in this church is that through her service, more of us might come to know Jesus more.

All of us are given, as followers of Jesus, a calling of service. To some of us we may not be deacons, but there will be other talents God wants us to use in this place too. May we take a few moments as we watch and observe the laying on of hands of blessing for Marie– that God has called each of us to both serve and be served. This is the BEAUTY in the body of Christ!

Thanks be to God.

AMEN

Posted in Being Baptist, church life | Leave a Comment »

Tags: church, deacons, faith, leadership

July 22, 2012

Even for the “Liberals” . . . Claiming Jesus

Claiming Jesus: John 1:1-18

On July 14, 2012– only more than a week ago– an op-ed article appeared in the New York Times that has been all the rage of debate online and in progressive circles ever since.

Ross Douthat titled his edgy piece, “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” He wonders about the future of the institutional church in particular the progressive among us, those of us who are willing to say more what we are for rather than we are against, those of us who champion God’s love for all people, and don’t claim as a Christian people we have a one track highway to God. We usually feel pretty good about ourselves for this, but he muses what is our future? Will we ever see the glory days of the 1960s and booming church growth again? Will the progressive church of today be the progressive church of the future?

Using the progressive branch of the Episcopal Church as an example, Mr. Douthat says:

As a result, today the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.

Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse: In the last decade, average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase.

We could use this opportunity to pick on our Episcopal friends and stick our self-righteous Baptist noses up and say that this is their particular problem and not ours, but such is far from true. We are just singing a different verse of the same song. Churches like ours might have steady growth in membership over the long haul, but in the short-term, we aren’t. Where do the large flocks of remaining interested church goers attend on Sunday morning if they go to church at all? It’s fundamentalism driven, we will hand you your faith in a box, type of mega churches with their own parking garages. But, he doesn’t say that our more conservative church friends have ALL the answers either.

But what I find interesting about Mr. Douthat’s comments are that they dis-spell the myth that many of us in this community have in our heads about why people don’t attend church.

Rather than thinking that the church is just so out of tune with the culture and if we could just “hip” ourselves up with an attractive mailing or two, more people would come, he suggests we are asking the wrong questions altogether. If the stats of the Episcopal church are any indication, there is NO amount of liberalism or open-mindedness, that is going to attract newcomers to us. So, can the liberal church be saved?

I think a better question than the one asked in the article is, “Do we know we are as a Christian people?” or “What does it mean to follow Jesus?”

In our gospel text for this morning, we have the opportunity to examine a favorite scripture text that is speaks to the nature of this Jesus, for whom we say our faith is built upon. It’s a passage rarely read in worship outside of the first Sunday after Christmas. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

It’s a text paired with the Christmas celebration narrative often, because unlike the gospels of Luke and Matthew, the writer of John’s gospel just starts things out this way. No Jesus in the manager. No shepherds. No wise men. No, rather we read of a light shinning in darkness and the darkness not overcoming it. It’s one of most beautiful pieces of poetry in all of the gospels– in fact is a sermon in itself (so I could just read it again and sit down . . . but I’m not).

So, as we begin to digest this word for us today, one thing is very clear and that is: John’s high Christology. In fact, if you wonder where the church got his Trinitarian Christology that has been our legacy since the 4th century all discussions must go back to John 1. In other words, this gospel does not imply that Jesus was just another person, rather that Jesus was and is divine and has been such from the beginning. Not just from the time of his baptism as Mark’s gospel presupposes, or from birth as explorations of Matthew and Luke might suggest– but before creation itself.

This connection is made even in the original Greek as the word for word– logos, is in fact the same word used in the very first sentence of the creation account in Genesis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” When did Jesus become God, according to John’s gospel? Jesus was already God and has always been God.

Yet what is most astonishing about the Word that was with God and the Word that was God in the beginning is what we read in verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Not only are we told who the Word is but we are told that the Word became flesh, a man, and lived among us.

Thus, God did not love us from afar, as the “big man upstairs” as many of us comically refer to God from time to time. No, God love us up close, flesh to flesh. God wanted us to know who the Divine was so much that we were given the most surprising: a visitation of the holy.

And in the incarnation, we were given a concrete, flesh and blood human being who walked on our earth, who drank from our rivers, who bathed in our streams, who felt our aches and pains, and who tasted the tears of our cheeks– so that we could get to know and SEE for ourselves (or in our modern case hear for ourselves) what God is really like. Martin Luther in fact said, ” The mystery of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding.” It’s beyond human understand, I believe because we have not known a love like ever! And, most of all, God wanted us to experience love!

Recently, I was visiting with a family not affiliated with any religious community in our area, as I was preparing to lead the funeral service for their son, recently deceased in a car wreck. As I sought to get to know the family better, asking questions about the life of their son, I found it was hard to keep them on track of the conversation of the information I needed to get from them. Instead of answering my questions about planning the funeral service, they kept wanting to tell me about all the long time neighbors and friends who kept popping in their home to visit over the past couple of days.

It was like a broken record of kindness. They especially told me about all the family members, coming into DC from other parts of the country who hadn’t been to visit in ages who wanted to be with them during this difficult time of loss– not just through a card, or over the phone, but in person– through human to human contact. It meant the world to them, I could tell, to be surrounded by tangible signs of love at this difficult time. And the love in this community of folks, and thus of the legacy of the deceased became apparent in story form.

And, such I believe is true of the story of “Word became flesh” from John 1. God knew there would be no other way that we’d know how loved we were if God did not become one of us and initiate contact that could be for us the symbol of love. God wanted to hit the “re-start” button the relationship– God wanted deep and abiding relationship with each of us. And so Jesus came and showed us how.

This gets to the heart of the Christian message of what means to be a Christian, what it means to follow Jesus, and what it means a collective group of believers gathered at a church: we are to be in relationship with this one, Jesus, who came to earth to be in relationship with us.

However, it is at this juncture that I know I might lose some of you. I might lose those of you who have long given up the notion of having a “relationship with Jesus” or “inviting Jesus into your heart” because you feel such a sentiment is a part of a branch of the Christian church that asks you to check out your brain when you wake up or love only certain people or read scripture in a prescribed way. I hear you on this and am right there with you.

We, as the progressive wing of the Church of Jesus Christ, have often thrown out the baby with the bath water when it comes to talking about relationship with Jesus. We’ve circumvented the conversation by loving Jesus with our minds, with our theology, but not with our hearts, not with our bodies, and not all that we are. And we wonder why people say they find God more in a yoga studio or a meditation class than in a church worship service?

But, I believe what John 1 is asking us to do is reconsider and possibly even redefine our spiritual language so that it always includes room for conversation, connection and communion with the Divine. Conversation one on one with Jesus. Jesus, the word that became flesh and dwell among us, longs, who wants to be who we lean upon as w e live our lives, day in and day out. And so as we do we keep asking ourselves and each other: who is Jesus? How can I talk to him? How can I love him? And how can I share Jesus’ love for me with others?

The embodiment of Jesus aspect of our faith, I believe is what we as “liberal” Christians are missing– even as we have our heart open wide to all kinds of folks in the world: all colors, all genders, all people, we miss out on the most important relationship and that is with Jesus. We’ve become so invested in the “box” of church looks like (stand up, sit down, listen, go home) and faith looks like (honor God through our right belief) that we’ve robbed ourselves of how incredibility mind-blowing and transformational our faith can be.

For we have been given through Jesus the gift of a God who truly can say, “I was one of you. . . .”

The gift of a God whose real presence can come very close– closer than even the dearest friend to us. . . .

The gift of a God who says, no matter what I am going to find a way to be in relationship with you and love you in a way that touches your whole being.

This is what we need, my friends. This is what the church needs my friends. Who cares if “liberal Christianity can be saved?” or not. What should most keep us searching in the night is “Do we know Jesus?” And if we do, “How can we know him more?” For when our lives are connected to the life of the Divine, what will be will be in our churches, no matter how large or small they are.

So, today, will you join me in re-committing your life to a relationship with Jesus? Will you join me in worshipping God not just in the rote routine of words on a page, but words that speak of the Word who was God? Will you join me in love Jesus with your hearts, knowing that he dearly loved our hearts before even the creation of this world? Will you join me in claiming Jesus as we sing, “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word and to rest upon his promise and to know thus saith the Lord?”

I love Jesus . . . even as a socially progressive Christian. What about you?

AMEN

Posted in sermons, social issues | 1 Comment »

Tags: church life, faith, Jesus, liberal

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