The Pinnacle of Success – 6/21/09 – 1 Samuel 17,18

A couple weeks ago Abbie and I watched a video online of a speech given by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the recent bestseller Eat, Pray, Love.  The subtitle of the book is “One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesian,”  with each country corresponding with one of these at times transcendent experiences of Eat, Pray, Love.  This is a book that Abbie has read and greatly enjoyed and one of the many on my ever-lengthening to-read list.

The surprising thing about the speech was that it was not about the book, per se, not retelling any of her stories or going more in depth with other things she experienced in her travels that didn’t make it into the book.  The speech was about her reflections on the possibility of this book, this best selling book with rave reviews, being the high point of her creative career, and some of her own fears and thoughts about what that might mean for the rest of her life.  As soon as the book became popular, she said, friends told her she was doomed.  Now, whenever she would write, she would be expected to come up with something just as, if not more brilliant.  She would always be in the shadow of this towering success, the person who wrote that Eat, Pray, Love book.  Which, she confessed, was a significant fear that she had.  She spoke briefly about writers and artists of the 20^th century and how some of the most insightful and praised artists were those who also had psychological struggles, some taking their own life, and she raised the question as to whether the rigors and expectations for creative output were connected with this.  And so, in a very honest, straightforward, and at times humorous way, she laid out some of her own thoughts on this.  What if, as a person only in her late 30’s, she has already accomplished her greatest life work?  Could she be at peace with this?  Where does that leave her now, especially as she is getting ready to release her “much anticipated” next book?

(To see the video of this speech, click HERE)

As I was reading and studying the David and Goliath story this week, I couldn’t help but make some connections between that speech and this event in the life of the young David.  Surely, by any variety of standards one could use, this story, this feat of David, would have to be considered one of if not the high point of David’s legacy.  The story itself has all the elements of a classic.  There is the perfect villain, the unlikely child hero who also happens to be a poor peasant shepherd, suspense, the promise of the king’s daughter in marriage, the battle scene, and the triumph of good over evil.        

Gauging from how the story has endured over time, it has truly been successful.  If Jay Leno were to do his Jay-walking and ask people on the street to name a story about the life of David in the Bible, along with the no-doubt bizarre and ill-informed answers he would receive would also most likely be the common answer of David and Goliath.  This is a story whose influence has become firmly embedded in our culture.  We love to cheer for the underdog, the David, and when a sports contest features a dominant team highly favored to win over a less powerful team, sports commentators commonly refer to it as a match of David versus Goliath.  

One recent example of a public embrace of a David type figure was the rise of Susan Boyle, the small-town, middle aged, plain looking woman who entered the Britain’s Got Talent contest.  As she came out on stage, the audience and judges acted more out of the impulse of the Roman Gladiator scenario, with the judges rolling their eyes in mockery of her desire to be a successful singer and the audience smirking in anticipation of her getting tossed to the lions as soon as she would start to sing.  When she did sing, “I dreamed a dream” from the musical Les Miserable, suddenly the scenario shifted to something like David and Goliath.  The audience, and the judges, after one beautiful line of music from her mouth, almost instantly, began cheering in amazement for this newly found David who was conquering the Goliaths of ageism and judge-a-book-by-its-coverism.  Susan Boyle quickly became a You-Tube sensation and the hero of just about everybody who has heard her sing.  And, by the way, if you haven’t seen the YouTube video, it’s very much worth watching, to hear her great performance and also to reflect on this massive shift of spirit that took place when people recognized they were in the presence of beauty.  We love David.  We love Susan Boyle.  We love the underdog.  The whole scenario has captured our cultural imagination.  

  (To watch this video, click HERE)

Internal to the story itself, this is presented as a high point of success.  Things are looking very good for David after he defeats the menacing Goliath and he goes from an unknown small town nobody to a national hero.  Instantly he has the attention and the praise of the King himself, Saul, and Abner, the commander of the army.  David’s charisma proves to be magnetic and he gains a soul mate.  Right after speaking with the king after the battle in 1 Samuel 17, chapter 18 begins this way: “When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan, the King’s son, was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.  Saul took David that day (into his service) and would not let him return to his father’s house.  Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.  Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.  David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him.” 

David’s celebrity status makes it difficult for him now to go through towns without being praised and drawing the attention of everyone.  Songs and poems are written about him.  When he would go through a town with the king and his army, the women would come out and sing “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”  Saul had been the first king of Israel, chosen in part because he was a head taller than all the other men, a Goliath in his own right, but this event is part of his fall from power and David’s rise.  Chapter 18 ends by telling how one of the king’s daughter loved David and was given to him as a wife.  It then concludes by noting that in all the battles “David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his fame became very great.”  In the course of a short time, as a result of defeating Goliath the Philistine, David gains a soul-mate, is the subject of poetry and pop music praising his strength, is rising toward the throne of Israel, becomes married to a woman who loves him, and becomes famous.  

Can it get any better for David?  Has he reached the pinnacle of success?  Or, maybe more important of a question for us, is this how we are supposed to remember David?  Is this his main legacy?  Is this what is most important about his life that we are to admire or even seek to imitate?  Elizabeth Gilbert was that person who wrote that Eat, Pray, Love book.  Susan Boyle was the woman who wowed the UK and online world when she sang “I dreamed a dream,” and David was the unlikely hero who defeated Goliath.  

One of the remarkable aspects of the Bible is that it keeps telling the story.  Our culture may decide to drop Elizabeth Gilbert and Susan Boyle as ‘so 2009,’ but the biblical memory extends beyond this moment of fame.  Which is to say, it holds up as valuable, as important, as worth remembering, other aspects of David’s life. 

And this is important in a couple different ways.  For one, what we learn of David is not always pretty.  Murderer, adulterer, liar, disobedient to God.  There is no attempt to maintain a clean image of this supposed hero, or promote any kind of hero-worship. 

But there is another part of this that I find interesting.  By continuing to tell the story, by giving us these other events in David’s life, it allows us to ask the question of what really is important from this life of David.  What kind of legacy does he give us in our tradition?  How does our memory of him inform our understanding of a faithful life?

David and Goliath is a story of the weak being lifted up and the strong being humbled, a central feature of the God the Bible portrays, and a good value for any culture to have, but it’s also a story of great violence.  This is, after all, a battle scene, a story about killing, and a little more than just killing.  After David strikes the Philistine in the forehead with one of his stones out of his sling, we are told, “Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, he grasped his sword, drew it out of its sheath, and killed him; then he cut off his head with it.”  A little later we learn that David takes the head with him back to Jerusalem, a lovely trophy of war.  We could spiritualize the story and say it’s about defeating the giants of our life and overcoming the odds stacked against us, a fair interpretation in many ways, but the fact remains that this story, as it is told, is dripping with blood.  The severed head of one’s enemies is being held up as a triumphal sign of victory.  Is this is the high point of David’s life?

What I’d like to suggest is – maybe not.  There are other stories that we can hold up that offer us a different picture of success. 

One example happens not too long after this.  King Saul has become jealous of David’s fame and success and has already made a few attempts at David’s life. David has become a fugitive, with Saul and a large cohort of men pursuing him.  At one point, David is hiding out in the back of a cave, and Saul who is hot on his trail, chooses this particular cave to take a pit stop from the pursuits and relieve himself.  So there’s this pretty funny and ironic picture of David the fugitive in the back of the cave, looking out seeing his sworn enemy in a rather compromised position at the front of the cave.  What to do?  He could have believed that this was a case when God has delivering his enemy into his hands.  He doesn’t even need a sling and five stones.  All he has to do is come up and put a sword through the king.  Saul will never know what hit him and David will be the new king.  It would be David and Goliath, the sequel.  Instead, while Saul is there doing his thing, David sneaks up quietly and cuts off a piece of Saul’s garment that he’s placed to the side.  Saul gets done with his business, gets dressed, and leaves the cave.  And this is what happens told in 1 Samuel 24 – “Afterwards David also rose up and went out of the cave and called after Saul, ‘My lord the king!’  When Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance.  David said to Saul, ‘Why do you listen to the words of those who say, ‘David seeks to do you harm.’  This very day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you into my hand in the cave; and some urged me to kill you, but I spared you.  See, my father, see the corner of your cloak in my hand; for by the fact that I cut off the corner of your cloak and did not kill you, you may know for certain that there is no wrong or treason in my hands.  I have not sinned against you, though you are hunting me to take my life.”  And then Saul responds.  “You are more righteous than I; for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil.  For who has ever found an enemy, and sent the enemy safely away?” 

Whether David knew it or not, this could be a more important legacy than his defeat of Goliath.  Not a public act, but something done in the isolation of a cave.  It was in his power to take life, but instead he had mercy.  He becomes a peacemaker and uses his power for reconciliation rather than destruction. 

Unfortunately, this story of David’s life is not as well known.  It’s not even a part of our lectionary readings, which contain a wide swath of scripture that are read in a three year cycle.  Which means, that if one were just to stick to the script each week, we’d never hear this story in a worship setting.  I wonder what difference it would make if we started remembering this story.  If, when people now were asked to name a story from the life of David, they would first name the story of David and the Cave, or David’s act of reconciliation, or whatever it would come to be called.   

The New Testament doesn’t mention the story of David and Goliath.  As far as I can tell, Jesus recalls just one story from David’s life, when he draws from this same period when David was a fugitive on the run.  Being out of food, David stops in on a local priest, and asks for bread for him and his men.  The priest has nothing but the holy bread that was to be offered to God and was only for the priest to eat, but gives David this bread to eat.  Jesus tells this story to those who accuse him of wrongfully healing on the Sabbath, showing that the purpose of the holy things of life – the Sabbath, sacred bread, whatever, are for giving and restoring life, not withholding it.  So, according to Jesus, perhaps this was the pinnacle of David’s success.  An obscure instance when his companions are hungry, and he and a priest cross over the sacred boundaries of the culture in order to give food where it is needed.  In this way, Jesus does fit the title of Son of David, that so many called him.

Elizabeth Gilbert ends her talk by noting that as much as we would like to believe otherwise, we are not completely in control of the creative process that flows through us.  At certain points in our lives we get caught up, filled, moved into a writing or a project that wants to find fulfillment through us.  It’s impossible to know when such a movement will happen.  The best we can do is to remain open to it, and, as she says, to keep showing up everyday.  Judging by scripture’s standards of success, I’m not even sure that we will know in our lifetime what has been our greatest accomplishment, or if it even matters to try and keep track.  We show up everyday for the work we’ve been given, remain open to the Spirit, and see the ways we may be instruments of God’s peace in ways we do and don’t yet recognize.

 

Rachel Smith sermon – 6/14/09

*This sermon was written and presented by Rachel Smith at Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship on June 14, 2009.  Thanks Rachel for these wonderful stories and reflections.

Mark 4:31-35

 

31How can we picture God’s kingdom?  It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. 32Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”

33With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. 34He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything

 

“Sweetie, you cut it like this see. Real thin so you can almost see through the skin.  My great-grandmother held up an apple peel that was nearly as clear as tissue paper.  I went back to widdling my peel away taking most of the apple’s fruit with me.   This exercise is one of the first and most vivid memories I have of who my great grandmother was.  At her table, I was stuck somewhere between wanting to please her and at the same time wondering why it mattered if my peel was thin or not.  Looking back I now marvel at her patience with me. For what I now know about her is that she almost never wasted. Waste pained her.  I laugh now at the amount of black bananas I had on cereal at her house, or the times I would catch her going through the garbage to re-use tea bags that she was sure had just one last cup in them.  So in remembering the peeling skills of a six-year-old, I am sure letting me help her with the apples was an exercise in love indeed. 

 

It was this stewardship. Her unending desire to get the most and the best out of what was that kept me quietly intrigued with this wrinkly ancient woman throughout my childhood.  And as a teenager, when I began to seek out my own identity, I felt very strongly that this woman, this anomaly could help me.  And so, I sought her out. 

 

Once I got my driver’s license I began driving once a month to my great uncle’s home to visit with her. Mostly, the time was spent sitting on the couch looking at photo albums or talking about old family memories. I didn’t exactly know what the significance was then, however, it seemed important, so I kept doing it.

 

  Eventually she became increasingly frail.  She moved into my grandmother’s home with my grandmother and great aunt, who were able to care for her full time. My hour drive to visit grandma became a ten-minute trip. In some way I considered this change an answer to prayer.

 

What I had realized on these ventures out to see her was that I had an expectation. One that that this great steward would help me become a steward of myself.  And so I kept visiting. And we had a good time. Sometimes we sat on the swing, sometimes I pretended to read her the Bible and made up my own verses “ about walking through the valley of the shadow of incontinence, yeah I will fear no catheter.”  We called it the Queen Rachel version of the Bible.  And while this was a good time, a cherished time, I didn’t have any mind-boggling revelations. 

 

   And time went on.  And a part of me resigned. I thought to myself, well, you’re on your own kid, no bedside wisdom, no midnight hour confessions, no prophetic treasure maps pointing the way to self-discovery.   I guess there’s no trick. You just live.

 

2 Corinthians 5:6-10

6Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7We live by faith, not by sight. 8We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

 

 

So that’s what I did. I lived.  I just figured everyone was supposed to do what he or she had to in order to figure “it” out… whatever it was.  And what I chose to do was become a social worker. I started in foster care, “living” through the eyes of the abandoned child.   Did I mention “living” could get very confusing.  Many formative stories and experiences were made during this time. One experience in particular stuck out to me.  It was the story of Daniel. 

 

 Daniel was 8.  He had a sad story like most of the other kids. He came into foster care after burning his own house down at the age of four. He had been left alone for days and started a fire as a means of escape.

 

  He and I had spent the last two years figuring each other out and trying to get him in a safe, stable home where he could stay.  And on a sunny day in July it seemed as if all of our laboring had worked.  Daniel was getting ready to be adopted by the family he was living with. I came by to visit and he gladly showed me his last quarter’s report card filled with straight A’s.   “Miss Rachel” he said.  “Can we celebrate this by going out to eat…. Just you and me?”  “Sure Daniel sounds good,” I said. 

 

Now if you know anything about children who have had to scrounge for food. The one place they love to eat is the Golden Coral.  It is a neglected child’s utopia.   So there we sat in the Golden Coral.

 

Even though Daniel was supposedly the one with food issues, I was the one who started stuffing my face first.

 

“Miss Rachel” he said. “Aren’t you going to pray?”  “ Well I suppose I should. Would you like me to?”   “Yes,” he said.  We took hands and I sat across the table somewhat embarrassed by my oversight. I started to pray. “Dear God I said. Please protect Daniel. Help him to become a man.  Amen.”  That was it, a nine word prayer that seemed like a good place to start in the midst of a very confused little life.

 

The next day I was driving through the community and saw there had been a horrific car accident. I felt unusually curious about the sight, but it didn’t appear to be a car I recognized, so I stopped rubber necking and went to my office. When I walked in the door the phone was ringing.  I answered and amidst screams I learned that Daniel was in that crash and so far there had been at least one fatality.

 

On my way to the hospital I drove in the valley of the shadow of a life flight helicopter. I was a scared. And what I had in those horrifying moments were the thoughts of my Golden Coral prayer. It was an accidental anointing.  I had prayed an acknowledgement that Daniel was to become a man.

 

And Daniel is becoming a man. I saw him last month.  He is nearly 6 feet. The family friend who was driving the car saved him. In the accident her body landed on his absorbing the impact. She died. He walked away physically unscathed but had another break in his heart.  Daniel was the first place I had a taste of anointing, though I didn’t recognize as such then. 

 

Some years went by and I moved farther away, but this story along with the stories of hundreds of other confusing little lives, did not leave me. And so, sometimes in the midst of confusion it’s a good time to pack up and visit home.  There I can reconcile myself with the world. 

 

2 Corinthians 5:11-17

 

The Ministry of Reconciliation

11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

 

Well the truth be told “the old had come” on this trip home. My first night back an elderly aunt of mine died.  My mother and I spent the first day of my visit making funeral arrangements.  That evening I found myself in the car treading back to my Promised Land… Grandma’s, the place where patience and understanding abound.

 

  By this point I was tired from a busy and mournful day. And also tired from knowing that soon I would not be making this trip anymore. By now my great-grandmother was totally bed ridden and often had difficulty sustaining the energy to even talk.  In a wave of pre-emptive grief, I began crying as I pulled up to the house. I walked straight in and fell crying into the lap of my secret prophet. My grandmother and her sister were there. Nobody said a word.  To my embarrassment I was frozen there in her lap crying…more helpless than that little girl who couldn’t figure out how to just cut off the peel. It was time to say goodbye.

 

It was time to say goodbye and all my hopes for clarity and direction had gone unanswered. In fact, life was getting more confusing every day.   What I had from her was love, and memories, and jokes, but not the blessing or instruction I was looking for.  And in some ways I think that is what many of my tears were about. I knew we were at the end and I wanted my anointing.

 

And just then as if she knew what I came for, my great-grandmother called over her daughters, put my face in her hands and said: “This is our daughter.”

 

And there it was, in four words, the unknown “it” I needed from her.

 

She died two months later. And this will remain my sweetest memory of her. “This is our daughter.” I didn’t know what it meant. But I knew it was my anointing. 

 

 

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

 

Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”

2 But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.”
The LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”

4 Samuel did what the LORD said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”

5 Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.”

7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The LORD has not chosen this one either.” 9 Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the LORD chosen this one.” 10 Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The LORD has not chosen these.” 11 So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?”
“There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he is tending the sheep.”
Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down [a] until he arrives.”

12 So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features.
Then the LORD said, “Rise and anoint him; he is the one.”

13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.

 

Since the couch with my great grandmother and the Golden Coral I have started to see the seed which Mark chapter four remarks.  Things have become less confusing and much clearer as I feel this verse enter my own life.  For what I feel growing in me is recognition of the space that knows I am anointed and also at times an anointer. That not only do I carry seeds of faith with me, and a horn of oil ready to recognize the work of God happening in someone else. But I also fall on the couch of a frail woman and grieve, desperate to be anointed.  It is with this revelation in mind I will close with one last story. 

 

Steven entered my office last year.  The first thing I noticed about him was missing fingers. Ones who were wrapped so tightly by an abusive parent they had to be amputated as a toddler. And now at the age of six Steven came to see me because he was in foster care and that’s what the grown ups said he was supposed to do.  He didn’t like talking about too much of anything the therapist handbook would say was “relevant.”  In fact if a painful topic came up he would often remark “Miss Rachel, I ain’t here to talk about all that… I just want to have a good time!” 

 

We did have some good times, and some bad ones over the year. And like all kids that I get to work with for any amount of time a little piece of them feels like they belong to me. They become my little flock, the little people that I have some responsibility for.  And so it was a great honor to hold Steven’s stories in my heart, to laugh with him, and to hold his hand while he proudly tried to overcome the terror of walking across the playground’s balance beam… amongst other terrors. 

 

And one day it was Steven’s time to move on.  He found what he called his “forever family”.  Only his forever family lived half way across the country.  So on our last day, Steven and I walked that balance beam together one last time.  “Miss Rachel,” he said. “Do you believe in God?” “Yup.” I said.  “And Steven if you don’t mind I think I liked to talk to him before you have to go.  Do you mind?”  “Nope.” He said. 

 

And so we stood there looking at the sky with the sun in our eyes.  “God” I said. Give us the courage to work through new things and the courage to miss the things we have lost.  Please protect Steven and his family and the families he loves and is leaving behind. And help him grow into a man.” 

 

Only this time I stood there as an anointed one, anointing another.  Steven a new son, and I a new daughter. My heart resounding with the words we say so often to one another. “ Now go in peace”

 

The Corinthian Plan: An Opportunity For Mutual Aid – 6/07/09 – 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

This past week the New York Times Magazine ran an extensive article on the health care agenda that will soon be taking center stage in Washington.  Its focus was on how this administration is positioned politically to try and carry out the major reform that it is hoping for – comparing it to past attempts, especially that of President Clinton’s first term.  The article highlighted key players who will be leading the debate.  It spoke some about the influence of the health care industry in shaping the outcome.  It also mentioned, briefly, some of those staggering statistics that reveal the sorry state of health care in our country.  Health care spending has doubled since the mid-90’s, now the highest percentage of GDP that it has ever been, over 16%.  46 million people without health insurance in the US.  This is a debate that we’ll soon be hearing much more about.

Two years ago Mennonite Church USA delegates gathering in San Jose were asked to look closely at health care issues.  It was acknowledged that we need national health care reform, but it was also proposed that we as a denomination can do something about one small part of this puzzle.  We can come up with a health care plan that would guarantee health care coverage for all of the pastors of our congregations.  At the time it was estimated 80-100 US Mennonite pastors were without health insurance.  In San Jose delegates voted for such a plan to be researched and organized, and since that time a plan has been proposed, called the Corinthian Plan, that will be voted on in our meetings in Columbus one month from now.  If 80% or more of MC USA congregations vote to participate in the plan, it will take effect January 1, 2010.     

The message today will be focused on the values and some of the details of this health care plan.  And the messenger is going to look something like a three headed monster, although we’re pretty sure it will be a nonviolent Mennonite monster, nothing to be feared.  Myself, Ed Diller, and Steve Hitt will each share about some aspect of this plan.  Ed will go more in depth with the denominational process in creating this health care plan and speak to some of the vision behind it.  Steve will talk about what this may mean for us as a congregation, look at how we may think about it in terms on our financial reality and how that connects with some of our ideas about stewardship and mission.  And in the remaining time that I have I’m going to be leading some Bible study. 

One of the key practices behind such a health care plan is the concept of mutual aid.  Mennonites and Amish and other Anabaptist groups have a rich history of practicing mutual aid, which basically means that when one member is in trouble or has a loss, that the resources of the community are made available for coming to the aid of that person.  Historically, this is community as insurance.  An iconic image of this would be the barn raising event.  If someone’s barn burns down or is damaged through a storm, the entire community comes and rebuilds the barn for the family.  This is made more complex in our modern world of larger assets, more privatized and less communal living, and extremely high health care costs, but that value of mutual aid remains a part of who we are.

One of the passages of scripture that speaks of the practice of mutual aid is 2 Corinthians 8.  And this is the Bible study part.  If you could please open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 8, we’re going to walk through this briefly to get a small window into some of what was going on with the communities that the Apostle Paul was forming in the first century Roman world.  This 2 Corinthian passage is why this health care plan has been called The Corinthian Plan. 

So Paul is writing this letter to these Jesus followers in the city of Corinth, which is a little southwest of Athens, and he begins this part of the letter by saying “we want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia.”  This area of Macedonia would have been their neighbors to the north, two of the cities, Philippi, and Thesalonica, you may recognize because these were also cities to which Paul has written letters which we have in our New Testament – Philippians, 1,2 Thesalonians.  In verses three and four Paul is sort of bragging about them, or holding them up as an example saying, “For as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints.”  And then he goes on in verse seven to name some things that are a part of their life of faith – “Now as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you (or some manuscripts read “your love for us”) – so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.”  This ‘voluntary giving, according to their means,’ was something Paul was asking that they see as a part of their life as a community along with these other things.”

Now it should be noted that what Paul refers to as “sharing in this ministry to the saints,” is a specific designation.  The ministry to the saints refers to the poor believers in Jerusalem.  There are other parts of his letters where that designation is spelled out more clearly, but what Paul was asking of those churches in Macedonia, who gave generously, and what he was asking of the Corinthian church, was to give some of their wealth to go back to the poor who were associating with the mother church, the place where it all started, the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. 

Paul’s mission is ambitious, to say the least.  Imagine all of these different ethnic groups, each with their own religious history and gods and myths, spread out over the Roman Empire, all in the mix together in these cosmopolitan urban centers, and then imagine Paul and other apostles coming through and teaching to whoever would care to listen that in Christ all of these groups can be reconciled to each other – Jew and Gentile, and Gentile to other Gentile.  It would be one thing for these little communities to form within these urban centers with people of all types and start worshiping and learning together, but then it would be another thing to be told that your little eclectic community here in Philippi, or Corinth, or whatever, was connected to all of these other communities popping up around the Roman world.  You are all “In Christ.”  The well-being of one community should effect the well-being of all communities.   At one point Paul describes this by saying, You who were not a people, have now become a people.  At another point in his writing to the Corinthians Paul tries to give an image to this in developing what might be called body theology.  You are all a part of the same body, different parts, different locations, all working as one whole.  “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Cor. 12:26)

Part of what this looks like, Paul is now writing to the Corinthians, is the practice of mutual aid.  If there are poor Christ followers in Jerusalem, then well-off, or even not so well-off Christ followers in Macedonia and Corinth should feel the sting.  Paul clarifies what he means in verses 13 and 15 of 2 Corinthians 8.  “I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.  As it is written, ‘The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little,’” a reference to the manna in the desert – enough for everyone. 

That’s a very quick glimpse of where some of this Corinthian Plan is coming from.

One of the main questions and critiques behind this plan has been not that this is a bad idea, but that it’s not enough.  If we value mutual aid so much, why are we creating a plan that only covers pastors and not making it available for others in the congregation to buy into?  It’s a fair question and one that has been addressed in some writing in our publications.  Being a pastor, I don’t feel like I personally want to try and justify why this is just for pastors, so perhaps this is something that Ed can speak to a little more.    

I’ll end my part by simply adding a personal note and saying that this is a year when our family is especially thankful for having health insurance.  This plan feels like a small way of seeing that more people are covered, in the spirit of mutual aid.  Along with this, it is our hope that our country can address this head on in a way that gives everyone access to quality affordable health care.

 

Still Birth and Live Birth: The Gift of Holy Spirit (Pentecost)- 5/31/09 – Acts 2:1-13, John 20:19-22

INTRODUCTION

I’m in the kind of work where the line between the personal and the professional is not always clearly defined and sometimes disappears altogether.  I have the privilege and the challenge of telling stories, speaking out of my own journey — recognizing that what I have to say is filtered through my own particular experience of life and how I have sensed God’s presence around me.   Often this appears more in anecdotal form — a childhood story, a book I have read, a conversation I have had.  It’s important not to confuse one’s own story with The Story, of which we are always and only a small part.  But every once in a while there is a personal experience that feels so embedded in the imagery and themes of the Grand Narrative, that its telling and the telling of that larger story become interchangeable, mixed, merged.  In this celebration of Pentecost, and in this season of our grief, this has become the case for me.  What I have to say personally, as a father and husband and friend, and what I have to say professionally, as a pastor, is the same thing.

As the people of Cincinnati Mennonite well know, and as our pilgrim visitors and other guests among us may or may not know, ten days ago Abbie and I and our family underwent a great loss.  Abbie was pregnant with our third daughter, and, due to complications, delivered early, at 22 weeks gestation, before our baby was able to survive outside of the womb.  This has been a time of grief and also a time of reflection and contemplation, trying to be in the moment and recognize it for all that it will mean in our lives.  We have had time to rest and time to be with family, wonderfully supported with meals and child care help from you our friends.

Part of the way I have always processed significant events is to write.  In the days following the delivery of our beautiful little Belle Ruthann, I have cherished the different times I have had to sit down and put into words that which seems almost ineffable.  As important as it was for me to write this, I know that I am not yet able to speak it.  A number of you have offered and provided help over the last number of days, and, in this case, I knew this was another area where we would need another’s gifts to hold us up.  So I have asked Keith if he would be my voice today and he has agreed to do this.

………………………………..

Holy Spirit

In a speech given at a conference focused on how it is we talk about Spirit, James Alison makes the observation that the writers of the New Testament regularly leave out part of the phrase that has become commonplace for us in the church: “The Holy Spirit.”  (http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng47.html)  The various authors of the gospels and letters, those with the task of putting into words what it may mean to be accompanied by God through Christ, just as often speak of “Holy Spirit.”  Mary is not told that she will be with child because the Holy Spirit will overshadow her, but because she will be overshadowed by Holy Spirit.  John the Baptist does not promise that Jesus will baptize people with the Holy Spirit, but with Holy Spirit. HHoHolIt’s a subtle difference, but part of Alison’s point is that we too often are betrayed by our own grammar, allowing it to limit our perception of that to which it is pointing.  In speaking of The Holy Spirit, we may be tempted to think of God as an object, another item, albeit a large and powerful item, that shows up on the scene.  Here, but not here.  There yesterday, but not today.  Alison hopes to direct us toward a fuller comprehension of God’s Being, and for this, suggests that the use of Holy Spirit can at times be appropriate.  Holy Spirit is not an object in our field of experience but rather, is the Presence which undergirds, surrounds, and illuminates our experience, enriching and enlivening.

Ever since learning that we were expecting our third child, our lives have certainly been enriched and enlivened, undergirded by a sense of Holy Spirit.  Imagine my surprise when, the evening before my ordination, Abbie walked down the stairs, turned to me as I was walking by, and said, “I’m pregnant.”  Just as I was preparing to have my life path affirmed and more firmly established, this little one stepped in and offered her presence as a reminder that one’s life path is anything but predictable.  Surrounded by what was already a holy weekend, we began imagining life as a family of five.

Anticipating her arrival meant more than just preparing to unpack the infant clothes.  This meant big changes.  Our current house was too small.  We would need a larger vehicle.  Plans for the next few years would have to be rethought.  OK, One thing at a time.  Thrilled to find a larger house on the same block, aided by a gracious, and efficient, church moving crew, we began settling into a new place, preparing the space for the life to come.

When Abbie began bleeding a couple months into the pregnancy; when we were soon told, and believed, for a duration of about five minutes, that we had had a miscarriage, only to discover a healthy baby with a booming heartbeat show up on the ultrasound monitor, we were even more mindful of the wonder of this child.  We felt like Mary might have felt, overshadowed by Holy Spirit.  “What child is this?”  Whoever she is, she has already changed our lives, caused quite a commotion, rocked our world.  As Abbie’s complications continued, even as the baby continued to develop in a healthy way, we held on tenderly to this one coming into being in the midst of a gathering storm.

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Breath, or, Home

In Acts chapter two, the coming of Holy Spirit shows up in the form of a sound:  like the rush of a violent wind, filling the entire house where the friends are gathered.  Divided tongues, like fire, appear, swirl through the room, and rest on each one.  Loud shouts of praise burst out of their mouths in a multi-lingual barrage of hallelujahs.

John tells a different story of the giving of Holy Spirit.  If the Acts event is primarily aural, a soundtrack of Holy Spirit presence, John’s is primarily visual.  It could be told with no sound at all, a mime of blessing.  Look at the locked doors, the effort made for safe solitude.  Observe the huddling, perhaps even trembling disciples.  Witness Jesus appearing, somehow, among them, stretching out his arms with a greeting that says, “Peace be with you.”  See him showing them his hands and his side, pierced and broken, signs of death contained within life.  And watch, lean forward, and take in the staggering scene, of Jesus…breathing…on the disciples.  “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

Breath is a remarkable thing.  Even more remarkable when it is the breath of Jesus.  Something so foundational for life, so given, that we barely give it a second thought.  The earth is our home because it is a place where breath is available. No human can survive without the in-and-out, out-and-in rhythm of breath.  No human, that is, who has emerged from our original home, the womb.  Inside the womb, in the pre-breath stage of life, mother and child have their own way of sustaining and nurturing life.  In the place where we are conceived and formed, water and blood, chord and membrane, provide their own rhythm.  Here, Holy Spirit broods and floats and flows.  Life surrounding life.  Life surrounded by life.

In our home, mother and child have had their months of huddling together; yes, trembling; yes, fear;  hearts pulsing next to each other.  Facing an uncertain future.  Speaking to one another with words only they can hear.  Prayers for breath.  Prayers of blessing: “Peace be with you.”

……………………

Upper Room

The Acts passage is commonly referred to as the birth of the church, the bringing forth of a new creation, whose life will be for the purpose of witnessing to the life of Christ and bringing glory to God.  Luke doesn’t tell us exactly where it takes place in Jerusalem, only that they, the small remnant of Jesus’ friends and allies, were all together in one place, in a house.  Earlier in chapter one, we are told there was a room, upstairs, where the remaining 11 disciples along with certain women and others were staying while in the city.  In the weeks after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, these believers, numbering about 120, were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.  And so this event of Acts 2 has come to be associated with this upper room.  In this small cavity of space in a relatively unimportant region of a vast empire, the church is born.

In our upper room of the maternity ward, windows facing east, overlooking a flat roof of an adjacent building and, beyond that, a small forest of trees, blocking the sprawl of the city, the sun rises on the day that has become the arrival of our storm.  For a few brief seconds I stare at the sun directly, if only to be reminded of the impossibility of the act.  The earth continues its steady path, circling and spinning; and the rays trickle, then pour into the humble space that we currently occupy.  The world is illuminated, and I avert my gaze from its source so as not to be overwhelmed, or blinded by its intensity.   A few feet from me Abbie has begun laboring.  What will be brought forth from this difficult work will soon be made known.

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Universe

“Now there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem…Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.”

When Holy Spirit arrives, suddenly it’s as if the entire world is present in the room.  All language, all praise that can be formed on the tongue, all thanksgiving, all expression of awe and wonder.  Grown men become like fools, reduced to babbling.  Women act is if they are children, dancing, unable to contain this energy that has entered them.  All comprehending in their native way.  The air is dense.  The entire universe shows up, and presents itself as fire and wind.

Or, as perfect stillness…no movement.  Silence…no speech, no words.  There is no deeper universal language.

Our beautiful Belle Ruthann is here.  The mouth closed and the body calmly, resolutely, motionless.  Such a small vessel of perfection.  No tongue able to capture what is at hand.  Tears and lamentation.  Sadness and grief.  Swelling, burning like flame, swirling.  This too is the fullness of the cosmos, now cradled in your arms.

All who witness it are bewildered, amazed and astonished.  “What does this mean?”  This drunkenness with exaltation.  This intoxication with sorrow.

……………….

Church

Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  His words draw from the ancient Israelite law code teaching that a case in court is established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.  For a testimony to be credible in the eyes of the law, for it to be true, it must have two or three who have seen the same thing.  The presence of Jesus, Holy Spirit, becomes true, becomes tangible and known, when two or three come together in this way.

I like that.  Two or three.  Three is good.  Three is desirable.  But if not three, then two.  That way if, for whatever reason, the third isn’t able to show up, there is still a quorum for Holy Spirit.  If the third happens to get stuck in traffic, had a last minute change of plans, is having a bad hair day and doesn’t want to come out of the house, loses track of time, or doesn’t make it out alive from the war zone, or the womb, the two who remain still get visited by Jesus.  Are still able to bear witness to the holy presence among them.

And where two are gathered, or three, or many more – a family, a group of friends, a congregation – Jesus is surely there in the midst of them.  Holy Spirit becomes tangible, true, embodied, incarnated through these relationships.  And this is, in essence, the church.  The assembly.  The gathering.

In the church we are entrusted with matters of the Spirit and of the flesh.  Jesus left his followers with the promise of the Holy Spirit, and he also left them with the practice of sharing a meal together around the table.  “As often as you do this, do so in remembrance of me.”  Our life together can at times touch on the ethereal, the ecstatic, the transcendent, but most of the time we are carrying out the most ordinary of work, the most common of activities.  The symbol of our life is here in front of us in the bread and the cup.  In this our bodies, and our souls, find what they need for sustenance.

Our hunger is a hunger for real food.  Food we can touch, food we can smell and taste.  Food we can put our fingers on and feel the warmth.  An invitation to the Communion table.  A meal at the family table.  A chance, during the times when we must ourselves focus on other matters, besides buying and preparing the food, to have the meals brought to us, one after the other.  Our longing is for real flesh.  Flesh we can hold and cradle.  Flesh that shows up with an embrace of comfort.

In our caring in this way, we bear witness to Christ present in the bread and the cup; to the One who hears out laments, bears our suffering, burns with love for creation, sustains us even in our sorrow.

In the bread, feeding.  In the body, gathered.  This is where Holy Spirit has its home.  Eternally.  Undergirding, comforting, birthing, enriching, haunting.  Now fire, now calm.  Now wind and words.  Now silence.  Always “Peace be with you.”  “Peace be with you.”

 

“But I Have Called You Friends” – 5/17/09 – John 15:9-17

This past week I received one of those rare treasures that seem to be getting rarer these days.  A letter, in the mail, from a friend, on paper, from Mike.  I met Mike in Elkhart when we were both students at seminary.  Over the course of the couple years there together we connected on a love for talking theology and a common conviction that playing ultimate Frisbee is indeed a spiritual experience.  During our final year there Mike lived next door to us.  We would often have our doors open and wander into each other’s apartments to study, chat, or share something that had just come out of the oven.  Mike introduced me to some writers and thinkers who have been very influential for me.  When Eve was born he was our primary babysitter.  Since graduating we have made it a point to keep in touch with each other.  Mike started a blog and was the original inspiration behind thewholepeace blog that I keep up.  For the last year and a half he’s been living with his wife at a study center in the Oregon wilderness, a half hour drive away from being online.  So, we write letters.  Not a lot of letters, but we keep up with each other’s thoughts, activities, and desires.  I look forward to receiving these letters.  Mike is someone I consider a close friend and one of those people that I hope to maintain ties with for the rest of my life, even if we never again live in close proximity to each other. 

In the gospel reading from John, the reality of friendship is front and center.  In some of his parting words to his closest allies, as they are gathered in an intimate setting, Jesus says “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”  These words occur in a block of John’s gospel known as the farewell discourses.  In a rather remarkable proportioning of content, John gives five chapters, nearly a quarter of his gospel, to a single evening of Jesus speaking with his disciples before he will be betrayed, tried, and crucified.  This Last Supper, uniquely begins by Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, a role reserved for the servant class.  After doing this, Jesus says, “Do you know what I have done for you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am.  So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”  This role reversal puts into question certain understandings of power and honor, and elevates the position of servant, something no one would choose to be, as a roll worthy of imitation.  But then, further along in the discourse, later into the evening of this highly significant event the disciples are undergoing, Jesus again presents a shift in how the group is to think of themselves, something even higher than being a servant.  “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends.”

I have to admit that at first blush I’m not too sure what to think of what it means to be called a friend in this way and whether that’s a primary way I want to think of Jesus, or our relationship with each other in the church.  Some of the connotations that have come alongside being a friend don’t feel like they jive very well here.  Friendship can be experienced as a casual relationship.  Those with whom we can just hang out, crack a few jokes where no one will get offended, and let down our guard.  Buddies.  Relax, you’re among friends.  The image of Jesus as a buddy gets played up in the movie Dogma, a satire on the current state of the church.  Part of the story involves the Cardinal Ignatius Glick, played by George Carlin, who starts a campaign to put new energy and excitement into the Catholic church.  The campaign is called “Catholicism Wow.”  Rather than keeping the crucifix as the central icon of the church, which the Cardinal deems as “wholly depressing,” he creates a more upbeat image of Jesus called Buddy Christ.  Buddy Christ has a big smile, and is winking as he points with one hand and keeps a thumb up with the other hand.  Buddy Christ is a kinder, gentler savior for today’s competitive marketplace of religion.  Relax, Jesus is your friend.  No need to change anything about your life.  It’s all good.

Friend, as we sometimes refer to it, can also be a demotion in relational status.  Let’s just be friends.  Let’s not get too involved in each other’s lives.  Let’s keep some distance, give each other some space.  Just friends, please.  

One of the things I think is actually reshaping our experience of friendship is coming through the Facebook phenomenon.  Facebook friends have access to each other’s profiles, journals, and pictures.  They can write notes on each other’s walls, and get a live feed on all of their friends status updates.  Friends also have access to each other’s lists of friends.  If a friend is a friend with someone I know but am not yet a friend, I can invite that person to be my friend.  If they accept, we’ve become friends.  It sounds sort of third grade, but it’s actually quite sophisticated!  Facebook friendship can involve the frivolous — this week I learned that a friend had a funny experience with her cashier in a Wal-Mart, I learned that another friend just got home from the office in time to watch Lost; the useful – one friend posted a link to downloading a free live Coldplay album.  Another posted instructions on how to make a rain barrel;  the substantive – Last week a friend from high school I’ve seen only a couple times in ten years wrote, typed, me a brief note and we ended up setting up a phone conversation that lasted over an hour about her sense of calling into ministry.  A while ago Facebook was how I learned of the unexpected death of Ron Blough, a pastor and the father of a recent CMF member, Bethany Blough Simpson who now lives in Denver.  Personally, I have found Facebook to be a great way to keep in touch with friends I otherwise would not be crossing paths with, and to interact in new ways with those I do cross paths with.  It opens up a new world of connectivity that is not dependent on geography.  But, of course, it does have its limitations.  It can be very wide, but not very deep.   It will be interesting to see how the experience of friendship continues to develop as web-based connectivity continues to expand, and how that gets balanced with face to face relationships. 

The one place in the gospels where Jesus refers to a specific person as a friend occurs just four chapters before his naming the group of disciples as friends.  When Jesus finds out from Martha and Mary that their brother Lazarus has died Jesus says to his followers, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”  When Jesus goes and finds Lazarus dead, we are told of a short but profound response.  Jesus wept.  Those around him comment, “see how he loved him.”  Jesus is deeply moved by the loss of his friend, and miraculously asks Lazarus to come out of the tomb, resuscitated back to life.  In the other three gospels, the event that triggers the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus is his demonstration in the temple, overturning the tables of the money changers.  John shapes his gospel such that the trigger event is this one here, the resurrection of Lazarus, the beloved friend of Jesus.  It scares the authorities into believing that because of this act everyone will flock to Jesus.  They say, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” (11:48)  Jesus’ love and affinity for his friend is a deep, abiding, committed love of friendship, one that will cost him his life.  So when Jesus later says “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” he is helping clarify just how much substance and solidity there is behind what he means by friendship. 

If we have allowed our experience or notion of friendship to stray too far from this depth, then we are missing something.

This past Monday I caught part of a program on NPR’s The Story, part of a series that NPR did this week on what they called the New American Dream – what values and aspirations Americans are holding to these days amidst economic struggle.  This episode was a conversation with Theresa Phillips who a number of years back had moved to a trailer park in Battle Creek, Michigan to escape an abusive relationship.  She also wanted to escape just about all relationships and live as privately as she could, but she got to know a woman at her work who insisted on being her friend, even as Theresa tried to push her away.  The other woman was persistent and convinced Theresa that they needed each other for support and deliverance from loneliness.  At one point the women were wondering if there were other women like them who were trying to be free of an unhealthy cycle of abusive relationships, feeling isolated, so they put out word to the trailer park for anyone interested to meet them at a certain time and place.  A larger than expected group turned up and from that developed what is called the Woman’s Co-op.  The Woman’s Co-op is a model of a community based on committed friendship where the women have worked out ways for them to grow as independent, healing, people.  They have received complaints and even threats from former boyfriends and husbands who believe the women should not be spending their time in this way. They have a child-care co-op that better enables the women to work, a food co-op, support services for escaping abuse, and many other ways of being a strong community network.  Directing the co-op is now Theresa’s full time job.  The focus of the show characterized this story as being indicative of the new American dream that is emerging in these difficult economic times.  Rather than the white picket fence, people are seeking security in relationships.  Safety, dependable friendships, camaraderie.  Maybe it’s the new American dream, maybe it’s the oldest of all human dreams.

David Wood is someone who has put a lot of thought into friendship.  He’s run seminars and is currently writing a book on the topic.  I met him during our Engaging Pastors Colloquy events that happened over the last year.  Two of his essays that we read were titled, “Towards the Recovery of Friendship as a Form of Christian Love,” and “The Promise of Friendship and the Practice of Ministry.”  His argument is that friendship is a profound form of love in our lives, and that it shapes our character, develops virtue, and should be recovered for its deep roots in the Christian calling.  He feels that one of our primary words we use for our relationships in the church, “fellowship,” too often ends up being a soft form of general tolerance, “a vague and comfortable term, usually too remote to have any real effect.”  He goes all the way back to Aristotle’s classical writing on the virtue of friendship, tracks friendship love in Scripture, and holds up the possibility of renewing it’s place in our thinking and practice.

As a way of drawing this to a close and circling back to John 15, consider the way that being Friends serves as a central metaphor for who we are in relation to each other and relation to Christ in our sister Peace Church tradition, the Quakers, also called The Religious Society of Friends.  I was interested to know how the Friends tell their own story of how they came to have this name and this week I had a phone conversation with someone who is becoming a friend of ours, Patrick Nugent, a Quaker and faculty member in Xavier University’s theology department.  Patrick said that the precise origin of this name is actually something that no one really knows, but that at some point, the group that came to be the Friends, started calling themselves friends, friends of truth, and friends of the light.  Quaker was a pejorative term, given them by others, but their name for themselves was Friends.  Their inspiration for this name was precisely from Jesus’ words to his comrades in John 15.  “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”  The early Quaker George Fox stated that “Christ has come to teach His people Himself.”  And so the Friends believed, as we also can believe, this wonderful idea that they had, in some way, been invited in to this circle of knowing.  That what they needed to know, and how they needed to live, could be known.  That it wasn’t hidden, but that they had been befriended by Christ.  This is revealed in the life of Jesus, and also in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit.  And so their meetings of silence and listening to the Spirit carry the strong belief that in their collective silence, the will of Christ will be revealed to them.

God is about the work of making friends in the world, and making of us friends of one another.  Despite our weakened notions of friendship, and despite the continued marketing of Buddy Christ, we are being called into a deep, substantive, virtue-forming, character enhancing friendship that mirrors the relationship Jesus expressed toward his friends.  A committing of our life toward one another, and an assurance that what we need to know has been opened up to us.  And that, my friends, is good news indeed.

 

Love Is The Point – 5/10/09 – 1 John 4:7-21

It’s been said on good authority, by multiple authorities, that a preacher really only has three or four or maybe five sermons that they ever preach.  Every sermon, even if it is one of hundreds or thousands given in a lifetime, is just some version, a different take, on one of those basic, stock sermons.  I hate to give away some of the tricks of the trade, but from my experience, that’s probably about right.  It may even be right to say that there is just one sermon, that comes in unlimited varieties.  Hopefully there is variety.  There are these basic themes that keep getting repeated and revisited, looked at from every angle, told through different stories, spun with different metaphor, ordered with different points, that really all come back to several, or just one point. 

So if you think you’ve heard this one before, you’re right.  You have.  Many times.  You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, and it is our lot in life, if we stick around the church, to hear it all the rest of our days.  And even after that it will be echoed over us, to those gathered around us, when we are put to rest. 

So you know what’s coming.  Hopefully you always will.  It’s no surprise.

The whole thing is summed up nicely in the words of 1 John 4:7,8, sort of a Cliff notes version of one of these sermons that keeps getting preached.   So here it is: “Dear ones, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God for God is love.”  That’s it.  There you have it.

Another trick of the trade in giving sermons is that you rarely give your main point up front.  You try and introduce something and work up to a point and bring people along with you in finding that point themselves.  It’s a great strategy, but, unfortunately, it has already been shot.  The point is already out there, in full, glorious, display.  It was shining brightly when we ended the day yesterday, and it was patiently waiting for us when we woke up this morning.  It has pre-empted, pre-ceded anything that has happened here and anything that will happen tomorrow.  It is not it that needs to be introduced to us, but us that need to be introduced to it, reminded again and again, having our eyes opened again to this truth.  “God is love.”  “Let us love one another.”

That we keep showing up for life, or for worship, or for whatever it is we show up for, would seem to indicate that we anticipate being further introduced to this reality.  We may not know what is the aim of our desire, but we know that we do desire, we desire to know more intimately, to live more fully, to feel more deeply.  Where do these desires come from?  To what are they ultimately directed?  The mystics and spiritual masters and scriptures would have us believe that they come from and are directed to God.  And what this looks like is us, loving one another. 

Since the point has already been stated, it’s possible the rest of the sermon might not have a point, so we’ll go forward knowing that we’ve already been introduced to all we need to know, and now we just get to walk around it a few laps to better familiarize ourselves with what we’re looking at.   

In my office/study there are a number of bookshelves.  I try to keep them somewhat organized, with different shelves for different subjects.  Ministry and pastoral care has its own area, theology has several shelves.  Ethics and peacemaking are grouped together.  Spirituality and prayer have their own sections.  Behind my desk there are several shelves of Bible commentaries, starting with Genesis and running through Revelation.  The least organized shelf is the one right behind my desk, right underneath the Bible commentaries.  This is the one where I keep those books that I need to have readily accessible.  The ones I am currently trying to work through or ones that I flip through often.  Several books have permanent residence on that shelf and may never be given a rightful place of rest in their proper category.  I grab them too often to want to get up every time and find them on shelves on the opposite wall.  One of those is a book called Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and the West (Daniel Ladinsky, translator).  This is a translation of poetry written by different spiritual masters, those for whom the love of God and the ability to put it into writing coincide in beautiful ways.  It’s hard for me to get very far in pondering the love of God without considering some of their words, their love poems. 

If everything we need to know has already been stated in 1 John 4:7-8, what else might John have to say?  How about a statement of the obvious followed by a statement of the impossible?  That’s 1 John 4:12.  Here’s what it says: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” 

Obvious: “No one has ever seen God.”  Rabia, an Islamic holy woman from the 8^th century would tend to agree: “Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers.”  (p. 27) Hafiz writing in Persia 600 years later, adds this: “Power is safest in a poet’s hands, thus for the artist God will pose.”   (p. 162)  No one has ever seen God, but for all of us who do not yet know we are artists, God is posing.

Impossible: “God’s love is perfected in us.”  Perfect is not a word I would readily associate with love.  Love is too messy, too unpredictable, too mired in details and failures in communication, too frail, to be anywhere near perfect.  Meister Eckhart, Catholic monk and scholar wrote, “What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?  I think it is the hope of loving, of being loved.  I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey to find its source, and how the moon wept without her lover’s warm gaze.  We weep when light does not reach our hearts.  We wither like fields if someone close does not rain their kindness upon us.” (p. 109)  But John must think he’s on to something with this “love being perfected in us” thing because he soon brings it back up.  God’s love is perfected in us.  Or, another way of saying it, God’s love is being made complete in us.

One thing that seems to be consistently present in the experience of love, and the words of those who try and write about it, is that love takes us beyond the incompleteness of ourselves.  Or, better yet, it expands our selves and makes us more of a self.  Including more within our self.  Love inherently cracks through the hard shell that forms around us, such that it becomes more and more difficult to distinguish between where we end and another begins.  Love is being made complete in us.

It’s in John’s gospel that Jesus say, “I and the Father are one.”  You can’t get much more of a statement of love than that.  Jesus lived life such that the boundary between him and God, the place where he ended and God began, became common space, occupied by both.  So when Jesus says “I” in John’s gospel – “I am the good shepherd,” “I am the vine,” “I am the bread of life,” “I am the way,” the I that is speaking is an I that includes union with God.  It is not the I of the ego.  It is the I of incarnation.  The I of God becoming more of itself through those who embody this love.  Genesis speaks of the marriage union in a similar way: “the two shall become one flesh.”  Over the life of such a partnership, there is a spilling over of selfhood, a sharing of identity, in which the border between partners, becomes opened up.  The more we take our partner into account in our decisions, the more we learn the art of compromise, the art of co-operation, the art of having all things in common – in our imperfect relationships, love is being perfected.  Hafiz has his own twist on what love’s perfection might look like.  He says, “God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat.  We keep bumping into each other and laughing.” P. 171.

Sandwiched between the obvious and the impossible – the practical.  1 John 4:12.  “No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is made complete in us.”

God’s love in us looks like us loving one another.  This is working itself out in practical, relational ways every day.  John feels strongly about this and would like for us to get this straight.  Vv. 20-21 “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.  The commandment we have is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” 

Thomas Aquinas was a great theologian of the 13^th century, influencing much of western thought.  He wrote a massive systematic theology.  It must not have been enough to say all he wanted to say.  He also wrote poetry about the practical.

  I said to God, “Let me love you.”

And God replied, “Which part?”

“All of you, all of you,” I said.

“Dear,” God spoke, “you are as a mouse wanting to impregnate a tiger who is not even in heat.  It is a feat way beyond your courage and strength.  You would run from me if I removed me mask.”

I said to God again, “Beloved I need to love you – every aspect, every pore.”

And this time God said, “There is a hideous blemish on my body, though it is such an infinitesimal part of my Being – could you kiss that if it were revealed?”

“I will try, Lord, I will try.”

And then God said, “That blemish is all the hatred and cruelty in this world.” (p. 136)

 

St. Teresa of Avila was in love with God, and she also wrote about this being very practical:

“God’s hands can shape through ours.  And our sounds can somehow echo what God has never said,

For the Divine is really speechless, it is too in love to chat.

The Holy Wind ruffled our hair and caused a lot of commotion:

We think God made some rules

But how can that be true when our souls are really the governor of all.

God’s mind can shape through ours.

Our bodies – and the earth – are as clay.  Is that not so, my dear.

I have a lovely habit: at night in my prayers I touch everyone I have seen that day. 

I shape my heart like theirs and theirs like mine.  (p.283)

 

Another trick of the trade for giving a sermon: how to end.  This one I haven’t quite figured out yet.  How do you end a sermon so as to not give the impression that it’s actually done?  Try not to state something as if it’s the final word, but as if it’s suggestive of all of the other many words that could be said, that will be said, that will be heard as the Spirit continues to speak in each life. 

Possibly review several key images, presenting them in the form of a benediction.  May you know, dear beloved artists, that for you, God will pose.  Go and see if you can be like a giant fat person in a tiny boat with God.  Kiss cruelty and hatred as if it were a tiny blemish on God’s beautiful body.

Possibly restate your point, if you have a point, which in this case we do: “Brothers and sisters, let us love one another, for God is love.”

Or, possibly, when the time feels appropriate, simply back away from the pulpit, trusting that the Holy Spirit will take it from here.

 

In Jesus’ Name – 5/3/09 – Acts 4:5-12, 1 John 3:16-24

About a month ago the Mennonite Weekly Review carried an essay by a pastor in Kansas named Bruce Bradshaw about his participation in the recent efforts of Mennonite Central Committee called “New Wine, New Wineskins.”  (March 30^th, 2009 edition) This process is designed to get feedback from MCC’s constituents about the future ministry of the organization.  The issue that the essay highlights is MCC’s use of the phrase “In the name of Christ” that accompanies their ministry work.  Labels that are placed on canned turkey that MCC ships all over the world, for example, include the words “In the name of Christ.” 

Here are some of the comments in the essay: “In an assignment to tell what excited us about the work of MCC, the people at my table cited ministering “In the name of Christ,” which they believed was a non-negotiable aspect of MCC’s ministry.  Their commitment reminded me of Shakespeare’s Juliet, who asked Romeo:  “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Would MCC’s ministry, without mentioning the name, be any different?

I fully support ministering in the name of Christ. However, the name needs interpretation. Otherwise, it will be misunderstood and become meaningless.  When I pasted labels on cans of turkey for MCC’s meat canning ministry, someone commented that the turkey would taste the same with or without Christ.  The taste might be the same, but the meaning will change.

Serving people in the name of Christ makes a difference, but we have to interpret the difference.”

This essay came to mind when I read through the passages from Acts and 1 John in this week’s lectionary.  Acts seems to be full of different instances when the disciples are acting in Jesus’ name.  Jesus had told them “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  In the case of Acts 4, Peter and John had come upon a man born lame from birth who was being carried in to the temple during the hour of prayer to beg for alms.  The rush hour traffic was probably a good time for this, not to mention he would have been catching people at a time when they were feeling the most pious, since there does seem to be dissonance between going to pray and then immediately walking by a person asking for change.  After walking up to him, on their way to prayer, in a moment of inspiration, Peter had looked at him, and said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”  And the lame man gets up, and walks, and dances around, much to people’s astonishment.  Later, Peter and John are arrested for being the source of all the commotion that this caused.  They are questioned, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” to which Peter answers “this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth….there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

In this story and other of the apostles, it is the name of Jesus that takes center state.  Those who use the name, or witness to the name, seem to carry the extraordinary power to do the same things Jesus himself did.

If you read the email on Friday then you have had a little warning about what I would like to try and do with the sermon.  I think the Menno Weekly Review article does a good job of raising some good questions, important questions, and I think those questions are best addressed when we are able to hear from different people’s experiences.  How do we use the name of Jesus, or Christ, or Christianity?  What difference does it make, if any?  What does it mean to us to be witnesses of Jesus?  To bear that name and somehow represent what all that means.

So what I get to do, rather than making a definitive statement and saying Amen and being done with it, is to stir the pot a little bit and see what rises to the top for you all.  I’ll ask us to consider different aspects of the naming process, especially as it relates to faith, and what the name of Jesus means to us. 

Listen not only to consider these things, but consider how you may share some response that could address any angle of this.  Feel free to jot notes, flip through your Bibles, think of stories that relate.  And we’ll see what happens.  And just so you’re clear as to what to anticipate, the format will be similar to regular sharing time.  I’ll open the floor and you can feel free to share.  And if we have some time of extended silence together……that’s OK too. 

Consider the different paths taken by Christian ministers during the inauguration celebration of President Obama.  The opening inaugural event on Sunday of that week began with a prayer by Episcopal priest Eugene Robinson.  In the hearing of the diverse crowd, from all walks of life, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, Eugene Robinson began his prayer with the words, “O God of our many understandings.”  He went on to ask that God bless us all at this time with tears, with anger, with discomfort, with patience, with humility, and with compassion and generosity.  Two days later, this time to begin the official swearing in part of the inauguration, Evangelical Pastor Rick Warren stood before an equally diverse crowd, and gave a prayer.  Throughout the prayer , Rick Warren made references to the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  As part of the conclusion of his prayer he offered, “I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus.” 

Praying to the God of our many understandings.  Praying in the name of Jesus.

If you were asked to pray for such an event, how would you address and name God?  Or maybe you would decline!  How universal and how particular would you allow your language of faith to be?  Or, perhaps, more concretely, when you do pray, whether in public or in private or with your household, do you ever use the words, “in Jesus’ name?”  If so, why?  What do they mean to you? 

Consider the humility and caution that scripture speaks of in the human attempt to name God.  A time when God ventures to reveal the divine name occurs in the burning bush incident with Moses.  God tells Moses that God will deliver the children of Israel from the bondage of slavery, and Moses will lead the way.  Moses asks this burning-plant-with-a-voice, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’  God said to Moses, “I am who I am”  “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am” has sent me to you.’”  This isn’t much of an answer to Moses’ question.  Not much of a definitive name.  “I am who I am” could just as easily be translated “I will be who I will be.”  In other words, I can’t be easily named or contained within your fragile frameworks of understanding.  As soon as you try and name me, you’re already in error.  If you need a name for me, call me “I will be” and then watch me be that which I am.  You’ll know me by what I do, and what I’m about to do is deliver you from bondage.  This is God’s name. 

When Jacob wrestles with the angel of God, or God’s own self, he wins a blessing, and gets a new name.  Israel.  God-wrestler.  But then Jacob asks to know the name of the one with whom he has struggled all night.  The answer he receives is “why do you ask my name?”  In our walk with God, or our wrestle with God, is it we who get to name God, or is it God who names us?

Consider how fundamental it is to our humanity to give and receive names.  The creation account of Genesis 2 imagines that one of the first acts of the human creature who has been formed from the dust, is to name all of the other dust creatures.  “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the human to see what he would call them;  and whatever the human called every living creature, that was its name.”  This is surely much more intimate than something like branding cattle, or an assembly line of smacking a UPC label on an object for strictly identification purposes.  Our naming of our environment, of each other, is a way of connecting ourselves with that person, or animal.  A bond of relationship.

Expectant parents sit down together and go through lists of names, looking for just the right one that their child will carry with them the rest of their lives.  The final name has to sit right with both partners.  The name may be that of a relative, connecting the child in some way to the family story.  It may come from a beloved Bible character, or a valued person in history.  It could come from pop culture, or be a direct product of the sheer creativity of the parents who would like their child to have a name like no other.  Even if the story behind our name is that it’s just a name our parents liked, then we have already been given a sign of love that we carry with us and that we answer to.  Someone calls our name.  We pause, we pay attention.  We have been named, and we will give names to others, to animals, to places, to our faith, because we’re human, and that’s what we do.

Consider Jesus’ own teachings that relate to the use of his name.  There are some teachings that indicate that acting in the name of Jesus is a continuation of the life of Jesus.  The name of Jesus stands for everything that Jesus stood for.  Acting in the name of Jesus is an extension of all that Jesus was.  “Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name, welcomes me.”  (Matthew 18:5).  For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  (Matthew 18:20).  The extension of Jesus self through the life of the disciple who bears that name can also lead to a similar counter-cultural stance.  “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29).  “Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name.”  Matthew 24:9  Followers of Jesus are forever linked to his name, and that directly influences how we live.

But then there are instances when Jesus downplays and even seems to shun the use of his name.  Also in Matthew, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’” (Matthew 7:22-23).  Apparently it is possible to use the name of Jesus, but still be doing evil.  It is the doing, not the using of the name, that is what is of value.  And remember Matthew 25, where Jesus teaches that those who have compassion on the least of these, even if there was no knowledge at the time that they were acting in Jesus’ name, they will inherit the kingdom of God.  It would seem that one can act in Jesus’ name without ever saying a word.

Consider how names, traditions, identities, come to take on certain freight, certain connotations over time.  Whatever something meant originally, it becomes altered and re-formed, for better or for worse, by how it has been represented through history.  Several years ago Nelson Kraybill, President of AMBS seminary wrote an essay that elicited a lot of conversation about how the future of the Mennonite Church was evangelical.  One of the points of his argument was that since evangelical means oriented toward good news that we should fully claim that title.  Those who felt this was a bad idea argued that there are certain elements of the current evangelical community they don’t want to be identified with.  One argument was from the basis of what a name should mean, while one was from what it has come to mean over time.  However one feels about that, we who bear the name of Christ are in the same boat.  We have to acknowledge that the name of Jesus does not only point back to what we like to think of as the pure form of Christ, but also bears the weight of the good and the bad that has been done in the name of Christ throughout history.  How do we represent Christ given this reality?

A final thing to consider, before you may want to offer plenty of other things to consider: Consider the way 1 John holds all this tension together.  3:18, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  On one hand words and speech and names matter little.  Our love acts itself out in truth, and that truth can be true no matter how we name it or leave it unnamed.  But then 4 verses later: “And this is God’s commandment: that we should believe in the name of God’s Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as we have been commanded.”  There’s still something about that name to hold on to.

I think that’s plenty to consider for now, for starters.  I wonder what kinds of thoughts this has brought up for you.  Or what kinds of experiences you’ve had that relate with this that you’d like to share.  You may want to speak to one of the questions I raised, or ask your own question.  Or tell about a time when you feel like you represented Christ and whether or not the name of Christ came up during that time.  Or if you feel like you are often on the defensive for feeling like the form of Christianity you believe in is not the one that most people think of when they think of Christianity.  What does it mean to live “in Jesus’ name?”  Or to pray “in Jesus’ name?”  Or to give a cup of cold water, or a can of turkey in Jesus’ name?

 

Things To Keep Open: Doors, Scriptures, Minds – 4/26/09 – Luke 24:36b-48

In the soil around our house we’ve been hoping recently for thousands of little openings to happen.  If anyone saw our backyard around the time that we moved in you know that it needed some love and attention.  A large tree blew down last September during the windstorms of Hurricane Ike, and there were still some branches and cut up limbs in the back half of the yard.  A family who lived there before us had a large playset about equivalent in size to a McDonalds play land that took up a good portion of the front half of the yard and shaded out any possibility of grass growing there.  The playset was gone, but a large bare spot remained.  After doing some general cleaning of the area we used a rototiller, courtesy of Ron Headings, to loosen up the dirt throughout the whole yard.  We spread grass seed, threw out some straw covering, and welcomed the rain that soon came.  Moisture, warmth, some light, and reasonably decent soil is all that’s needed to help open up all these small seeds.  If all goes well they’ll shoot down into the ground with some roots and up into the air to provide a turf for playing for years to come.  Being an amateur at this I’ll be pretty amazed if the whole yard actually comes up with no bare spots, but we’re hoping for something that’s a slight improvement over what was there before.

From Easter to Pentecost, the season we are in right now, a similar kind of opening is happening for the disciples.  The risen Jesus has this limited time to open up his followers to the reality of the life of the Spirit, to crack the shell of their disbelief, and put them in a position where they can take firm root and thrive and grow.  The process of being cracked open is not an easy one for the disciples to undergo.  It is met with fear, doubt, and unknowing.     

In the story from Luke, Jesus’ appearance to the disciples the evening of the resurrection, we can note three different openings taking place.  Let’s consider each of these:          

Open Doors. 

Luke doesn’t emphasize this as much as John, but if we take John’s witness into account we are told that the disciples’ initial encounter with the risen Christ happens behind closed doors, or, locked doors to be more precise.  They had found themselves a relatively safe place to huddle together so they wouldn’t be found out as members of the Jesus movement.  But then, at some point in their huddling, Jesus came and stood among them.  Luke and John do agree on Jesus’ initial words to them.  “Peace be with you.”  They also agree on the theme of Jesus’ parting message to them – The Spirit of God will come to you, and you’re going to open wide these doors and start doing my work everywhere you happen to be, even in the far corners of the world.  It’s quite a shift.  Quite a change in how to approach life. 

Living with the doors open means the disciples will encounter people and situations they couldn’t anticipate or plan for.  Like Peter and John who cross paths with the man lame from birth on their way to the temple.  Or Phillip who had a run-in with the treasury secretary of Ethiopia, the eunuch who was on his way to Jerusalem to worship.  Or later when Peter starts walking through the doors of Gentile homes, and discovering that the Holy Spirit shows up in all sorts of off the map kinds of places.  In the power of the Spirit the disciples go from being closers and lockers of doors, to being door openers.

There are a number of practices that we think of as being spiritual disciplines: prayer, bible study, journaling, fasting.  One to add to this list could be the discipline of keeping the door open.  A practice that helps form and shape us.     

Most of our days are most likely spent behind closed doors.  Doors at home, doors at work, and doors on the cars that transport us from home to work.  We could even include the doors of the church.  Our job, our mission is to find ways to make all those doors be open doors through which people are welcome to walk.  When we welcome people into our home, or into our office, there is a sense in which we are welcoming Christ.  All who pass through the door make the place holy ground.  We break bread together, we share thoughts and stories.  We collaborate on projects.  We welcome in those we love and those who are difficult to love, and those we barely know.  The book of Hebrews picks up on this theme.  It says, “Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  The experience of the risen Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Spirit had the effect of enabling the disciples to recognize that everyone who crossed their path was in some way a piece God.  Open doors enable Christ to wander in and find welcome.    

It’s not such a good idea to drive with the door open, but one possibility of opening the door in our act of getting from one place to another is to walk or bike whenever possible.  My commute is such that it would actually take longer for me to get in the car, start it up, stop at the stop sign, park, get out, lock up, and go around to the sidewalk.  Even though it has doubled since our move, it’s still a short walk, and I’m amazed at the little encounters that happen on it.  I find that there are open doors of relationship that wouldn’t be there if I were to drive past them.  I encounter neighbors to talk with, flowers to observe, and trash to pick up.  Anytime there is a chance to remove a door between us and our environment it opens us up to these relationships.  One less barrier.       

Keeping the door open gives us less control over who or what may come across our paths.  But each encounter offers the possibility of the same kind of exchange that happened between Jesus and the disciples:  “Peace be with you” we say to whoever we encounter.  Peace be with you, we here echoed back. 

Open Scriptures

Luke 24:45 says “Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”  In this case, scriptures, of course, means the Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament.  The Law, the prophets, and the Psalms and Writings.  Something recorded by previous generations about their encounter with God that the disciples and others of the time had available to them.  Tellling about creation, covenants, teachings, sayings of wisdom, praising and lamenting.  Expressing longings for justice.  Telling the story of the people of Israel who move from slavery to wilderness to promised land, through judges and kings and wars and prophets and exile.   

All of this, Jesus opens up to them.  They already know what it says.  Have heard the stories from their youth.  Perhaps memorized whole chunks of passages as was more common in oral cultures.  They already were plenty familiar with these scriptures.  But with Jesus in the room, this time, they see scripture as if for the first time. 

What is going on here is just as instructive for us as it was for the disciples.  What is being offered is a particular way of reading history.  Of reading scripture.  For the disciples, at this time, or over however long of a period of time it took to sink in, the suffering Christ, the one who identified with the least of these, the dying and rising Jesus for whom death was not the end, becomes the primary narrative of every narrative.  The life of Jesus becomes the primary way of reading every other life, every part of scripture.  In other words, we read everything from now on as if Jesus is in the room.  The New Testament reads everything as if he had always been in the room.  He was in the room at creation, the word that was to become flesh, as John’s gospel says.  He was in the room when Abraham was promised that his offspring would become a blessing to all nations.  He was in the room when Jeremiah spoke about a new covenant that God would write on the people’s hearts.  He was in the room when Isaiah spoke about the servant of the Lord who was anointed to preach good news to the poor.  And his presence then and now effects how we see things.  About who turns out to be the hero and who turns out to be the ones who are off target, on the fringe.  The lowly and weak of each story turn out to have much more in common with Christ than the mighty and powerful.  Certain codes and laws that served to separate the righteous from the unrighteous turn out to be less important and certain acts of kindness and compassion turn out to be signs of good news, even if they happen outside of the boundaries of Israel or the certain religious expressions that came to be accepted as the norm.         

We have come to call this a Christo-centric reading of Scripture.  Christ becomes the organizing principle through which all teachings are interpreted.

And so if it remains that Jesus is in the room, then it affects how we interpret our culture.  How we read the events going on around us.  When you read the daily paper, or listen to the news on NPR, how do you hear it differently knowing that Jesus is in the room? 

Open Minds

In some ways, talking about open minds is a little redundant after talking about open doors and open scriptures.  Luke does pair open minds and open scriptures together when he says that “Jesus opened their minds to understand the scripture.”  It might be something like the proverbial chicken and the egg question – which comes first?  The open door or the open mind?  The open mind or the open scriptures? 

It could be the case that the open mind comes first, and leads us toward open doors and open scriptures.  Having an open mind is a fairly common phrase that we toss around these days.  And a lot of people seem to agree that it’s a good kind of mind to have.  Open-mindedness may be enough of a catch-all term that we don’t put a lot of thought into what it actually requires to have an open mind.  Does open minded just mean liberal?  Can one be an open-minded conservative?  I was challenged this week to think more deeply about what it means to have an open mind, and I’m thinking that it means something beyond these things.  Beyond ideology.  Beyond where we come down on any particular political or theological issue.

Having an open mind could be another way of saying that we are listening.  We are listening, and we’re willing to take in new ideas, old ideas, those who differ from us and those who agree.  There’s room to allow all those things inside of us.  We can hold that tension.  The boundary between where I end, and not-I begins is an open boundary.  We keep a particular identity, but we recognize that identity to be fluid.  To be incomplete.  To be needing more.  An open mind receives the Spirit of God.        

It could also be the case that open doors and open scriptures come first, and only then can the mind really open.  I like the way this works because it puts us in the place of our actions shaping our thoughts.  Rather than thinking our way to right action, we act our way to right thinking.  We keep our doors open, we allow Christ to open the scriptures to us, and this shapes our thinking.  The people we encounter, the ways we discover Christ present around us, open up new ways of thinking and new ways of seeing the world.  We have to deal with unexpected relationships, unanticipated conversations.  Our minds must adapt, be flexible. 

In this season of spring and Easter resurrection we look for the ways that we are being opened up.  Cracked open, growing, receiving the Spirit of God.           

 

 

Um….Now What? – 4/12/09 (Easter) – Mark 16:1-8

Christ is Risen!  Christ is Risen indeed!

 

If you like nice and tidy endings to stories, where all of the loose ends are brought together and all of the tensions are resolved, then the ending of Mark’s gospel is sure to disappoint, maybe even frustrate. 

In telling the story of Jesus’ resurrection, the climax of his gospel, not only does Mark fail to include the risen Christ anywhere in the scene, but he leaves us completely hanging as to what happens after the women find the tomb to be empty.  These three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, are the first witnesses of the resurrection, the first apostles, and we might expect them to be filled with joy and run out and tell everyone they know.  But instead this is what we read in Mark’s closing statement.  Chapter 16, verse 8:  “So they, the women, went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Um…..OK.   That’s all?  That’s the end?  What happened next?  Where were they fleeing?  Did they ever recover their composure to tell anyone about the experience?  Have we come all this way only to be left with nothing but terror and amazement and….silence? 

A more literal translation of this final verse seems even more inconclusive, “And they went out and fled from the tomb, for they were gripped with tromos, trauma, and ekstasis, ecstasy, and nothing to no one they spoke, they were afraid for…”  The implied dot…dot…dot at the end gets us asking the obvious question, “And…then…what?”

The heading of chapter 16 of Mark reads “The resurrection of Jesus” but could just as easily read, “The resurrection of Jesus?”  The ending that we have appears to be about as satisfying as if Slumdog Millionaire had ended without us knowing whether or not he got the right answer to the final question.  I wonder if the movie “Slumdog Millionaire?” would have won as many Oscars.

The women who thought they were going to care for the body of Jesus, only to find that it is not there, carry the tension of the empty tomb with them as they flee into the early morning.  Rather than dancing and singing “Jai Ho,” the women are stunned with the mute button pressed on them.  Their experience is too immediate to be characterized as post-traumatic stress.  They exit the scene with during-traumatic stress. 

That this is not the proper way to end a story that is supposedly “good news,” has been observed by scholars and readers of scripture throughout the history of the church.  Some have suggested that perhaps the original ending of Mark has been lost.  We don’t know what the ending would have been, but we can be assured that it brought things together in a way that is more conclusive, allowing us to breath a sigh of relief and come back from the edge of our seat because all is well.  Or perhaps Mark was unable to finish as he intended — martyred or somehow pulled away from his script before being able to complete it.  For those who couldn’t stand not having a proper ending, at least two alternative endings were created in the couple of centuries after Mark was written. 

These new and improved endings do make it into our Bibles, you will notice, although it is sort of like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire making it into the Hall of Fame for hitting home runs.  They come with a big asterisk.  The footnotes in Bibles include the information that the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at v. 8, while other, later manuscripts include some combination of these two endings, a shorter version or a longer version, or both, one after the other.  These endings seem to draw from themes and stories present in the other gospels.  The women disciples end up spilling their guts to their male counterparts, but it doesn’t count for much.  Jesus appears to different groups of people, like the walkers to Emmaus which Luke tells more fully, with no one really believing until they themselves have had the experience.  Eventually a more clear mandate is made known to those who have encountered the risen Christ.  They are to spread his message to the ends of the earth, similar to the Great Commission of Matthew.  The point isn’t that these aren’t legitimate things to say.  The point is that they weren’t there when Mark put down his pen.  They’re additions, Mark with a slight injection of performance enhancing substance, and not the closing image of resurrection he intended to leave with us. 

So, assuming – a good assumption, I believe — that the fat lady has indeed sung at the end of verse eight, right when the women are too numb to utter a single note, what might there be here to learn about resurrection?

Let’s back up slightly. 

Consider the days immediately following a death:  When a death occurs, there are things that must be done, practical things.  For us, friends and family must be notified.  The body must be properly cared for in whatever way has been planned – organ donations, cremation, preparation for placing it in the casket.  Arrangements must be finalized for the memorial service.  Jobs and other responsibilities get put on hold, details for transportation and lodging for those traveling from a distance get worked out, and people gather to mourn and celebrate the life that was.  It’s a routine that is unique to every family and culture, and one of the most common and universal events of humanity.  We gather together, we remember, we say goodbye.  We find closure. 

The three women at the tomb are the same three women who Mark names as being present at the crucifixion.  The male disciples had run off for fear of their lives, but, as Mark notes, there were women disciples who looked on from a distance, among them Mary Magdelene, and Mary the mother of James, the younger and of Joses, and Salome.  We’ve never heard of these women before in Mark, although the second Mary might be Jesus’ mother, but all of a sudden they are of primary importance.  When the end comes, they’re the ones who are there.  They watch the painful process of Jesus being placed on the cross.  They are present when Jesus is dying.  When the life goes out of Jesus, no doubt, they experience a profound loss of their own.  Their master has died, the movement they have given so much to is in shambles, and there’s nothing left to do except what must be done when death occurs.  There’s no one left but them to do it. 

They don’t get to care for the body right away, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, takes it upon himself to do this, taking down the body from the cross, wrapping it in a linen cloth, and laying it in a tomb. 

They intend to bring spices to anoint the body, but can’t do so until the Sabbath has ended.  The sun goes down on the Sabbath, and they rise with the sun early the next morning to go do what they can do to care for the dead.  They seem to be doing this on their own will.  Not sure how things will work out or if it will even be possible.  “Who will roll away the stone?”  They know they can’t do it.  At least they’ll be able to spend some time at the place they believe Jesus to be lying.  Perhaps, find some closure.

In Mark, the women find the stone already rolled away and in place of Jesus, a young man, dressed in white, sitting at “the right side,” the same position the disciples had requested to sit a number of days before when Jesus had told them that they didn’t know what they were asking.   Their initial alarm is met with these brief words, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised.  He is not here.  Look, there is the place they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”      

That’s all they get.  No certainty of what has really happened, no powerful angel shaking up the earth, as Matthew notes, no appearance from Jesus to speak directly to them, like the other three gospels.  Just this: Jesus isn’t here, he’s going ahead of you, and you’ll see him there.

Not so conclusive, sort of the ultimate anti-closure.  

Which, I’m thinking, is the point.  Our desire for our experiences to fit into nice, tidy packages, our need to put a lid over the container, or the metaphorical stone over the grave, could be the very thing that keeps us from entering the kind of reality that the God of resurrection is creating.  Our inclination toward comfortable resolution, our uncomfortableness with sitting on the edge of our seats and our relief with being able to sit back, kick up our feet, and savor that which has come to an end — all these are at odds with what is going on here, with what the Spirit of God appears to be up to in raising Jesus from the dead.   

If Jesus isn’t where we thought he was, contained somewhere back there, or just here, but is going ahead of us, to the place we will be at next, then the world is more unpredictable than we once thought – both frightful and amazing.  What traces of Christ will we find?  What places has Jesus haunted that we might stumble into unaware?  If the resurrected Christ is on the loose, out gallivanting around in whatever form he may choose to appear, then it’s both wonderful and disturbing.

Where will he show up?  What will he look like?  When will something that we thought was dead and over suddenly take on new life?

Resurrection faith involves learning to live with the unresolved.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican church, has made some comments about the ending of Mark that resonate with me.  He offers that the women’s silence at the end leaves us to continue the story in whatever way we will.  He says, “”(Mark) invites us to consider what difference the resurrection makes. Is it a reversal of tragedy? A happy ending? A promise of revenge against the sinful judges who brought Jesus to his death? It is none of these. The resurrection comes across as radically unexpected, almost disconnected with what has gone before…. As has sometimes been said, the reader is the ‘lost ending’ of Mark. We have to discover for ourselves what difference is made by this life, this death and this disorienting mystery after the crucifixion.” (Christ on Trial: How the Gospel Unsettles our Judgment)

It’s hard enough to know what to say at a funeral, but what does one say about resurrection? 

We don’t know quite what to make of this.  We don’t know what to say.  It throws our expectations and our routines out of whack.  For the women it was like undergoing shock and awe, Jesus style, and they go sprinting off into the sunrise. 

Not a bad picture to be left with for the meaning of resurrection.

 

Palms, Economy, Cross (Palm Sunday)- 4/05/09 – Mark 11

In case you’ve been following along in our outline, you’ll note that we have reached the final Sunday of Lent.  Each time of worship has been shaped by one of these six images, drawn from the scriptures: the bow of the flood story and God’s reconciling relationship with humanity.  The family tree of Abraham and Sara and the trees seen by the blind man who received a double touch from Jesus; the beehive dripping with honey as a reminder of the sweetness of God’s teachings; the snakes in the wilderness, which Jerry Sears noted, despite being a most unwelcome gift, had the effect of lifting up people’s eyes toward heaven; the water of purification and King David’s repentance from sin; and now the parade of palms for a peasant king riding his donkey into a confrontation with the forces that would soon take his life.  All of these images share the simple arc, that shows up in whatever size or quantity or arrangement to make up each picture.  Thanks again to Connie Briggs for making this wall hanging, and for Violet Sears’ Sunday school class for creating your own version of these images that we’ve been using for the children’s story and have kept out in the forum area.   

We could think of the simplicity of the arc as reflecting the simplicity of the season.  Lent is a time to repent, confess, reflect.  A time to fast.  To strip away the extras, the excesses of life and get down to the basics, the core of who we are.  Like the simplicity of the barren wilderness.  Or the simplicity of an open, listening spirit.

My personal Lenten confession is that for our family, this season has been anything but simple.  Ever since discovering, the evening before the ordination on Feb 1^st, that we would be expecting our third child, life in our household has pretty much been a whirlwind of change and adjustments, both realized and anticipated.  Enough change, that our household now has a different house to hold than when this began two months ago.  I’ve already reflected some on this process through Musings and conversations and don’t need to say much more about here, except to say that it has made this simple season of Lent rather complex. 

Alongside this, this has not been a simple time in the life of our nation.  The economic unraveling that started toward the end of last year has continued up until now and how this will shake out in the next year or two is still very much unknown, even to the supposed experts.  We have been confronted with the extreme complexity of our economic system and the financial instruments at work within it, seeing how the failure of one aspect of the economy can influence the entire system of credit and employment and consumption.  We’re left frustrated with asking questions whose answers we’re pretty sure we don’t know and are worried that no one else may know either.  Do we focus on pumping more money into the economy for stimulus or do we focus on regulation?  Is a bank bailout really the only option for stabilizing the economy and restoring credit flow?  Should the poor and middle class get a bailout?  Should anyone get a bailout?  How much do we give to prop up an auto industry that would apparently fail if it were allowed to go the way of market forces?  And if it fell what all and who all else would fall and how painful would it be?  The unknowns and the precarious nature of the situation has left economists and editorialists speaking in terms that echo the apocalyptic warnings of ancient prophets.

As much as I would wish for the simplicity of the season to be the norm, approaching Holy Week with these complexities in mind puts us in a good position to enter into the experience of Jesus leading up to his crucifixion.  This final week of Jesus’ life, to which the gospels dedicate such a surprisingly large amount of narrative, deals with all these same swirling political and economic forces.  Jesus, the itinerant preacher, folk healer, and wonder-worker, comes up from the more simple life of rural Galilee where he has carried out his ministry, and walks into the urban center of Jerusalem, into the economic powerhouse of his time, the temple complex, confronting and speaking to the powers that be, disrupting and angering them enough that they seek his death.  This is the story that we enter into now.

I’m going to be tracing different parts of this story as it’s told in Mark’s gospel and encourage you to turn there, starting in Mark chapter 11.     

When Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem, it is done with a great deal of intentionality and aforethought.  He knows what he’s doing, is fully aware of the potential consequences, and carries out the actions necessary to make his message clear.  This shows up in a couple ways in the text of Mark 11.  As the chapter begins we read that Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives.  Bethany was about two miles southeast of Jerusalem and, as the story continues to unfold, proves to be a place where Jesus has connections.  It will be his home base throughout the week, as he shuttles back and forth between his place of lodging there at night, and his activity in Jerusalem during the day.  Along with lodging accommodations, arrangements have been made for the key prop in a parade type entry Jesus plans to have as he enters the city.  Jesus knows where this donkey colt will be located and gives his disciples the correct words to say to those who were watching over it until they arrived to take it to Jesus.  “What are you doing, untying the colt?” some people ask them.  “The Lord needs it, and will bring it back immediately,” the disciples reply, and are allowed to take the colt with them.  Half of the triumphal entry story is given to this process of getting the colt, which could very well signal the well-planned out nature of what is to follow. 

It would have been just as easy for Jesus to walk on foot into the city, but what he has in mind is something akin to a piece of street theater, acting out the words of the prophet Zechariah about the king who comes to bring peace, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!  Shout along, O daughter Jerusalem!  Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.”  (Zech 9:9-10)

As Mark tells the story, this raucous, joyful procession from Bethany toward Jerusalem is a highly symbolic act, with the actual act of traveling somewhere not being nearly as important as the meaning of the parade itself.  Verse 11 gives a fascinating, almost humorous description of the anticlimactic entry into Jerusalem.  The journey that began two miles away in Bethany has ended, the praises have been shouted, branches waived in the air, and then verse 11: “Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.”  Either the parade ran a little longer than Jesus had expected, and now it’s too late to carry out his plans for the day in the temple, or this was all that had been intended, and Jesus just scouts out the temple grounds.  Whatever it was, he was scoping out, it will have to wait until tomorrow, as he turns right back around and walks the two miles back to Bethany with the twelve to return the colt as promised and get some sleep.    

Verses 12-14.  The heading in my Bible is “Jesus curses the fig tree.”  The next morning, Jesus is up and back on his way to Jerusalem with the twelve, this time by foot.  He’s headed straight for the temple, but first, another highly symbolic act.  One of Mark’s techniques in his gospel is something like a literary sandwich, where he will tell about one event, move on to another, and then go back to the first event.  The sandwich is all related and the outer parts help interpret the meaning of the inner part, the meat of the sandwich.  So what may first appear as Jesus just getting up on the wrong side of bed and getting mad at a fig tree that won’t give him his breakfast, turns out to be something much deeper.  Something else that we are about to encounter has not been bearing the fruit that it was intended to produce — desolate, and withering to its roots.  Jesus gives it to the fig tree, the disciples hear him do it, and they move on toward the central institution in Jerusalem, the temple.

In a book about the social structures of first century Palestine, authors Hanson and Oakman make this summary statement after a chapter speaking about the temple: “What stands out about Palestinian society is the centrality of the Herodian temple, especially in maintaining the political-economic system, and the preeminence of the priestly oligarchy in the system’s management and benefits.  The role of the temple in the life of early Roman Palestine was so pervasive that it should be thought of as an institution intruding into and organizing the social life of every Judean region and settlement.  Its effects upon the distribution of social goods within Palestinian society cannot be overemphasized.  The temple was the hub of a redistributive economy; goods and services, raw materials, crops, animals – all flowed to this central point.  There, these goods were redistributed in ways not necessarily benefiting their original producers.  Religious ideology legitimated (and sustained) this arrangement.” (Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts, KC Hanson and Douglas E Oakman, p. 156).

The time Jesus looks least like a Mennonite pacifist is this time when he enters the temple industrial complex and starts driving out those who were buying and selling and, nonviolently I’m sure, overturning tables.  The terminology here, “driving out” is the same used throughout the gospel for Jesus driving out demons.  This is a public, institutional exorcism.  The presence of economic activity in a house of worship would not have been what Jesus found scandalous.  If Jesus were to visit a CMF Ten Thousand Villages Christmas sale in past years my guess is that he would have been the first in line to purchase some beautiful handicrafts that would have also served to help the poor lift themselves out of poverty.  In the temple, he aims his efforts at the money changers and those who sold doves – doves being the sacrifices that Leviticus prescribes for those who are poor.  He halts the flows of goods through the temple and laments that the purpose of the place is to be a house of prayer for all nations, but that is has become a den of robbers, with the wealthy benefiting off of the ritual obligations of the poor.

This is not received well by the authorities, who themselves benefited from the temple economy, for whom the temple was simply too big to fail.  Verse 18 says that “when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him.” 

Evening comes, Jesus heads back out of the city, and when they set out again the next morning the final slab of the sandwich shows up.  Peter says, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”  With the temple mount visible in front of them, Jesus says, “have faith in God, Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘be taken up and thrown into the sea and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.”  The fig tree is the temple.  Jesus then continues to describe a spiritual economy of grace that imagines a life after the temple, free from the debt system.  “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”  No dove purchase necessary.

When Jesus stands trial later in that week, one of the accusations brought against him is that he had said, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”  It’s not clear whether Jesus had actually said this or not, but it does help illustrate Mark’s theme throughout the events of Holy Week.  In speaking to the question, “why was Jesus killed?” Mark seems so be saying something to the effect of “It’s the economy, stupid.” 

Jesus was not anti-temple, per se, but he was introducing, imagining, urging an alternative economy.  A way of exchanging gifts and graces with one another in a way that builds us all up, in a way that glorifies the God of the poor, the God of all nations, the God who rescues and delivers us from our debts. 

In place of the massive space filled with the system of temple economy, Jesus offers an almost laughable alternative around which to form a community.  Laughable because it pales in comparison to the sheer scale of our economic apparatus that we’re still barely able to understand.  Laughable because it is so decentralized, so localized, so simple, that it is hard to fathom how it can have the power to transform us.  But it does.  It seizes us, haults us in our path, and converts us to its ways.  

The complexity of our economic lives gets boiled down to these edible symbols of life under the reign of donkey riding King Jesus.  The simplicity of the bread and the cup.  We can’t get much more basic than this.  Much more subsistence.  On the night that he was betrayed Jesus gathered together his closest followers, and he offered them a new covenant, a new center around which to orient their lives.  During the meal he took the bread, and he gave thanks and he broke it and he gave it to his disciples saying, Take this and eat, this is my body, which is given for you.  And in the same way after the meal, he took the cup, and he gave thanks, and he gave it to his disciples saying, take this and drink, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.  As often as you do this, do so in remembrance of me. 

This is a bread and cup based economy, where all are welcome at the table and where there is enough for everyone.  We never quite get what all it means for us.  What all it asks of us.  How these simple exchanges of bread and juice impact all of our other exchanges of time and money and goods and love and grace.  But we’re pretty sure that it gives us everything we need, even as it demands everything of us. 

When we share our offerings on Sunday mornings, we are participating in this economy.  When we use our resources in ways that support practices that improve the welfare of others and the planet, we are participating in this economy.  I know that Abbie and I felt like we were participating in the grace of this economy when a whole slew of you showed up to help us move a couple weeks ago. 

Here are the simple elements of God’s holy economy.  Bread and cup.  The body of Christ.  You and me, the body of Christ.  Blessed, broken, shared.

 

As you prepare to come up and receive these elements, hear this invitation from the words of Isaiah 55:

“Listen, everyone who thirsts, come; and you that have no money, come, buy, and eat!  Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to me; and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.  Incline your ear and come, listen so that you will live.  God will make with you an everlasting covenant, God’s steadfast, sure love.”