Religion Is A Queer Thing

[22] "Children of the Living God" [Pentecost +9]

2010-07-26T12:06:00.002-04:00

This is the text I preached off of. It was a draft, and I was tired, so what I actually preached had a lot more editorializing and extemporizing.

When I copied it from GoogleDocs into Word to print out for preaching, it erased the indenting I had put in to indicate notes I probably wouldn't use, so I ended up including some stuff I hadn't initially meant to. I've put those sections in small font and also edited them a bit to better reflect what I actually said (though for the most part I've left the text as-is, not editing it to be a verbatim of what I said aloud).

The Scripture texts (a mix of The Inclusive Bible and the NRSV) are at the bottom.

***

Proper 12C / Ordinary 17C / Pentecost +9 - July 25, 2010

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-19
Luke 11:1-13

Children of the Living God

I did not realize, when I agreed to preach this Sunday, that the lectionary would be in Hosea at this point. I am stubborn in my desire to preach on all 4 lectionary texts, though. And I appreciate the way this passage ends:

"Yet the people of Israel will be as numerous as the sands of the seashore that can neither be measured nor counted. And one day, instead of it being said of them, 'You are not my people,' it will be said, 'You are the children of the living God.'"

Even in the stories of judgment, there is a promise of redemption.

This promise of redemption and provision is the theme of all of today's Scripture lessons.

The Psalm opens with a recollection of God's gracious favor -- and I don't mean "gracious" in the condescending sense of patronizing politeness; I mean full of grace. "The freely given, unmerited favor and love of God." God, you were favorable to your land and to your people, restoring their fortunes, forgiving their iniquity and pardoning their sin, withdrawing your wrath.

So where is that grace now?, the Psalmist begs. "Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?" How long, O God, how long?

God, your love for us is steadfast. Grant us, we beg, salvation.

And Paul reminds us that we HAVE salvation.

The law that bound us, all of our sins and transgressions, these have been crucified. And unlike Christ, they are NOT resurrected. Their power over us is dead.

We share in the hope of the Psalmist. For Jesus promises us, just as you would provide food for your child, or a friend who stopped by unexpectedly, or a neighbor who is banging on your door, so much more will the Mother-Father who loves us beyond comprehension give us good gifts to nurture and sustain us.

The Lukan version of the "Our Father" is strikingly brief, at least to me who has grown up with the version complete with doxology.

I make no secret of the fact that I really don't like The Message version of the Bible, but I do kind of like some of how it articulates this prayer.

Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.

This simplifies the prayer in a way that I think gets lost in the lengthier version I grew up with.

We call God by name -- a name that puts us in intimate comforting nurturing relationship with God. For some people that is "Father," or "Mother," or "Abba," or one of many other names. Jesus' purpose here isn't to give us the One True Name of God (the Jews who were listening to this already knew that name -- it was the Tetragrammaton) but to remind us of the kind of relationship with have with this God, to name that relationship. This name is just as holy as any of the others. The immanent God who is with us in the sticky, bloody, sweaty, muddy, weepy, mess of being human is just as holy as the transcendent God we contemplate in the ivory tower after a good night's sleep in the air-conditioning, when maybe we are comfortable enough to take our bodies for granted, comfortable enough to slip into that sin of forgetting that God created us as embodied beings and called that incarnation Good.

We call upon the God who birthed us and blessed us -- we call upon that same Spirit which moved over the waters at Creation and which moves in us now, keeping our heart beating even when we are deep asleep and not conscious of anything, even when we are so overwhelmed with all the stressors of life that the last thing we can remember to do is breathe. And we recognize this creative, embodying, power as good.

We ask for sustenance for our bodies -- just for today, just enough to sustain us for today, trusting that tomorrow carries enough of its own worry, asking for all that we need to make it through the day, trusting that God will provide.

And just as we acknowledge the needs of our bodies, so we acknowledge the needs of our souls. Earlier in the prayer we asked that God's kindom come -- that God's New Heaven and New Earth break in to our reality, radically transforming this broken world into a commonwealth of shalom, of peace and wholeness. At this moment in the prayer, we acknowledge our role as co-creators of this shalom. Like all Jews, we are called to tikkun olam -- the repair of the world. If we are to live in a world characterized by radical grace and forgiveness -- and who doesn't? I for one have much I need to be forgiven for -- then we need to forgive others as well. This is usually framed as a conditional -- "forgive us as we forgive others" -- which troubles me, because I need far more expansive forgiveness from God than I am capable of offering others ... and it doesn't square with my understanding of a God of grace for me to languish unforgiven until I've grown in spiritual maturity sufficient to be able to forgive others. The Inclusive Bible says, "forgive us, for we too forgive those who have sinned against us" -- forgive us because we forgive others; forgiving others is something even we flawed human beings can do, so certainly God should be able to do it. There's a long Jewish tradition of reminding God, "Hey, you're really righteous -- this threat you're making doesn't square with that -- wanna rethink the threat?" Here we remind God of Her obligation to forgive us -- and we also remind ourselves of our own obligation to forgive others. We are called to be the Body of Christ in the world, and if the heart of Christianity is radical grace and forgiveness, then we are called to forgive others as God would.

I like the way The Inclusive Bible rewrites the traditional, "Ask, and you shall receive," in the latter portion of Jesus' speech. Traditionally, it feels rather like magic words -- ask for anything and God will give it to you ("Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?"). And if God doesn't give it to you, it's because you don't have enough faith or whatever. But here, Jesus encourages persistence. I was initially somewhat uncomfortable with the story -- your neighbor (God) may not give what you need just because you're friends, but if you pester enough you'll wear her down. Though, okay, the Complementary reading today (we're in the Semi-Continuous) is Abraham bargaining with God -- moving God from, "I'm going to destroy this entire city," to, "Okay, if there are even ten righteous people in the entire city I'll spare the whole city."

But here, Jesus says, "Keep asking and you'll receive; keep looking and you'll find; keep knocking and the door will be opened to you." This is less about beating your head against the same door over and over again, and more about a spirit of persistence. The seemingly obvious places we look first may not provide us with what we seek, but God will provide. We may have to look in unexpected places, but we will find what we need.

The Psalmist describes in detail what the kindom promise looks like:

¹⁰Love and faithfulness have met;
justice and peace have embraced.
¹¹Fidelity will sprout from the earth
and justice will lean down from heaven.
¹²HaShem will give us what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
¹³Justice will march before you, HaShem,
and peace will prepare the way for your steps.

"Justice will march before God, and peace will prepare the way for God's steps."

We are called to prepare the way for God.

The NRSV says, "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet. Righteousness and peace will kiss each other. God will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase." Righteousness will go before God, making a path for God, leading God to us -- and us to God.

But while we are co-creators, we are reminded that we are not solely responsible for this. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead of us -- building God's kindom of Shalom? Possibly above my paygrade.

Here I think Paul is useful.

Paul is responding to a situation in a church where new leaders have come in and set up all sorts of rules about how we are to be "good enough." Paul says, No, you have all you need in Christ.

Paul talks a lot about circumcision -- in his Jewish lawyer way. I'm going to talk about baptism.

In our baptism, we were buried with Christ. The first sermon I preached was on baptism -- on Jesus' baptism specifically -- and I talked about repentance, about turning away from our old life and turning toward God, about starting over. But Paul is much starker here. We die to who we were.

All that separated you from the love of God has been nailed to the Cross -- it is dead and has no power over you.

But we, we have been resurrected with Christ. And NOTHING can separate you from the love of God in Christ.

The fullness of Deity dwells bodily in Christ, and we have come to fullness in Christ.

So we are called to grow in Christ. Do not let anyone say that you are not worthy. All you are called to do is to grow, nourished by the lifeforce of the universe.

The NRSV phrases the end of Hosea as: In the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God."

"In the place where it was said of them..."

The places that have rejected you, that have said you are not worthy, that have said you do not belong... they will be transformed by the radical lifechanging grace of Jesus Christ.

We are empowered to help in that transformational process, and we are also blessed with communities that meet us right where we are, that love us for who we are and who we are becoming.

The good news is that we have communities that will provide for us.

The challenge is that we are called to BE that community.

My best friend's pastor once said that "church is not the place we pretend to be well."

We bring our whole selves, and together we are the wounded, resurrected Body of Christ. We show each other our wounds, and we remind each other of God's resurrecting power and grace.

Amen.

Hosea 1:2-10

      ²When HaShem first spoke to Hosea, HaShem said, "Go! Marry a prostitute and beget children of prostitution! For the land is guilty of the most hideous kind of prostitution by forsaking her God."
      ³So Hosea married Gomer bat-Diblaim, who conceived and bore a son. ⁴Then God said to Hosea, "Name him Jezreel, for soon I will take my revenge on the house of Jeru for the slaughter at Jezreel, and I will destroy the dominion of Israel. ⁵On that day, I will smash Israel's bow in the valley of Jezreel."
      ⁶Then Gomer conceived again and bore a daughter. God said to Hosea, "Name her Lo-ruhamah--'No Compassion'--for I will no longer hold dear the house of Israel, nor will I forgive them. ⁷But I will hold dear the house of Judah and will rescue them--not by the bow or by the sword or by battle or by horses or riders, but by HaShem their God."
      ⁸Once Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived again, and bore another son. ⁹God said:
      "Name him La-ammi--'Not my People'--for you are not my people and I will not be your God.
      ¹⁰"Yet the people of Israel will be as numerous as the sands of the seashore that can neither be measured nor counted. And one day, instead of it being said of them, 'You are not my people,' it will be said, 'You are the children of the living God.'"

Psalm 85

¹HaShem, you were favorable to your land;
you restored the fortunes of Israel.
²You forgave the iniquity of your people;
You pardoned all their sin.
³You withdrew all your wrath;
you turned from your hot anger.
⁴Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
and put away your indignation toward us.
⁵Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
⁶Will you not revive us again,
so that your people may rejoice in you?
⁷Show us your steadfast love, HaShem,
and grant us your salvation.

⁸Let me hear what you have to say, HaShem--
for you will speak peace to your people,
to those who turn to you in their hearts.
⁹Your salvation is near for those who revere you
and your glory will dwell in our land.
¹⁰Love and faithfulness have met;
justice and peace have embraced.
¹¹Fidelity will sprout from the earth
and justice will lean down from heaven.
¹²HaShem will give us what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
¹³Justice will march before you, HaShem,
and peace will prepare the way for your steps.

Colossians 2:6-19

      ⁶Since you have received Christ Jesus, live your whole life in our Savior. ⁷Send your roots deep and grow strong in Christ--firmly established in the faith you've been taught, and full of thanksgiving. ⁸Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, and deceptive philosophy that is based on principles of the world instead of Christ.
      ⁹In Christ the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form, ¹⁰and in Christ you find your own fulfillment--in the One who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power. ¹¹In Christ you have been given the Covenant through a transformation performed not by human hands, but by the complete cutting off of your body of flesh. This is what "circumcision" in Christ means. ¹²In baptism you were not only buried with Christ but also raised to life, because you believed in the power of God who raised Christ from the dead. ¹³And though you were dead in sin and did not have the Covenant, God gave you new life in company with Christ, pardoning all our sins. ¹⁴God has canceled the massive debt that stood against us with all its hostile claims, taking it out of the way and nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵In this way, God disarmed the Principalities and the Powers and made a public display of them after having triumphed over them at the Cross.
      ¹⁶From now on, don't let anyone pass judgment on you because of what you eat or drink, or whether you observe festivals, new moons or Sabbaths. ¹⁷These are mere shadows of the reality that is to come; the substance is Christ. ¹⁸Don't let those who worship angels and enjoy self-abasement judge you. These people go into great detail about their visions, and their worldly minds keep puffing up their already inflated egos. ¹⁹These people are cut off from the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

Luke 11:1-13

¹After Jesus had finished praying one day, one of the disciples asked, "Rabbi, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."
      ²Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say,

'Mommy-Daddy God,
hallowed be your Name!
May your reign come.
³Give us each day
our daily bread.
⁴Forgive us our sins
for we too forgive everyone who sins against us;
and don't let us be subjected to the Test.'"

      ⁵Jesus said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, a neighbor, and you go to your neighbor at midnight and say, 'Lend me three loaves of bread, ⁶because friends of mine on a journey have come to me, and I have nothing to set before them.'
      ⁷"Then your neighbor says, 'Leave me alone. The door is already locked and the children and I are in bed. I can't get up to look after your needs.' ⁸I tell you, though your neighbor will not get up to give you the bread out of friendship, your persistence will make your neighbor get up and give you as much as you need.
      ⁹"That's why I tell you, keep asking and you'll receive; keep looking and you'll find; keep knocking and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰For whoever asks, receives; whoever seeks, finds; whoever knocks, is admitted. ¹¹What parents among you will give a snake to their child when the child asks for a fish, ¹²or a scorpion when the child asks for an egg? ¹³If you, with all your sins, know how to give your children good things, how much more will our heavenly Parent give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?"

[Easter 4C] Shepherding Community

2010-04-27T09:02:00.002-04:00

[This is the text I preached off of -- though definitely not the verbatim text that actually came out of my mouth; for that, click the mp3 link at the bottom if you want. The Scriptures were all an adaptation of the NRSV and The Inclusive Bible -- with Annie playing Marty Haugen's "Shepherd Me, O God" for Psalm 23 -- and are at the bottom, just before the audiolink.]

Easter 4C - April 25, 2010

Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30

Shepherding Community

Will you pray with me?

Jesus, three times you said to Simon Peter, the rock on whom you built your Church: "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be filled with love for you and for each other, may they be food that will nourish and sustain us. Amen.

I promise not to rehash Sean's sermon from last week; I just love that particular bit of lectionary.

I'm not actually going to talk about sheep at all. When I first read today's lectionary, they seemed the obvious connecting thread -- except for the Acts passage -- and I think maybe my literature major self got stuck there. My friend Sophia, in contrast, after I'd told her about my lack of inspiration, read through the assigned lectionary texts and said: "I feel like there's something there, but it's sort of scattered and hard to get at beyond the obvious bent of the lectionary towards 'Jesus shows She is God by healing people, restoring them to community, and freeing them from fear and sorrow, and then bestowing on Her followers the ability to do the same.' "

I kinda just wanna leave it at that and sit down now 'cause that preaches all on its own, but that's a bit of a cheat. So let's dig into this idea a bit more.

Jesus restores people to community and empowers Her disciples to do the same. Okay, that's not exactly what Sophia said, but it's equally true.

At Lenten morning prayer this year at First Church Somerville, UCC, we read through most of the Gospel of Mark, and so when I read, "Tabitha, get up," in today's reading from the Book of Acts, my first thought was of Jesus saying, "Talitha, cum" -- "little girl, get up" (Mark 5:41).

That story is actually strikingly similar to the Acts story we read today. In Mark we read, in part:

They came to Jairus' house and Jesus noticed all the commotion, with people weeping and wailing unrestrainedly. Jesus went in and said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." At this, they began to ridicule Jesus, and Jesus told everyone to leave. Jesus took the child's mother and father and those who had come with Jesus and put them outside and entered the room where the child lay. Taking her hand, Jesus said to her, "Talitha, koum!" which means, "Little girl, get up!" Immediately the girl, who was twelve years old, got up and began to walk about. At this they were overcome with amazement. Jesus strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. (Mark 5:38-43)

Both times, those who loved the deceased woman are weeping and mourning, and someone begs a healer to come, and having arrived, the healer sends everyone else away and invites the deceased to rise -- as if she had only been sleeping. The healing occurs one-on-one, in private. But after the person is restored to life, the rest of the community re-encounters her. Being restored to life means also being restored to community.

Tabitha, or Dorcas, is identified as a disciple, and my HarperCollins NRSV Study Bible says that this is the only time in the entire New Testament that the female word for "disciple" is used. That's kind of a big deal.

But restoration to community doesn't only happen to "good" people.

The Acts passage last week was the story of Saul's conversion. In persecuting those perceived to be heretics, Saul was serving God the best way Saul knew how. But God appears to Saul in a vision of the Risen Christ and says, "You're persecuting ME."

Christ doesn't just convert Saul on the spot, though. Christ incapacitates Saul and then sends the disciple Ananias to heal Saul.

Ananias, knowing Saul's history of persecuting followers of the Christ, says, "Are you kidding me? This person has authority to KILL us and you want me to not only bring myself before this person but also to bring this person back to full capacity?"

And Christ says to Ananias, "Go anyway. Saul is the instrument I have chosen to bring my Name to Gentiles, to rulers, and to the people of Israel" (The Inclusive Bible).

The resurrection of Tabitha comes in between the story of Saul -- who after his conversion will continue to declare his strong Jewish credentials in many of his letters -- and the story of Peter's vision of clean and unclean food -- the beginning of Peter's ministry to the Gentiles.

Joppa is one of the oldest port cities in the world -- now known as Jaffa, in Tel Aviv.

Port cities are liminal places, right?

Tabitha is singled out both in the Book of Acts and in the lectionary as someone whose discipleship is particularly remarkable. So in some ways we could see her as an "insider" in the early Christian movement.

But she's also identified with both an Aramaic and a Greek name. My friend Sophia wondered whether she was mixed-race, or mixed-identity in some other way. What liminal spaces does she occupy, living here on the edge of the land, known by two different names? Sophia suggested, "There are lots of ways for her to have trouble communicating her whole self to the people around her."

In my reflection the first week of Easter, I reminded us that resurrection changes things -- the risen Christ is not the same as the human Jesus who was crucified. Coming out is also a resurrection idea. We emerge from the oppressive darkness that has kept us from full life and we are transfigured, able to be transparent to the ground of our being, to shine with the light of divine love.

I don't think that any of us are empowered to literally bring people back from the dead, but we are empowered to help people communicate their whole selves to those around them.

In our Welcome here at Cambridge Welcoming Ministries, we often say: "You are welcome here not 'in spite of' who you are, but because of who you are." We invite you to bring your whole self, and hopefully the practice of doing that every week here strengthens us to do that out in the world the other six and a half days a week -- to be honest about our whole selves and to be open to the whole selves of other children of God, including the parts we maybe don't personally like so much in ourselves and in each other, to create a safe space where people can BE their whole selves.

A pastor recently commented to me that being present with people is the essence of pastoral care. Reflecting on that later, I thought about how being present with people in a truly genuine and loving way enables them to be their authentic selves, to live into the fullness of who God created them to be.

And so in these resurrection stories, the healer is genuinely attentively present with the other person, and is empowered to restore them to individual life and to community life, and I think implicitly to a life that is richer and fuller than the one they had before.

In today's Acts passage, we hear that because of Peter's action, many came to believe in Jesus Christ.

They didn't come to believe in Peter -- who was the one who actually showed up in the flesh and raised this woman from the dead. They came to believe in Jesus Christ. They saw the power that Peter had, the power to restore to abundant life, and they gave their hearts to the Source of that power and love. For "credo," which we translate "believe," doesn't mean an intellectual assent to a set of propositions but rather to give one's heart to.

The Mark story I recalled for us earlier contains one of many instances of Mark's Messianic Secret -- Jesus saying, "Don't tell anyone about this." There are a lot of possible explanations for Mark's Messianic Secret, and one of them is that Jesus wanted the focus to be on the good work that was being done, not on the particular human being who was doing it.

In some ways, I think today's John reading echoes the Messianic Secret. People keep hounding Jesus to proclaim, "I am the Messiah," and Jesus says, "You don't get it, do you? You seek declarations in words, but my deeds testify to who I am. It's not about the titles bestowed on me, but about what I do."

Throughout Eastertide we read excerpts from the Acts of the Apostles. Not the "statements of belief" of the apostles. Not the "codified doctrine" of the apostles. But the Acts of the apostles.

In the book Loving Jesus, Mark Allan Powell proposes that "The mission of the church is to love Jesus Christ; everything else is just strategy" (178). And last week's lectionary reminds us that we do this by feeding each other.

A commentary I once heard on the 23rd Psalm that really stuck with me was on the ambiguity of "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." That the intuitive interpretation is that you get to have a table prepared for you while your enemies look on, displeased at your good fortune, with an implication that your enemies are not partaking of this bounty -- because they're the defeated foe. But what if you were all at table TOGETHER?

This table here, this Communion table, is open to ALL.

That table over there, those tables we will bring out for dinner after our worship service is over, those tables are open to ALL.

There's a quotation I'm always attributing to Corrie ten Boom, but the Internet informs me that the correct attribution is Joanna Macy, a Ph.D. in comparative religion. The quotation is, "The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." Apparently the source is a meditation exercise she developed to help people respond to the world's pain. Describing an exercise called "Breathing Through," she writes, "If you experience an ache in the chest, a pressure within the rib case, that is all right. The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. Your heart is that large. Trust it. Keep breathing."

Have you ever had that feeling that you feel like your heart is so full -- be it with sorrow or with joy -- that it's going to break your very chest open?

I wonder if that's what God feels like all the time.

God so loved the world that God Incarnated to be with us more fully, and the Incarnate God suffered as humans suffered, even unto death, and conquered death so that we might all partake of the abundant life that God has always desired for us. This is the joyous mystery we celebrate every Easter, every Sunday, and every day. And part of this mystery is that we are empowered to continue Christ's work -- to conquer the forces of death and bring people, ourselves included, into life abundant.

Today's Revelation passage originally says, "washed in the blood of the Lamb," which I suspect you already knew. One of the things that this church, with its discomfort with blood atonement theology, has taught me is to swap out "love" for "blood" in, for example, hymns. You might be surprised at how little this changes the meaning. For God, in the incarnate person of Jesus the Christ and always, pours out abundant love for us.

And Divine Love is sufficient to make anything new -- to make clean and fresh that which has been stained by suffering and pain.

And there is a way in which divine love is poured out like blood shed, because God suffers with us. When we are wounded, God is wounded, too. This reminder both comforts us when we feel alone and also reminds us not to hurt others, for they are beloved children of God just as we are.

Carolyn reminded me that this is Earth Sunday. We are reminded in today's lectionary readings that God's kindom includes green pastures and still waters. God's kindom is a place where no one will suffer scorching heat but will be led to springs of the water life. God's kindom is a place where no one will hunger or thirst.

We're called to bring about that kindom here on Earth. We are called to prepare tables of abundant welcome. We are called to protect all inhabitants of the planet from heat that scorches and kills. And we are called to do all this in love.

And so I send you forth, assured in the love that God has for you, and challenged to share that love with all.

Amen.

Acts 9:36-43

³⁶Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. ³⁷At that time she became ill and died. They washed her body and laid her in an upstairs room. ³⁸Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two messengers to Peter with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” ³⁹So Peter got up and went with them, and upon arriving was taken to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside Peter, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. ⁴⁰Peter put all of them outside, and then knelt down and prayed. Peter turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. ⁴¹Peter gave her a hand and helped her up. Then calling in all the saints -- including the widows -- Peter showed her to be alive. ⁴²This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in Jesus Christ. ⁴³Meanwhile, Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Revelation 7:9-17

⁹After this I looked, and there was a great multitude beyond number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” ¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

¹³Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”

¹⁴I said to the elder, “You are the one that knows.”

Then the elder said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the love of the Lamb. ¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship day and night within the temple, and the One who is seated on the throne will shelter them. ¹⁶They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; ¹⁷for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

John 10:22-30

²²At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³and Jesus was walking in the Temple area, in the portico of Solomon. ²⁴The Temple authorities gathered around Jesus and said, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

²⁵Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Parent’s name testify to me; ²⁶but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. ²⁷My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹What my Parent has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Parent’s hand. ³⁰The Parent and I are one.”

audiofile (21.4MB, 15:34min)

Baptism of Jesus (C) - January 10, 2010

2010-01-10T21:04:00.004-05:00

Baptism of Jesus (C) - January 10, 2010

Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Will you pray with me?

Creating, Sustaining, Redeeming God, I invite your Holy Spirit to move in this place, that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts may bring us into your Light, O God.

Amen.

The day after Thanksgiving, just a few days after I'd agreed to preach this Sunday, I was at a dinner party, and one Jewish woman asked, "Why did Jesus need to get baptized? Wasn't he, like, The Man?"

"Therein lies a tale," said one of the other Christians in the room.

Which tale we are told in the Gospel of Matthew:

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. ¹⁴But John tried to deter Jesus, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

¹⁵Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. (Matthew 3:13-15)

Okay, so it still doesn't really answer the question.

My NRSV says, "Righteousness, right conduct in accord with God's will as revealed in scripture."

So I still don't know why Jesus was supposed to be baptized.

John Howard Yoder says: Before Paul and the new humanity, even before Jesus, baptism also meant repentance and cleansing. It meant "You can leave your past behind." (Body Politics, page 41)

This is a useful formulation for me -- the idea of baptism as marking a new start.

In their book The First Christmas, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan posit that it is not that some of the Gospels are missing some of the years of Jesus' early life but that "all the years are missing until the story of Jesus begins---as it does in all four gospels---with John's baptism of Jesus" (40). They posit the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke as overtures to the story of Jesus' adult life and ministry, as parables rather than historical accounts. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the birth narratives here, I merely mention it to provide the appropriate context for that line that so strikes me -- "the story of Jesus begins---as it does in all four gospels---with John's baptism of Jesus."

The birth narratives have marked Jesus as special in various ways, but here Jesus is publicly marked out.

“You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

You know this baptismal liturgy from the many times Tiffany has told this story -- "You are a bright, brilliant, beloved Child of God. And you are beautiful to behold."

Jesus is named and claimed by God, undeservedly. This is a moment of grace -- not something we earn.

God says to Jesus, "with you I am well pleased," but there's no indication that Jesus has done anything particularly to merit this. Luke tells the story of young Jesus in the Temple, but other than that Jesus hasn't done anything to earn this distinction.

Something I read recently commented on the fact that Jesus is marked as Chosen before the temptation in the wilderness. While we might expect someone to not be publicly named as Chosen until after a period of testing, God makes a commitment here -- at the beginning of the story in some of the Gospels, certainly at the beginning of Jesus' adult life as recorded in the Gospels.

The Isaiah passage we read echoes this -- God says, "I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you" (Isaiah 43:1-2). The hearer is named as redeemed, with no indication of merit or even a reason.

This reading opens Chapter 43 of Isaiah. The preceding chapter, Chapter 42, closes with, "Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not God, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? So God poured upon them the heat of God's anger and the fury of war; it set them on fire all around, but they did not understand; it burned them, but they did not take it to heart."

The people Israel have turned against God, and God has punished them, and they still haven't gotten the message.

"But now thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear."

We remember that exhortation "Do not fear" from the Christmas story, right? "Do not be afraid. For I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be for all the people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior."

"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive and bear a child, whom you will name Jesus. This child will be great and will be called the Child of the Most High."

"Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear a child and you will name the child John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at this birth."

When God speaks to you, it usually means your life is going to get turned upside down -- so opening with "Do not be afraid" makes a lot of sense (though Mary at least got a "Hello").

No one cautions Jesus not to be afraid.

I think because Jesus chose this. Divine messengers and messages are usually reported as coming to people who aren't particularly seeking them, but Jesus is stepping into this baptism with full knowledge of the sort of path that lies ahead.

This is Jesus' coming out.

John has been proclaiming and enacting a baptism of repentance -- calling people to return to God, to begin a new chapter in their lives, preparing the way for the coming of One who will begin a new chapter in the life of the world. So when Jesus shows up and asks to be baptized, John says, "What do you have to repent of? You are the Holy One, the Child of God. You should be baptizing me, so that I may follow you."

But Jesus recognizes the necessity of this baptism. We don't know what stories Mary and Joseph told their firstborn about the angels, the shepherds, the magi, Simeon and Anna at Jesus' presentation at the Temple -- even what stories were told about Mary's visit to pregnant Elizabeth, or any of the other stories Jesus and John might have grown up hearing about themselves and each other. But in whatever way, Jesus has spent three decades preparing for this moment.

In Acts we read that Peter and John went to Samaria and prayed for the people there that they might receive the Holy Spirit "for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of Jesus." I've come to be a big proponent of believer's baptism (rather than infant baptism), but at the same time I'm not fond of the privileging of the moment of personal conversion (accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior), so I really like this idea that yes, these people had accepted the word of God, had been baptized in the name of Jesus, but their journey was not complete -- God was still working on them.

Whatever commitment we make before God and others, it is not the end of the journey.

John even tells those gathered at the Jordan: "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming [...] who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

Our baptism in water is an outward marker of our commitment to begin a new chapter in our lives, but it is our baptism with the Holy Spirit that sustains us throughout that journey.

After Jesus is baptized, "the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove." I have this image of a six-foot-tall dove descending and enveloping Jesus is an embrace.

And indeed, we are beloved both spiritually and physically.

The Incarnation reminds us that we most fully encounter God in humanity, and the physical act of baptism reminds us that we are an embodied people.

So I invite you, as you move throughout this week, to remember your belovedness, to be attentive to the movements of the Holy Spirit, and to to live each moment as if you are a new creation in Christ -- because you are.

Amen.

Imagining Mary

2009-12-23T09:22:00.003-05:00

Life is not always what you expect. Sometimes the most extraordinary of things happens in the midst of life’s ordinary moments. One minute you know exactly what’s supposed to happen and the next, well, the next you find the entire world seems to have turned upside down. At least that’s how it has been for me these past few months.

I was engaged to be married a year ago on my thirteenth birthday. It came as no surprise. I knew what was expected. Don’t we all know what is expected of us, after all?

I had watched one by one as my sisters were married off, sent to live with the new families. I watched as they each grew round with new life and gave birth, time and again. I visited them in their homes, brought news of mother and father and offered them a moment of rest by tending to their children or preparing the meal. I always loved visiting them, but things were different between us. The games of childhood were replaced for the daily tasks of life. Maintaining a household was not easy. Often as I sat in the homes of my sisters, I wondered which was harder, raising the children or taking care of the husband! Both seemed impossible! Mother laughed when I told her this, shaking her head she said, “Oh Mary, just wait till you get married.”

I knew the day would come, but I wished it hadn’t come so quickly. I wasn’t ready to leave my family…not yet and I surely wasn’t ready to care for a husband or a brood of children. I didn’t even know Joseph and yet in a year or two after the betrothal time was complete I was supposed to simply leave with him?

It didn’t seem fair. Not fair at all. How come he got to choose who he wanted to marry but I didn’t? How come he got to come and go as he pleased but I had to stay in the house? How come I was the one who had to be responsible for everything…for the house, for the children he expected me to bear, even for him? I knew this was what was expected. I had watched as my sisters married, leaving their childhood for the life of an adult, but I tell you, I was not ready for such a life. Not yet. I felt overwhelmed and utterly powerless. No one needed my consent. They just married me off whether I liked it or. But then again, what more could I expect? This was my place in the world.

I always secretly hoped there was more in life for me than just getting married. I wanted to travel, to see different places, visit new people. I wanted to learn more, do more, see more. When I was young I followed our rabbis around the village, following their shadows, listening to their every word. Before I knew better I told my mother I wanted to be a rabbi too. I wanted to learn to read the scrolls and tell the stories. I wanted to go inside the temple and pray for the people. My mother laughed and said that work was not for me. I was a girl.

But then again, what more could I expect? I am a girl after all…soon to be a woman, I suppose. This is the way life is. What more is there for me in life than to marry, bear children and be a faithful, obedient wife? I just needed to resign myself to my place in the world.

Shortly after my betrothal I was sewing in the courtyard. The day was nearly ended and I was hurrying to finish before evening fell and light left the landscape. Suddenly, there appeared before me a vision of light, dazzling and shimmering, like nothing I had ever seen before. The sun was setting but this light was brilliant. From the center of the light a form appeared. I pinched myself several times to make sure I was awake, truly awake. I looked around for others to confirm what I was seeing, but my family was no where to be found.

Fear swept over me. What was this? Who was this? Before I could move or cry out, a voice sounded from the figure of light. “Greetings, favored one! God is with you!”

I stared still unable to move. Favored one? Who were they speaking to? My father and brothers were still out working. Surely, this figure could not be speaking to me? A child? A girl? What did this figure have to do with me?

Before I could respond, the pillar of light spoke again. The voice was calm and soothing. Like my grandmother’s voice, it comforted me.

“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

What had I done? I could not recall. I tried desperately to remember anything I might have done to please God…but all I could think of were my recent complaints and doubts and fears about getting married. What had I possibly done to find favor with God?

Again, the voice spoke, “And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a child and you will call him Jesus. Your child will be great and will be called the Child of the Most High and God will raise the infant to the throne of David to reign over the house of Israel for ever and ever.”

Without thinking I spoke back. Impudent perhaps, but I could not control myself. This didn’t make sense. Messenger of light or not, this seemed completely impossible.

“How can this be? I am still a child, betrothed but not yet married. I can’t yet have a child.”

I don’t know what possessed me but here I was talking back to what appeared to be a divine messenger from God. Looking back I can’t believe I was that bold. But it just didn’t make sense. This was not what I expected.

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy and will be the Child of God. Look, now your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a child and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. Mary, nothing, nothing is impossible with God.”

I sat there stunned. I didn’t understand. None of this was to be expected.

Old Elizabeth? Pregnant? How could that be? Me? Bear the Child of God?

I sat there staring at the light. None of this made sense. Not at all. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. But what could I say? My mind was racing trying to figure it all out, trying to make sense of the impossible.

And then, suddenly, my mind quieted. Peace passed into me beyond my wildest imagination and something from within told me to say yes. I don’t know why I imagined God needed my permission, after all God was God. But something told me, the decision was up to me. Before now nothing had been up to me. I had no power as a child, a girl, and now even as a betrothed woman. I had no power in the world, but here in this courtyard, in this moment, something told me to expect the unexpected. Something from within prompted me to say yes, for without my permission, without my consent, this holy divine plan could go no further.

And then, I heard myself calmly proclaim, “Here am I, the servant of God; let it be with me according to your word.”

It was as if the voices of the prophets and ancestors of old that I had heard proclaimed so many times before rose up from within and answered.

And then, as suddenly as the figure of light appeared, it disappeared and I found myself alone once again in the courtyard of my family home.

What was I supposed to do now? The angel had told me what was going to happen, but not how? I knew it was true. I felt it was true. But how was I going to break the news to my family? Or to Joseph for that matter? It was up to me to figure out what I had to do. A story of a divine visitation was not an easy one to believe…especially from a young, poor girl as myself. What would people think of me growing fat with child before the end of my betrothal? No one would believe me.

Suddenly the assurance I felt in the presence of the angel disappeared and fear rose up inside of me again. This was not the way things were supposed to happen. I knew what happened to women who had children out of wedlock. This was serious. Joseph would surely leave me. He could never bear the scandal. And my family? My God, what would my father say? I would probably be kicked out of my house too? What would become of me? A single mother is never welcomed…not anywhere. Suddenly horrible images sprang up in my mind. I would have to beg or worse…Panic began to set in.

This was not the way things were supposed to go. Not at all. No one would believe. No one…except perhaps, Elizabeth. The angel said she too was miraculously pregnant. Perhaps she could help me.

Without explanation I ran and found my father in the fields. I begged him to let me go and visit our relative Elizabeth. “There is no need for me at home. Joseph will not come for me for some time. And news is, father, news is that Elizabeth is pregnant. Let me go to her.”

And miraculously he gave me permission.

I set out at dawn the next day, anxious to reach her, sure she would have an explanation. Part of me hoped that I would arrive and find that she was not pregnant, that this was all a figment of my imagination. If she was not pregnant, then perhaps I too was not pregnant.

I walked all day through the Judean countryside. My mind still raced, trying to make sense of what was happening. This was not how things were expected to go. There was no way I could be the bearer of God’s child. Me? A poor, peasant girl? Divine things were left for powerful men…for Moses, adopted son of the Pharaoh, for David and Saul and Solomon, Kings of Israel and for the One to come, the savior, the messiah. People have been talking now of One who is to come and bring liberation for us. This One will break the oppressive rule of the Romans and free our people once again. With fire and might, with violent rage and terrible recompense he will save. This is the bearer of the divine, not me, a small, weak, powerless young girl.

As I walked the words and stories I had heard for so many years began to come back to me. This time it was not just the stories of the men of God, but of the women I had forgotten. I remembered the song of Miriam…and the song of Hannah…I remembered Sarah’s miraculous pregnancy and Hagar’s courage in the desert. God called to these women and they sang God’s praises. God lifted up ordinary people, women even, and led them to do extraordinary things.

As I pondered all these things in my heart I suddenly saw the world in a new way. Come to think of it, God never has done what the world expected. In fact, throughout the ages God has surprised the people by turning the world upside down. When the world wars violently nation against nation, God proclaims peace. When the world oppresses the outcasts, God proclaims liberation. When the world shuns those at the margins, God proclaims welcome for all. When the world starves the poor, God fills them with abundance.

The world’s expectations are not God’s expectations. The vision God has given us throughout the ages has always been counter-cultural. God’s vision of the way the world ought to be defies our human expectations. Peace. Justice. Acceptance. Inclusion. Abundance. These are not what the world expects.

The more I pondered these things, the more certain I was that God had called me to this task because I could do it. Like Miriam, and Hannah, like Sarah and Hagar before me, I had been called from my ordinary life to do something extraordinary. God chose me to defy the world’s expectations and do a new thing.

When I arrived at Elizabeth’s house, I could feel myself almost bursting with assurance, filled with great joy that God would choose me to do something so extraordinary. As Elizabeth welcomed me, she suddenly grabbed at her swollen belly. As the child lept in her womb she hailed me with an extraordinary greeting…

“Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Suddenly all that I had been thinking on my way here was confirmed and the joy that had been building could no longer be contained. Like Miriam and Hannah before me, I broke into a song of praise for my God.

“My soul magnifies God and my Spirit rejoices in my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of me, God’s servant…” I found myself singing all the wondrous acts of our God that defy the world’s expectations… “Our God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; Our God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Our God has helped Israel according to the promise made to our ancestors to Abraham and to Sarah and their descendents forever and ever.”

The world’s expectations do not have to define or control us, for God has shown us more. What more can we expect? So much more.

God takes the poor, the powerless the oppressed and raises them up. Hasn’t this always been the message of our faith? Sometimes we forget under the weight of life’s expectations, but the message is still there waiting to be discovered and re-discovered over the ages. God has done wonderful things and continues to in every age. What more can we expect? So much more. For God promises a time when peace will usher forth, justice roll down like waters, and love will reign supreme.

The way things are, the way things are expected to be, doesn’t have to be. God has given us an alternative vision for the world, one that we can make happen if we just believe, if we just say yes, if we just give ourselves to the divine way of peace and justice. God can’t do it without us. We must say yes. We must concede. We must be the bearers of the Divine in the world. Not just me, but all of us. For each of us has a part to play in the unexpected good news of a God who turns the world’s expectations upside down. After all, all things are possible with our God.

And so, now these many months later, I am returning home. Joseph sent word that we are to travel to Bethlehem this week for the state census. This is not what I expected, to travel these last months of my pregnancy. But then again, what has been expected in my life lately? What more can I expect? So much more.

* The images in this post come from: " The Annunciation" by John Collier; "The Annunciation" by Henry Ossawa Tanner; "The Annunciation" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Sculpture by Karen Schmidt, "Mary and Elizabeth."

Finding Joy in the Chaos

2009-12-23T09:09:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I made the mistake of once again attempting the wilds of the Christmas Tree Shop. I know. I know. I should have known better. But I was honestly hopeful that it would not be that bad. It will be a quick stop. I’ll just run in and run out. Ten minutes top.

Right.

Between the throngs of shoppers, the endless lines, and the ransacked shelves it was far from the quick stop I imagined it would be. Add a tired, hungry baby with a dirty diaper and you have the recipe for disaster. After winding my way through the aisles, arms full of all I could carry (since there were no more carts to be had), scouring and scavenging the shelves for the last few boxes of lights, and standing in line for well and over 15 minutes, all the while listening to the inane, overly jolly Christmas music, I was about to lose it. And so when I walked out in the cold brisk winter wind to the sound of the Salvation Army guy wishing me a “Merry Christmas,” it was all I could do not to turn around and yell at the poor man. I was up to my limits of holly jolly frivolity and could feel myself about to snap. Merry Christmas, please!

Since Halloween we have been bombarded by the world’s shallow expressions of Christmas joy. Just turn on your TV. You can’t escape it. The constant loop of commercials advertising the happiness to be found in Gap sweaters, Folger’s coffee, or Kaye’s. The perennial parade of Christmas classics offering saccharine sweet stories of joy and hope. The images of happy families gathered around the Christmas tree arm in arm. TV this time of year is like the Hallmark channel on steroids.

And, yet, despite the onslaught of so-called joy, there remains the news ticker ever present scrolling across the screens of our lives with word of rising unemployment, increasing rates of poverty, escalating violence in the world, mounting costs of health care, intensifying harm done to environment, growing sense of dis-ease.

Despite the world’s celebrations going on all around us we know that just below the surface is a cauldron of fear, anxiety, and doubt. Our own lives are marked by these common fears and uncertainties…whether it is the anxious anticipation of having to spend the holidays feigning family bliss or the deep-seated fear of spending the days alone, whether it is the strain of buying gifts for everyone or the anxiety of not having enough to buy any gifts. Whether it is the pain of loved ones lost or the sting of friends estranged…the superficial holiday cheer seems only to heighten our own anxieties and leave feeling less than jolly this time of year.

It is in this chaotic and difficult context that we hear the dissonant words of Paul this evening. “Rejoice! Rejoice in God always, again I say rejoice.”

This is one of those texts that appears frequently in the lectionary in both Advent and Ordinary time, yet it is a text nonetheless that I have never, ever preached. The simplicity of joy always seemed too, well, overly optimistic given the state of our lives and the world around us. As you know, I prefer to preach a prophecy of woe…the world is rough, but God loves you. Too much sunshine, lollipops and puppy dogs can ruin a good Christian, right?

And yet, the words of Paul remain. Rejoice in God always, again I say rejoice.

In order to engage this text this week, I had to get over all of my negative connotations of this text engraved on sappy Christian tchotskys and emblazoned on evangelical bumper stickers. I had to let go of the cheesy camp songs, and blithe advice doled out late at night by creepy televangelists and let the text speak for itself. Despite popular renditions of this verse as a Christian version of “don’t worry, be happy,” Paul has something much deeper in mind than a simple “letting go and letting God.” The joy about which Paul speaks is not devoid of pain. How could it be?

Paul is writing this letter to the Philippians from jail. Arrested for preaching the gospel and endangering the State, Paul writes in a dingy, crowded, dirty jail cell from which he may leave only to head to the executioner’s block. This is a person who understands the reality of pain and suffering in the world.

William Loader reminds us that:

“joy is never alone. Its companions are pain and fear. ..Paul's sense of joy is not the absence of pain or fear, but the presence of Christ, in whom Paul places his hope and trust. That unity [both] takes him into pain and death, and…leads him over and over again on a journey from death to life, from pain to joy. Sometimes Paul’s joy stays alight as a flickering flame amid an oppressive darkness of criticism and downright hate. But it remains and can flare into brightness at relief and change.”

You see, joy for Paul is not a simple emotion, but rather a committed attitude or orientation toward life. It is a fundamental way of seeing things, a new perspective that radically changes one’s experience of the world. In this way, it is not a negation or avoidance of struggle, but rather the very way in and through the pain and fear of life. Joy is not a mask to cover up the less pleasant times of life, but rather the underlying foundation of hope without which one cannot encounter life’s pain and survive. This type of deep joy is what keeps us sane, what buoys us up, what helps us get out of bed in the morning and enables us to simply put our feet on the floor despite the chaos of our lives.

And where, do we find such joy, such hope? What brings about such a radical reorientation in our lives? What force can effect such a change?

Huston Smith, renowned religious scholar, asserts that “The only power that can effect transformations of [that] order… is love.” Likening it to the immeasurable power contained in an atom, Smith writes,

“The 20th century discover[ed] that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, however, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too, locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine -- the imago dei, the image of God that is within us. And it too can be activated only through bombardment -- in its case, love’s bombardment.”

We know this as we see it happen in our own lives. Smith writes, “A loving human being is not produced by exhortations, rules and threats. Love takes root in children only when it comes to them.”

Watching children and their parents one gets a glimpse of the mutual way in which love arises. Parent and child, loved and loving, call forth the best in one another as they exchange glances, glimpses, caresses, nudges of tenderness, gentleness, kindness, and compassion. It is this love that brings forth the ground of joy that sees both parent and child through the inevitable rough times of life.

During those long nights of waking, during those unexpected crying jags where nothing will soothe him, it is the memory of the tender caresses and wide, sly smiles from Grady that sees me through. The gentle touch of his hand on my cheek, the warm embrace of his tiny arm wrapped tightly around my neck, the silly laughter echoing in my ear...all tie me back to the ground of love and my source of joy that sees me through the hard, long sleepless nights.

Think about your own experiences of love and the way in which they transformed your life…perhaps it was the glow of your first love that sent waves of ecstatic joy through you, that colored the world around you in ways that highlighted the joy and brilliance of the world in new and unimaginable ways. Or perhaps it is the memory of a loving parent, a compassionate friend, a kind stranger that for a moment transformed your world from hues of dull grey and shadows to brilliant rays of glorious light. It is the experience of being loved that elicits that deep, satisfying sense of joy.

And so it is also with God. It is the mutual love affair between human and divine which helps us access that joy of which Paul speaks. Whereas our human love, no matter how joyful or well-intended, always fails, God’s love never fails.

As wonderful as the love is that exists between me and Grady, I am all too well aware that one day, perhaps at age 13 or 15 or 17, the memory of those gentle touches and silly laughter may seem all too far away. And as much as I dread it, there will also come a day when despite my best efforts and intentions, the love I have for Grady will simply not be enough to satisfy his soul. Our human love, no matter how well intended, is always finite, limited and imperfect. And because of that there will come a time when both Grady and I will disappoint one another.
That is why we must connect to and remain grounded in the love of God. It is only that deep and abiding love that can evoke the joy to carry us through the pain and despair of life.

Imagine the power of connecting to that first, primal, unimaginable source of Love from the divine. How would our lives be transformed if we were certain that we were totally loved by the ultimate power in the universe? Huston Smith puts it this way,

“If we too felt loved -- not abstractly or in principle but vividly and personally -- by one who unites all power and all goodness, the experience could dissolve fear, guilt and self-concern dramatically. If, as Kierkegard noted, we were at every moment certain that nothing has happened or can ever happen that would separate us from the infinite love of the Infinite, that would be clearest reason there is for joy."

Paul understood that to remain in contact with such a real sense of God’s love, we needed to practice it among one another and so, the passage in Philippians ends with concrete instructions for cultivating that sense of love through community.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

The joy and peace of God come most fully through the practice and cultivation of love…through gentleness, mercy, honor, truth and compassion. William Loader reminds us, “Paul is not just advocating the power of positive thinking. These concrete instructions to the community of faith are about filling one's mind with what Paul sees as the signs of God's life - not so that will feel good, but because this is another way of filling oneself with God's life and so allowing God's life to flow through us to the world around us.”

Truth be told, I went to the Christmas Tree Shop yesterday in search for lights for a tree…which I vowed I wouldn’t put up this year…there was simply too much to do to be bothered by Christmas! Yet, standing outside the store waiting for Josh to pick me up, something happened. Despite my own stoicism or perhaps even cynicism, the bell ringer kept talking.

“It sure is cold out here today. You should button up your coat. You don’t want to get sick.”

And, in the midst of his chatter I turned to look at him a man, in his 40s, dressed in not more than a fall jacket and a thin knit cap, ringing his bell and being concerned about my warmth, my health, my well-being. I was struck by his sincerity. The more he talked, the more I realized this was no schtick to get me to donate, this was simply a conversation from one cold person to another.

Suddenly the anxiety and worry that had nagged me as I shopped seemed to disappear in the light of this small conversation. Worries of finances, moving, transition, change, time, work, all melted for the moment and I let go of that which was keeping me not just from joy, but from real human interaction. And so, when the car pulled up and he said goodbye, wishing me a Merry Christmas, I turned and smiled, “Merry Christmas to you to.”

Despite my best intentions to keep Christmas at a distance this year, something in his words sunk in.

In this Advent, we are called not to bah humbug the superficial joy of the world that seems to negate the reality of pain in the world, but rather to cultivate and share a deeper sense of joy, a joy that reorients our vision and springs forth from the well of love the Divine has for us. Once we cultivate that experience of love in ourselves, we become able to openly share it with one another and move past the saccharine sentimentality to a true sharing of the Christmas spirit, that love and peace that passes all understanding.

Making a Path to the Water's Edge

2009-12-09T14:19:00.002-05:00

This parable recounted on the blog Telling Secrets, is by the South African activist, Olive Schreiner,and it is one of my very favorite sacred texts for it evokes the collective ongoing journey of humanity. Schreiner, like that lonely woman on the path, had once searched for a passageway out of the narrow confinement of Victorian life. Growing up as a child of Wesleyan missionaries, Schreiner questioned her family’s beliefs about the propriety of South African society. While she never abandoned the vision of peace and justice she heard promised in scripture, she forged a different path, making a way to the waters’ edge for activists, feminists and pacifists after her.

Schreiner offers us an alternative Advent vision of the path through the wilderness. Her path through the South African wilderness mirrors the long journey through deserts of the ancient near east. Isolated and remote these two divergent paths through the wilderness both lead to a fabled river that forms the boundary between the way the world is and the way the world ought to be. A path to the water’s edge…

For the ancient Israelites that journey led to the Jordan, that ancient boundary between the exilic wilderness and the dwelling place of the Divine. That river, first crossed by Joshua and the people centuries earlier, is the symbolic threshold leading to the promised land. For the exiles in Babylon to which Baruch writes, the Jordan symbolized a homecoming, the heralded arrival of a people long displaced, coming back once again to the home which God promised.

Imagine the joy that this vision must have evoked for the people of Israel, long displaced and cut off from their families.

“See your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you”

An image of the lost found. Rejoice, O Israel, for God will bring your children back to you. Do not fret the journey, for God has already prepared the path.

"God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God’s command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of Divine glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from the Holy One."

To those living in exile across the wild desert of the middle east, the image of a safe, straight path meant everything. The Divine preparation of the path, the lowering of the mountains, the raising of the valleys was more than a symbolic gesture of the coming dream of God that would radically shift the socio-political landscape. For those living far off across the desert, this meant a safe and speedy return home across the river Jordan. The wilderness between Babylon and Jerusalem was treacherous. A straight path without the obstacles of mountains and valleys signaled a sure way home for the children of Israel, a path to the water’s edge.

It is no coincidence then that in this text from Luke, we find John also standing at the water’s edge. There at the Jordan, in that liminal space between wilderness wandering and the promised land, John invites people into the rushing, wild waters in preparation for the coming kin-dom.

John understands that there is still more work to do. For while, it is true that the Israelites have literally crossed into the promised land from their wilderness wanderings, the journey is not yet complete. In fact, the promised land once attained was not at all what they expected. Not only did it come at the cost of those who lived in the land before them…through warfare, death and destruction…but it turned out not to be the place of tranquility, peace and justice they imagined. Centuries of violence, conquest and oppression proved that. In fact, from the time they crossed to perhaps the present day, it seems the occupation of this land brought more conflict and chaos than peace and prosperity.

Mere occupation of the promised land did not usher forth God’s dream of peace and justice. For that, the people had more work to do. That is why John called the people to a baptism of repentance of sins. For John, this was not merely a verbal act by which sins are confessed. But rather it was, in Greek, a metanoia, In the words of Herman Waetjen, it was

“a turning around, a 180-degree change of direction, and therefore a change of mind. It is a movement into transformation that involves the total person. Repentance, as a termination of participation in the old moral order and an entry into a new moral order, inaugurates the active construction of a life and a way of living that corresponds to God’s [dream] for human beings. In time Jesus will instruct the disciples on the ethics of this new road into life. This is how to make the paths straight for the coming ‘kin-dom of God.’"

In fact, Jesus’ ministry will be consumed with instructing the disciples on how to forge that path in the world…through love, compassion, non-violence, forgiveness, and mercy.

While in the passage from Baruch, the people are promised a divinely made path, here in Luke, it is the people themselves who must forge their way not just to the water’s edge but in and through it in order to prepare themselves and the world for coming kin-dom of God. For still there exist barriers to the fulfillment of God’s promise. Even in the city of Jerusalem, in the city of the holy of holies, still there is something lacking for the completion of God’s promise. These barriers are ones both imposed from without and constructed from within. The people themselves have been kept from God by the powers and principalities of the world, and by themselves.

We recognize these barriers and obstacles to the Divine, don’t we? We who have oft been kept at bay by the institutional church know what it is like to have our path blocked. And at the same time, we confess we recognize the barriers and obstacles of our own making… towering mountains of hesitation, uncertainty, apathy; dark valleys of fear, anxiety, doubt; chilly, churning rivers of self-loathing, internalized oppression and despair. We, too, know what it is like to wander lost in the wilderness of life, don’t we?

John reciting the well known words from the prophet Isaiah, calls the people to join with God in the construction of a highway back to the Divine, by preparing a path for themselves and for their community that will lead them home to God, to the dream God has for them, to the fulfillment of the promise of shalom, God’s vision of peace and justice for the world. This is the message of John. Tear down the barriers, make the road plain, for kin-dom is surely coming and we must be prepared to be met by the Holy.

You see, the preparation for this journey toward the completion of God’s promise is a mutual endeavor between humanity and the Divine. Both are required to work together for the realization of the kin-dom.

Often in our liturgy at CWM, we talk of this as the co-creation of the kin-dom…something that cannot be done by God alone, nor by sheer human effort. Human and Divine need each other if this dream is to become reality. And, this my friends, is good news.

John’s call to us for transformation is at once individual and communal. We are called to turn our lives around, to begin a new on the path that leads toward God, while at the same time we are called to prepare the path for others. Like God who brings down the mountains and raises the valleys to cosmically break down the barriers for pilgrims on the path, we too are called to be preparers of the way. We participate with God in the preparation of the road that connects the wilderness and the world, that highway between our daily life and our encounters with the Holy.
Our Advent journeys are both about following and leading. Here at CWM, we have followed a path laid for us by members of our congregation who have since journeyed elsewhere. I am mindful of all those who have beaten the path to the water’s edge for us that we might be the queer church in Davis Square.

I remember David, co-founder, of CWM, who dreamed the dream and created space for the birth of a new type of church in the congregation he was serving. Without his vision and the hospitality of the people at Grace UMC in Cambridgeport, we would never have made it to the water’s edge. There on Magazine Street a dream was made reality and we took a step closer to who we are today.

I remember Tracy, a founding member of this congregation, who forged the path toward our communion table. Upon coming to worship the second Sunday in the month, Tracy, a former Roman Catholic was aghast to discover that we only served communion once a month. “But you can’t have church without the table? Do you think we could have it again next week?” Why not? And we took a step closer to who we are today.

I remember Joe and Craig, two other founding members of this congregation, who forged the path for our community meals. After a meager snack of store bought cookies and stale coffee, they suggested perhaps they could bring a light supper the next week. And what a meal it was complete with homemade apple turnovers and fresh pressed apple cider! And we took a step closer to who we are today.

I remember Dee Dee, our first intern, who suggested that perhaps the church become involved in local politics. She spent her first year making in roads into the greater Boston LGBT community for our congregation securing a feature in BayWindows, signing us as one of the first congregations to support marriage equality and creating name recognition for us throughout the community. Dee Dee initiated our commitment as a congregation to being active advocates for justice in the world. And we took a step closer to who we are today.

I remember Brian and Karen, Betty and Bill. I remember Jessica, Kirk, Terry, Jennifer, Susan, Jeff, and David. I remember Jen, Thi, Lucas, Jeremy and Chelsea. All of whom walked the path with us for a time.

These are just but a few of the faithful saints who have journeyed with us, helping to make a path to the water’s edge on which we now travel. While our paths have now diverged, their gifts remain with us as steps along the path, stones that built the bridge over which we now cross.
As many of you already know from our charge conference this past week, it has come time for paths to diverge again here at CWM. I have been invited to become the sixth Dean of Hendrick’s Chapel at Syracuse University beginning this March. My last Sunday with you will be February 14th. A new pastor will be appointed after the first of the year with whom you will travel further on the path. While we had anticipated that we might journey together a bit further to June, this invitation has sped our timeline up in unexpected ways…both for you as a congregation and for me as your pastor.

We have traveled this path together for nearly 8 years, forging the way forward together. It has been a mutual process in which together we made the path by walking. As I look back on our time together, I feel immensely blessed and privileged to have shared this journey with you for I myself have learned so much. Here I learned to be a pastor, here I found the meaning of community, here I discovered what it meant to truly be Church. As my faith home, you prepared the path for me. Thank you.

But now in the coming months our paths will diverge. The steps we have taken together, the path which we have tread, will remain. Only now God calls us forward to forge new ways of living and loving and being in different communities. While it is with real sadness and sorrow that we come to this unexpected turn in the road, we celebrate the path we have walked together and look forward in eager anticipation to the road that lay ahead.

Like that woman on the path, we, at CWM, find ourselves at the water’s edge, at the precipice of a new beginning. And, like John,we too exist in the liminal space of knowing the promise and yet not-yet living into its full realization. In this liminal, not-yet space, we are called to enter and cross over the river, to extend the highway, to forge ahead in new paths, navigating new territory so that we might wind our way closer to the Divine.

And while we confess that dwelling in this liminal space of already/not yet can be uncomfortable, raising our anxieties about our future, we have been called by God to make the way clear…not just for ourselves but for all those who will follow. Look around, the saints of CWM are not just those I have named. They are all around us. You are the ones who have made this path to the water’s edge…and now God is calling you forward into a new land, into a new space. God is calling all of us to enter the chilly waters that we might cross through to the other side and create new unimaginable paths that lead us and the world toward a greater realization of God’s kin-dom on earth.

Just as John has made the path to the water’s edge preparing the way for Jesus, so also, we too are called to prepare that path…and to extend it. The hope of Advent rests in us and in our courage to traverse the wilderness of our lives, making a path to and through the water’s edge for ourselves and for the world.

Preparing the Path to Advent

2009-11-30T15:38:00.002-05:00

This weekend as I went Advent shopping for the church, I found myself once again confronted with the reality of the Christmas explosion. As I searched for purple Advent candles from store to store to store, I could feel my body tensing up with my usual Grinch-like disdain at the overly optimistic, sappy sentimentality of Christmas consumerism. The cloyingly jolly carols piped in even to the restrooms, the brightly colored baubles obscuring my line of sight, the hoards of eager after-Thanksgiving shoppers, the tacky, neon blow-up Nativity scenes, the shelves filled to brimming with cheesy Christmas tchotskies…all brought my blood to boil.

Why in the world cannot I not find a single purple candle in the sea of gold glitter, candy cane stripped, elf shaped, ornament ensconced candles stacked row upon row in the Christmas Tree Shop? Doesn’t the world know it is Advent, not Christmas? Hasn’t anyone read the lectionary for this week? There are no cute babies sleeping, no reindeer prancing, no Santa’s singing, no cookies baking!

You’ve read the lesson for today. You get it, right? In perhaps no other year of our lectionary cycle is the distinction between our secular Christmas expectation and our faithful Advent anticipation more vivid. Luke pulls no punches when describing the eschatological hope of the advent of the kin-dom. Far from the sentimental carols piped into to every grocery store, mall and post office is the stark vision of the end times we read in Luke.

'There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the clamour of the ocean and its waves; people dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken.”

This is no baby Jesus meek and mild kind of holiday. This is serious people! This is about the end times, the apocalyptic vision of the days that are surely coming, says Jeremiah, when the Promised One will come…that Branch from David who will execute justice and righteousness, bringing salvation and safety to Israel and establishing a new order in which peace has priority and God’s dream is fulfilled. This is a 2012 epic-end-of-times saga that will not be pretty…agony, bewilderment, clamour, death…the very foundations of the world will be shaken.

A jarring contrast to the holiday madness of the world around us, no?

Our Advent lectionary helps point us toward the completion of God’s dream for the world, reorienting our gaze from the immediate gratification of overindulgent Christmas celebrations to the day in which peace and justice will come to be fully realized. These texts we read, both from Jeremiah and from Luke, arise out of a people who have long been beaten and battered by the world around, tossed to and fro between the world powers of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Rome. The eschatological and apocalyptic hope of which we read is rooted in the reality of a historically oppressed and marginalized people.

Both Jeremiah and Luke are speaking to communities who know their fair share of sorrow.
Jeremiah is writing during a time of prolonged exile and desperation. Kate Huey reminds us that

“this wasn't just a disaster in terms of the highest levels of government, when God's own people had been carried off to exile or were suffering its long-term effects. This was an everyday, lived experience of the ordinary person who felt their suffering as a judgment by God.”

It is to this situation of sorrow, grief and loss that Jeremiah proclaims the fulfillment of God’s promise.

Likewise, Luke writing just 15 years after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, addresses a community steeped in hopelessness and despair. His depiction of the fall of the temple is not prophetic prediction, but past history.

Both of these communities longed for something more, yearned for a day in which the promise they had heard repeated from generation to generation would be fulfilled…an end to oppression and injustice, an end to colonization and occupation, an end to poverty, marginalization and powerlessness, an end to sorrow, loss and grief.

We, too, can relate to these desires of a community long beleaguered by the powers and principalities of the world around them. Can’t we? We watch with horror at the injustices and sorrow in the world around us…the ravages of a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the struggle of millions living with HIV AIDS, the suffering of those without clean water, nutritious food, or adequate shelter, the inequalities between those who have much and those who have so little, the brutal sting of prejudice and discrimination, the search for meaningful work and a just living wage, the grief of loved ones lost and promises broken. We, too, long for the promised coming of the kin-dom both in our world in and in our lives.

So in the midst of such significant eschatological and existential questions, it is understandable that we might get a more than a little annoyed at what seems like the nearsighted vision of a Christmas come in a Good Friday world. Why can’t the world get it right? This is not about some sentimental holly jolly season, but about the cold, hard reality of pain and suffering and our longing to relieve it. We know. We get it. Why can’t the rest of the world?

And yet, cruising the aisles of the Christmas Tree Shop, I found my eyes wandering to the piles of potential gifts for family and friends and began to feel my heart quicken and eyes glisten as I thought about the small joys some might feel at the gift of a plush blanket or wind-up toy. And then I began to get anxious about all I had to and wanted to do for Christmas…the cookies, the gift baskets, the holiday cards. ..not so much a nervous anxious, but an excited anticipation. I was actually looking forward to Christmas celebrations! In spite of my own best efforts to maintain my Scrooge like contempt at the Christmas frivolity, I found myself longing for a bit of the joy of the season.

Regardless of my own theological predisposition toward the kin-dom of peace and justice…I had to confront the idea that this is actually not a bad or even inappropriate thing to desire. You see the desire was not so much for the trappings of Christmas, but for that underlying yearning for moments, snatches, glimpses of hope in the midst of a chaotic, overly busy, rough and tumble world in which sorrow, grief and loss mark so many of the most of the days.

Advent is not an either/or endeavor. As we have been talking about these past few weeks in regard to the life of faith, Advent is a both/and event. It is both a time of expectant waiting for the fulfillment of God’s dream, and also the very present reality of that dream breaking forth in joyous celebration in the here and now.

The text from Luke helps us understand this both/and reality of Advent. Luke borrows from Mark this account of the end times, but adds something that alters the readers’ perspective.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap . . . Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength.”

Luke’s addition to the Markan account points us toward the attitude or disposition with which we are called to face these times. Luke is concerned not just about our final destination, but also about how we get there. Both/And.

We live, according to Luke, between the two great poles of God's intervention in the world: the coming of Christ into the world as a tiny babe and the fulfillment of the kin-dom issuing forth peace and justice forever more.

Advent is this path between times…between the already and not yet, not only of Christmas, but of our lives. It is a liminal space in which we are called to prepare ourselves and the world for something more.

We know this in between space intimately, don’t we? Much of our own lives are lived in liminality. Kathryn Schifferdecker reminds us:

“There is a point, or a period of time, that we spend in between one time or place, and another time and place. In that in-between time, we have to live with things being not so clear or comfortable, not familiar and comfortable and yet not being what they will be one day. This "in-between time," though fraught with tension, is nevertheless also characterized by hope.”

It is in this in-between time that Luke calls us to pay attention. Be on guard! Wake up! Be Alert! For the path itself is a place of Divine revelation. It is the time not just of longing for what could be, but also for the celebration of what already is…the glimpses of God we see in our everyday lives…the joy, hope, peace and love we know in and through the world in which we live. While we long for the completion of the promise, for the fulfillment of our joy, we must take comfort in the moments and measures of grace which we see in our everyday lives…for those moments constitute the hope we need to carry on.

As liminal space, the Advent path must attend to both the destination and the journey itself. We are called to lift up our heads and keep our eyes on the prize that is to come… the days that are surely coming when a shoot will arise from the root of Jesse, the time in which the fig tree will come to fruition and the fulfillment of promise of God’s dream. But, we are also called to pay attention to the quotidian hope embedded in our everyday lives.

When we are able to simultaneously be present to the destination and the journey, we find ourselves strengthened for the road ahead. It is only in and through the hope of everyday joy that we find the strength to continue our collective journey toward God’s dream of peace and justice.…whether that be in the singing of a cherished hymn, the embrace of a friend, or even a tacky elf shaped candle for a family member.

These glimpses of hope in the midst of our wilderness lives are like that small, thin, fragile thread that we follow late at night through the dark forest journeys learning to grope and grasp our way through unchartered territory by trusting in the thin wire of hope that leads us through. Or perhaps, these glimpses of hope may even be said to be like breadcrumbs scattered along our path to lead us home once again. Nourishing and sustaining, yet never fully satisfying. We savor them and continue on yearning for more. That is the hope we get in Advent….already, and not yet all at once.

As we begin our Advent journey today, we heed the warning of Luke to be alert, keep awake, for the irruption of the kin-dom is imminent all along our pilgrim journey. It comes in glimpses and snatches, moments of grace and hope that lead us on. So, while no this does not mean we will start singing Christmas carols in worship (sorry), it does mean we will not simply wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise, but rather forge ahead following that thin, fragile wire of hope, gobbling up the breadcrumbs as they come, as we wind our way toward God’s dream in which we are overcome by the floodwaters of grace and hope, our very beings inundated by the presence of the Spirit.

Be alert! The kin-dom is coming here and now! So celebrate and be glad, for God’s hope is bursting forth in our midst!

King?

2009-11-30T15:27:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday was known as “Christ the King Sunday” or in more progressive denominations, “Reign of Christ Sunday;” a Sunday in our liturgical calendar at CWM that always draws moans and groans of justified discontent with the patriarchal, hierarchical, oppressive vestiges of our Christian tradition. Just reading the text for today, an uneasiness pervaded the congregation. King? Really?

And well we should be uneasy about such a seemingly triumphal and easy proclamations of power.

How do we reconcile our faith commitments of mutual love and abiding justice with a tradition that at times can be oppressive in its perpetuation of patriarchal structures of power? What does it mean for us at CWM to celebrate Christ the King Sunday? Is it possible for us to participate in this liturgical rite at all? Or must we simply reject it as incompatible with the Christian tradition we know? Can kingship and the kin-dom exist together in the same faith tradition?

These are critical questions for us to face as a community of faith. While it is easy to dismiss what we perceive as the traditional celebrations of Christ the King Sunday, it is more difficult at times for us to face the inadequacies of familiar progressive interpretations….interpretations which I have preached more than once.

You know them, you have heard them in this very space…sermons that temper the triumphalism of a Kingly Christ by focusing on the paradox of a servant leader. Sermons that focus on the way in which Jesus’ kingship turned the expectations of the world upside down. Sermons that interpret the Reign of Christ as a counter-cultural commonwealth that subverts dominant notions of power and institutes in its place a reign marked by justice, peace, love, and freedom. Sermons that invite parishioners to re-imagine Christ’s reign as God’s commonwealth, God’s kin-dom, God’s vision of peace and justice that we hear reflected in the prophets’ cries throughout the ages. A kinder, gentler reign of sorts.

These are the familiar answers that I, myself, have given over the years to somehow assimilate the Christian Tradition (capital T) with the Christian traditioning done in my own communities of faith. Yet somehow, this year, these all too familiar answers, as true as I still believe them to be, were not satisfying. There was something lacking still.

While I still believe these sermons to express a fundamental truth about our faith, an overemphasis on them does two things: first, it glosses over the importance of understanding and re-interpreting reign as a real re-ordering of priorities and second, it focuses our gaze on the outward, socio-political realities of the world, often times to the exclusion of the inward, transformation of our beings.

As much as we understand the limitations of reign as a patriarchal, hierarchical political state in which which some are allotted agency and independence, while most are kept subjugated as impotent and dependent, there is something significant about re-appropriating the word reign in our own faith lives. Jesus was clear. “My kingdom is not from this world.” Not “of this world,” the text says, but “from this world,” meaning that the notion of kingdom or reign cannot be known in and through our human creations of nation, state and power. It must be re-interpreted through a Christological lens.

Rather than ignore or negate this notion of reign, we are called to re-claim it in a new way. Reign implies a re-ordering of priorities, of norms, of commitments, of rules. A re-ordering in which mutuality has priority over patriarchal domination; in which peace has priority over violence and war; in which love wins out over hatred and fear. The word reign gives us a clearer sense of this radical re-prioritization of the norms and commitments of the world. Everything is not equal in this system. Some values and commitments are given priority over others, and in this sense, there is a hierarchy of commitments.

The difference in this hierarchy is the way in which power is exercised. Rather than a top down imposition of wills, of God demanding obedience to the reign of peace and justice, power in this reign is exercised from below, moving up, in and through and among the world. It is not a power over, but a power with and through. This makes the hierarchy of norms function in a radically different way. God’s reign bubbles up in and through the world as the world opens itself to a new, re-ordering of norms, commitments and values. It happens whenever people witness to the power of love in the face of hate, peace in the face of conflict and life in the face of death. It happens not as imposition from a Divine tyrant, but as rather as a response to Divine Love and possibility.

When we re-imagine reign in this way, we reinterpret the use of power from power over to power with. This we can understand in terms of a socio-political re-ordering of the world in accord with God’s vision of peace and justice. Yet, in our haste to counter the privatized and oft times oppressive spirituality that interprets this Sunday as a pietistic surrender to God’s patriarchal will, we tend to overemphasize this political reading of the text.

The Reign of Christ is not an either/or endeavor. It can never be simply a political re-ordering of the world or a private pietistic surrender to the will of God. It is always simultaneously both/and. The truth lies somewhere in between, doesn’t it?

What would it look like for us to consider God’s reign in our own lives? To open ourselves to a re-ordering of our priorities? To loosen control and invite the Divine to wreck holy chaos with our lives?

This is where I think the re-conceptualization of reign as power with and among is helpful. When we talk about allowing God to reign in our lives, we are not talking about a simple, surrender to God’s will, a throwing up of our anxieties to the Godhead, an uncritical plea for Jesus to take the wheel (which I never thought was a good idea to begin with…).

No, when we understand reign as a power working in and through us, we begin to see God’s reign in our lives more as a habitus than a command.

Today I want to invite us to re-conceptualize God’s reign as a habitus.

Habitus is a Latin word used most commonly to refer to a habit, a pattern of behavior that happens automatically. Good, bad, indifferent, these patterns of behavior are seemingly unconscious. Nail biting, smoking, brushing our teeth first thing in the morning, crossing our legs, twiddling our thumbs. They arise spontaneously without thinking.

In theology, however, habitus takes on a deeper meaning in regard to our spiritual formation. A habitus is a way of living and being that connects us to our faith and our God; patterns of behavior that both shape and are shaped by our faith. I remember vividly how my first year theology professor likened theological habitus to his driving from home to school on the Jamaica Way. His body knew intimately all the crooks and turns and narrow passage ways of the road. Every pothole, every light, every lane shift had become integrated into his being so much so that driving to work seemed an almost automatic response. This, he asserted, was the way in which our theologies and faith lives were intended to be…so intimately known and integrated into our very beings that faith emanated from our very being. At once one and the same.

What I want to suggest today is for us to begin to think about God’s reign in our own lives as the cultivation of a divine habitus, as a way of allowing God to shape and form our lives in real and concrete ways from within, from below…moving in and through our lives. The Reign of Christ is not just for the powers and principalities, it is intended to re-order and re-shape our own lives.
Here at CWM we have our own set of faith habits, don’t we?

“I greet you with grace and peace…”
“Here at CWM, all are welcome…”
“Look around…”

Our theological habits at CWM, are more than just catch phrases, they serve to radically shape and form our faith lives. Think about the way in which these habits…or habitus’ inform the way in which we think about our faith, the world, each other, ourselves. What we do impacts what we believe in a very tangible, real, concrete way.

Living into the reign of God in this way is reflected in our langauge and actions, but goes much deeper. I confess that all too often I live in my head, preferring to live out my faith through intricate theological arguments and abstract statements of belief. (As evidenced by this very sermon!!) I confess I still have much more work to do in allowing the reign of God to pervade the whole of my being. Allowing God to reign in my life, to cultivate a habitus of kin-dom living is much easier preached about than lived. As much as I strive to live out these gospel ideas and commitments in my life, I know that there still exists within me a resistance to surrendering control, to a complete re-prioritization of my own norms or priorities. There is something wild and chaotic about allowing the Divine to move and breathe through you. I talk a good game, but really, truly, authentically allowing God to re-order my life…well, that’s another thing.

One cannot think their way into living out God’s reign as a habitus. No, rather than think your way into God’s reign, we must be our way in. That is, we must practice living into God’s vision of peace and justice…in the world and in our lives, by living it out. By practicing it. My professor did not one day decide to master the driving of the Jamaica Way, but rather the knowledge and mastery, the habitus of driving came in and through the practice of it. That’s why, we come here to CWM. To practice living in the reign of God. To be our way into a holy habitus that transforms our lives, that opens us to new possibilities, that allows God to live and move and breathe in and through our very beings.

What would it mean for us to live into the habitus of God’s reign? How would our lives be transformed if we invited God to guide our own priorities and norms? What would it be like to allow that power from within to arise in our own lives and emerge in and through us? What if we allowed the Christ to reign in our hearts and our lives? Would we be transformed? Would the world change?

I think it just might.

Today when we celebrate the Reign of Christ, we are inviting the Divine to transform our lives by bubbling up in and through our very beings, transforming us through holy habitus, so that we might not only become for the world glimpses in the here and now of the Commonwealth to come, but also open ourselves to the power of the Mystery that is in and through and among and beyond us all.

Virtually Advent

2009-11-19T10:30:00.002-05:00

This week begins our prelude to Advent. While the stores have already decked the halls and begun the annual onslaught of post-Halloween Christmas music, we in the Church are slowing down our pace to settle into the Advent season...that time of watching and waiting, of longing and expectation.

In preparation for our season of Advent, we at CWM, are beginning a virtual Advent reflection here on this blog in preparation for this new season of worship.

We invite you to join us in crafting our Advent season together by reflecting on the following questions here in the comment section of this blog.

What hymns and readings do you most want to experience during the Advent season?
As you read the lectionary readings (Advent 1, Advent 2, Advent 3, Advent 4), what images strike you? What themes emerge? What visions come to you?
How do you imagine our worship space for the next four weeks?
What does Advent mean to you?

Eradicating Homophobia and Heterosexism in the United Methodist Church

2009-10-30T20:40:00.002-04:00

The General Board of Church and Society of our denomination just unveiled it's latest resource on the issue of homophobia and heterosexism. This site grew out of a mandate from General Conference, the global legislative body of our denomination. In 2008, the General Conference passed "Opposing Homophobia and Heterosexism" (#2043 in the Book of Resolutions) calling on the church to provide resources on how the denomination can eradicate homophobia and heterosexism.

Check out the stories and resources. Together we can create a fully inclusive church and society!

How Beautiful the Feet

2009-10-22T08:36:00.002-04:00

Last week I had the privilege to stand on the lawn of our nation’s capitol and watch from afar as the thousands upon thousands of equality marchers made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Waiting at the dais, our small band of interfaith religious leaders stood silent as we caught the first glimpse of the marchers cresting the horizon of the avenue. The brilliant colors of their banners and flags announced their coming and if you strained your ears just enough you could hear the faint whisper of their joyful songs, chants and drums growing louder, step by step.

Looking around at my colleagues, there was not a dry eye to be found. For the sight of the march echoed a familiar hope for each one of us. Known and named differently in each of our traditions, our collective hope was embodied for a rare, brief moment before our eyes; echoed in footsteps of the marchers, given voice through their song and made real by their presence.

O God, freedom was coming…and we could see it now! How beautiful the feet of those who bring peace!

How beautiful indeed! Friends, that day on the lawn of the capitol, under the brilliant blue sky, in the light of the shining sun, we looked good! Mmmmm….we looked fierce! How beautiful, how fabulous, were the feet of those who marched that day!

As I stood there, I could not help but recall our texts for today, first in Isaiah and then again echoed in Romans. “How beautiful the feet of the messengers who announce peace…How beautiful the feet of those who bring good news!” I had to wonder if the vision of the prophets and of Paul induced that same strange warming of the heart that I felt as I witnessed the good news being brought to the very steps of the capitol.

Their context was different, but was the hope not the same?

Marching for Equality

2009-10-07T15:34:00.002-04:00

In just a few short days, thousands of people will descend upon our nation's capitol to march for justice during the National Equality March. Fifty years after Stonewall and forty years after the first equality march on Washington, we will gather once again to advocate for civil rights, to cry out for justice and to march for equality.

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries will join in the festivities including participating in the service of prayer and thanksgiving for equal rights at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church, the interfaith breakfast, and the march itself. Pastor Tiffany Steinwert has been invited to be one of 30 clergy from across the country to join in the interfaith invocation and blessing of the march led by Rev. Troy Perry.

Won't you join us as we march for equality?

For a complete list of United Methodist activities during the March for Equality, click here.

Finding Wholeness in Our Brokenness

2009-10-07T15:19:00.005-04:00

Today’s scripture is one of the most popular miracles portrayed in the life of Jesus. Recorded in all four Gospels, it appears a total of six times in varying forms. The fact that all four early Christian communities thought it was important enough to be included is significant.

But why?

The Gospels are full of miracles, aren’t they? Healing the sick, walking on water, giving sight to the blind, casting out demons, even raising the dead. So, why is it that this story gets all the play?

If we read the passage carefully, we will see that beneath the glamor of this miracle lies much more. The story of the feeding of the five thousand both points to and embodies a more profound truth about God and humanity. It is, in essence, a sacramental story; a sign and symbol of God's grace let loose in the world.

If we look at the text, we can see the way in which this story parallels our own contemporary rite of holy communion:

“Taking the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people.”

Many scholars interpret this parallel between the feeding of the five thousand and the institution of holy communion as one example of gospel redaction…that is of the authors of the gospels going back over the stories and editing them to reflect deeper meaning in light of current practice. These scholars propose that after the institution of holy communion in the early Christian communities, gospel writers went back and re-wrote the text to parallel their own rituals and rites. In this way, what was once a simple miracle story took on now greater meaning in the context of the faith traditions and practices of the early Christian communities.

Therefore when scholars read the story of the feeding of the five thousand, they tend to interpret it through traditional understandings of holy communion as a ritual meal reflecting Jesus’ bodily sacrifice for human sin. They highlight Jesus’ pouring out of compassion on the multitudes, the willingness to heal and work long past evening as a sign of the ultimate sacrifice to come. The brokenness of the people there that day…the wounded, the weary, the sick and the oppressed…is read as our own brokenness that is made whole through the sacrament of the eucharist.

Yet, I have to wonder in this case about the order of influence between these two.

Should we really interpret the feeding of the five thousand through the lens of communion? That is to derive the meaning of story from the practice of early Christian communities.

Or shouldn’t we rather interpret communion through the lens of the feeding of the five thousand? That is to derive the meaning of holy communion from the story of Jesus’ own practice. The difference seems subtle, but I believe it is significant.

What if the feeding of the five thousand were paradigmatic for communion? How would we understand communion differently?

Think, for a moment, about what Jesus says when the disciples come and ask for help. The disciples are more than a little anxious about the coming of nightfall. They are tired from their journey and worn out from their work, not to mention frightened and grieving over the execution of John the Baptist. Here they were in a deserted place, the people are hungry, night has fallen. They have to do something.

So, they go to Jesus, the miracle maker, and plead for help. “Jesus, these people are hungry and we can’t do anything about it. Can’t you just send them away and make it all disappear?"

And what does Jesus say to them?

“You feed them yourselves.”

Can you imagine? Here the disciples are looking for help, for escape…for salvation from Jesus and what does Jesus say, “Do it yourself.”

Do it yourself? The disciples are a bit confused because they cannot understand how they are going to feed these people without a lot of money. "Do you know how much that is going to cost," they ask. As if money and things can ever bring salvation.

But Jesus points them in a different direction. Jesus says what do you have? Jesus doesn’t ask for a strategic plan or a fund development campaign. Jesus doesn’t ask them to write grants or go for help to the neighboring villages. Jesus simply asks them to look at what they already have.

As if they were in Oz, Jesus tells those Dorothies, “You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power.”

The salvation and hope they sought was not to be found elsewhere…not even in Jesus. The salvation and hope they sought, the salvation and hope they needed was already right there with them all along.

“What do you have?” asks Jesus.

And with that the disciples begin to go about the sharing of what the community already had.

Now think about the implications this has on our understanding of communion. If this is the lens through which we understand communion, what does this mean? Where is the grace, wholeness, love and healing found? From where does our hope and healing come in this story?

It comes from us. In the words of June Jordan, we are the ones we have been waiting for.

In this way, we begin to see the sacramental focus of holy communion in the compassionate power of the common love we share with one another. It is in the mutual sharing of our joys and sorrows that we find healing and hope. By the very act of coming together in our own brokenness, with our own limitations, failures and griefs, we find wholeness in community. The miracle is not done for us, but rather by us. Holy communion is at heart a communal ritual.

As the contemporary text we read this evening reminds us, we all come to the table hungering and thirsty for something more. To be human is to be finite, limited and broken. Some of us are broken by illness, disease and pain. Others by loss, affliction or depression. Some of us are broken by the words and actions of others…family and friends whose love is imperfect and painful. Others by systems and institutions that oppress and marginalize. Some are broken by powerful addictions that imprison and dis-empower us. Still others broken under the weight of our own internalized pain, buried beneath our self-loathing. Each of us carries our own unique brokenness.

The summer I left for college, I found myself struggling with brokenness in many forms. I was on the brink of moving from adolescence to adulthood as I left my family home and moved 1000 miles away. In the midst of all of these transitions, losses and change, I prayed for things to get better. But they didn’t. I listened to the words of the pastor and tried hard to believe that if I just prayed hard enough everything would work out just fine. But no matter how diligently I prayed, nothing changed. The hurt, the fear, the uncertainty and grief were all still there.

It was during the last UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship) retreat that I found a measure of grace to get me through. We had celebrated communion late at night, in the darkened cavernous sanctuary. Passing the bread and cup as we knelt in front of the hard wooden communion rail, I began to pray. If communion was as magical as the pastor had told us, surely my prayers would be answered there on my knees. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I begged God for forgiveness and deliverance. I confessed any and all possible sins I thought I could have committed and literally threw myself at God’s mercy. Tears streamed down my face as I confronted my own pain and sorrow, feeling so very unworthy at the table. Maybe I just didn’t belong. Maybe I was not good enough for God to heal my wounds.

As I wept in prayer, Jerry came and sat beside me. Jerry was chronologically the oldest member of UMYF at 45 years of age. But his severe form of autism rendered him emotionally the youngest among us. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “What’s wrong? Can I help you?”

As much as I appreciated his concern, I knew only God could help me now.

Then my youth pastor came and sat beside me and said, “What’s wrong? Can I help you?” I couldn’t bring myself to confess my sense of unworthiness and so again, I sent her away.

Finally, my best friend came and sat me and said, “What’s wrong? Can I help you?” I didn’t have words for how I felt or I didn’t even know at that moment what I needed.

But in her embrace, I felt something subtly shift and my tears subsided.

I wish I could say that I got up and left the table healed. But I was not. Rather, what I found in that moment was a small measure of grace to get me through. It would be over the next several years that I would began to piece together the meaning of that night and begin to make sense out of what happened. What I experienced was not a miraculous healing from God on high, but rather a measure of grace from my community of friends through Christ.

Our human brokenness is inevitable, for all human love, no matter how great, how strong is finite and limited. And despite our best intentions, we find ourselves wounded by life at point or another. And, so it is with those limitations that we approach this table for a spark of hope, a measure of grace to get us through moment by moment.

You see, we cannot find our salvation alone. There is no magic prayer that can make us feel whole once again. In the midst of our limitations and brokenness we must have the courage to reach out to others to heal and be healed. It is only together that we can experience God’s grace, reflected to us in the lives and loves of one another. This is the true meaning of communion as seen through the lens of the feeding of the five thousand.

In the sharing of bread and cup, we are bonded tone another through Christ as a community of compassion, love, healing and hope. We find our salvation in the arms of one another, as we become Christ for each other here and now.

We are the church together!

2009-08-22T01:38:00.003-04:00

The news out of Minneapolis is wonderful!

This week, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted to:

- allow partnered gay men & lesbians to become ministerial leaders in the church

- allow congregations to recognize same-sex unions

- approve a comprehensive, inclusive social statement on human sexuality

The ELCA also finalized a "full communion" agreement with the United Methodist Church, enabling the two denominations to forge a stronger, mutually supportive relationship.

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries lifts up prayers of thanksgiving and tears of joy that the doors of inclusion are being thrown open, and we rejoice with our siblings in the ELCA!

What an auspicious time for the ELCA and UMC to enter into a deeper relationship!

how do we embody welcome?

2009-08-11T12:01:00.003-04:00

My best friend and I have been talking recently about issues of church accessibility. [See also her post here, where she focuses on welcome as it relates to physical dis/ability.]

I expect we at CWM would say that we would be happy to do whatever necessary to be inclusive and accessible to people who are worshiping with us -- and I have seen us do that -- but there's something problematic about saying that we will make accommodations only when someone asks us to. (It reminds me of discussions around becoming "officially" a Reconciling congregation -- both the power of explicit public statements, and the obligation to combine statements with tangible actions.)

But when we're a small community with limited resources, how do we decide how to use those limited resources?

I don't have answers to the question of how to manage that balance, but I do want to lift up some of the different ways in which a church can be inclusive and get us thinking.

My best friend said (in the above-linked post), "Inviting someone to church when they can't get in the door, hear the sermon, or share fellowship without going into anaphalactic shock is an empty invitation." I think this is a really powerful statement.

GLBT

In the spoken welcome which opens each Sunday's service, we explicitly welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and straight persons. I have said before that this is something that's really valuable to me. (We also explicitly welcome those who are newcomers and those who are long-time attendees, as well as people of many other different kinds, and that part of the welcome is also something I really appreciate.)

The bathrooms on our floor are clearly gender demarcated, but there's a wheelchair-accessible not-gender-marked bathroom on the first floor. Though see below re: stair-alternative accessibility.

Physical ability

We worship on the second floor, and I'm fairly confident that there is no elevator in this building. (You would think that having worshiped in this building for two and a half years now I might know this. Witness my able-bodied privilege.)

Edit: I have been informed by a member of CAUMC (whose building we use) that, "There is an elevator kitty-corner from the parlor; I think it works. I know I've seen people use it when there have been potlucks." Learn something new every day! /edit

When Kirk worshiped with us, we had an ASL interpreter, but we don't have one now, nor do our website or bulletins say anything about our willingness to hire one (though I know that we would be happy to hire one again). Will Green (who no longer worships with us on a regular basis, now that he's based in Hull) and I both took ASL, but neither of us knows enough to really engage in that way with someone who's Deaf. (This also raises the issue of accessibility to people whose primary spoken/written language is not English.)

We don't have a sound system to make the service more accessible to the hearing-impaired, or large-print or Braille bulletins for people with vision impairments.

Our seating arrangement is a series of moveable chairs, which makes it very accessible for people who can't (comfortably or at all) sit in traditional pews (witness Michele putting her sprained ankle up on a chair while she sat during service this most recent Sunday, for example).

Food and drink

As good Methodists, we have non-alcoholic "fruit of the vine" for Communion (though the fact that we don't have an alcoholic option is in some ways exclusive; I know people for whom it's really important to imbibe actual wine when taking Communion).
We don't have gluten-free Communion bread (I also have no idea if our Communion bread is vegan).

We offer dinner after service every Sunday, and all are welcome to join/stay for dinner. (We also mention this on the website.)

We always have vegetarian options at dinner, though we're less good about making sure that we have sufficient vegan options (which is something that we should really work on since we do have actual vegans worshiping with us, so this isn't a theoretical issue of inclusivity). And yes, I know that of the small congregation, it's an even smaller subset of people who routinely provide dinner, and I'm certainly not helping that problem by volunteering to provide dinner myself.
We also don't do a great job of labeling ingredients (for people who are vegan, are lactose-intolerant, have a gluten intolerance, have peanut allergies, etc.), though I have noticed in recent weeks that whomever provided dinner will announce relevant information like "contains dairy" or "doesn't contain gluten" -- and during the closing announcements we announce who provided dinner, so everyone knows who to ask if they have questions about ingredients.

An Introduction....

2009-07-14T12:31:00.001-04:00

Hi! I am Robert Wyckoff, usually known also as Bob, and I will be the supply pastor here at Cambridge Welcoming Ministries during Pastor Tiffany’s maternity leave. By way of introduction, here is little bit about myself and where I am from.

I am a Certified Lay Speaker from Union United Methodist Church (http://www.gbgm-umc.org/unionboston) which is located in Boston’s South End. Shortly after I joined Union in 1993, we began the journey toward becoming a Reconciling United Methodist Congregation. I worked on the Reconciling Committee there and taught classes using the materials which had been developed by the UMC for that purpose. In 2000, Union became the first African American congregation to join the Reconciling movement. Union UMC was also involved when Cambridge Welcoming Ministries first began at Grace UMC, and so I am especially excited to have been sent by our District Superintendent, Rev. Martin McLee, to fill in for Rev. Steinwert during her absence. It is a blessing and a humbling responsibility with which I am charged and I am grateful for the generous support I am receiving from the Lay Leaders at CWM.

About me personally, I am an alumnus of St. John’s College in Annapolis and a graduate of the University of Vermont, 1972, where I majored in philosophy and religion. More recently I studied at Berklee for a performance degree in 2006. I play trumpet and arrange music for Boston Community Choir (http://www.bostoncommunitychoir.org) and also play a 12 string guitar and harmonica. I am especially looking forward to joining forces in song with Pastor Annie Britton when she visits!

I have three grown children, two daughters and a son, and eight grandchildren ranging in age from 4 to 24, all of whom make me feel blessed and proud! I will be posting my reflections here on this blog and also my thoughts for our Children’s Moment which we have at CWM each Sunday. This is one of my favorite parts of the worship service, when we are all invited to see things through the eyes of the children among us. For we remember that Jesus said, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me….”

Sowing and Reaping With God at Stonewall

2009-06-16T11:34:00.003-04:00

The two parables for this evening read like a lyric from an overly optimistic musical. Similar to Annie’s cloyingly confident hope that the “sun will come out tomorrow,” Jesus’ simplistic assessment of God’s kin-dom seems like a Polly Anna gloss to the harsh reality of the world in which we live.

All we have to do is sow the seed and watch it grow. No matter how small, no matter how insignificant, the seeds we plant will grow beyond our wildest imagination.

Yeah, right.

Taken at first glance, these two parables, of the sower and of the mustard seed, seem incredibly naive. An almost, divine “be happy ,don’t worry” attitude that seems to offer us in the modern day little to grasp on to. We know the kin-dom has not yet fully blossomed, for we live in a world still plagued by injustice, oppression and despair.

I think of those moments, just in the past year when it seemed the ground of justice would forever lay fallow…mourning the results of General Conference as the denomination reinforced discrimination against LGBTQ folks, grieving the loss of marriage equality in California, first in November and then again just a few weeks ago, lamenting the defeat of a gender non-discrimination law in New Hampshire. In the context of real, concrete struggle, these parables seem out of touch with reality. Bringing forth the kin-dom of God seems daunting, if at times impossible.

Yet, if we take a moment to read the parables in context, we begin to see that Jesus was no fool. These words were not spoken to a group of naïve, inexperienced people. These words were addressed to a community that had followed Jesus through many trials and tribulations. In fact, Mark records these parables for an audience not yet one generation removed from Jesus’ own death. Even as Mark wrote, this nascent group of Christians felt the persecution and repression of the wider culture. Neither Jew nor Greek would tolerate them. As religious deviants, they were set adrift in the world, targets of humiliation, repression and prejudice. This was not a group of people who could be easily cajoled into a gospel of health and wealth. This was not a group of people who could be made content with easy, empty words of hope.

It is in the context of this struggle, that the words take on new meaning and help us find a deeper sense of hope that is rooted in our relationship with the Divine. Jesus knew that the coming of the kin-dom would not be easy. It is for this specific reason that he offers these parables as hope for the people.

It is a hope that requires an intimate connection with the Divine. Far from blind faith in a benevolent god head, this hope is a call to co-create with God the coming kin-dom…part of which we can see and know and control and the other part which emerges in and through the Spirit…as a miraculous mystery and untameable gift.

You see, the original hearers of this parable were people still connected to the land. As farmers themselves, they understood the meaning of the parable in ways that perhaps we cannot. No farmer believes that all that is required is the planting of a seed. Farmers understand that the seed must be nurtured, nourished, and tended. A simple planting of seed would not a full harvest yield. Yet, the farmer disciples also recognized that no matter their best effort, there was something mystical and magical about the harvest they would reap. Despite their best efforts (or sometimes lack of effort) the seeds would grow in unimaginable ways. Harvests could not be predicted or controlled.

This relationship with the earth…this mutual relationship of care and trust, of nurture and independence creates the ground from which the early Christian understood these parables.
You see these parables were meant not to offer mere consolation to the disciples, but rather to incite and inspire them to action, no matter how seemingly insignificant, no matter how disappointing the results. Jesus was trying to help the disciples understand that the kin-dom of God is a joint venture between humanity and the Divine that cannot be controlled, planned for or predicted. It is the participation of the wild and restless Spirit that drives this process through history…one in which we participate, but never control.

We plant the seeds of God’s kin-dom, we nurture and tend to them, but in the process it is the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us that transforms our efforts into a miraculous harvest of peace and justice.

In the early morning hours of June 28th, 1969, s small seed of resistance, dignity and liberation burst into bloom at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. As police came to conduct their monthly raid, a sudden spirit of rebellion surged through the crowd and within minutes police and patrons alike realized this night was not to be business as usual.

For years, The Stonewall Inn, along with hundreds of others in New York and across the country had been plagued by regular, dehumanizing and humiliating raids. It was routine for gay men to be arrested for as small of an infraction as accepting a drink from an undercover police officer. Degrading, humiliating, and repressive, these raids were meant to keep the gay and lesbian community in check through ritualized and routine dehumanization. It was business as usual for those in the queer community.

So, when four plainclothes-ed police officers arrived at the Stonewall on the morning of June 28th, they expected the evening to go as usual….rounding and roughing up the suspects, arresting the flagrantly flamboyant, and going home quietly at the end of their shift. But this night was different.

When the officers sent to verify the sex of the drag queens and trans folk began their routine check, those dressed as women refused to cooperate.

When the officers sent to check the ID of the patrons began their routine interrogation, those who had been lined up refused to produce their identification.

When the officers sent to break up the crowd began shouting, those who had been released refused to disperse.

Quickly a crowd rose…50, 100, 200, people stood mocking and jeering the police. Posing and saluting the police in an exaggerated fashion, “wrists limp, hair primped” as one witness described, the crowd protested through their subversive performance of gender.

A bystander shouted, "Gay power!", while someone else began singing “We Shall Overcome.” An officer shoved a trans woman, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse as the crowd began to boo. And then a scuffle broke out as a woman in handcuffs fought back after police battered her with a billy club. Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown, sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you do something?" One witness recalls, "It was at that moment that the scene became explosive."

Pennies, beer cans, bricks and garbage flew threw the air as the crowd which had now grown to 600 began to actively resist. “Witnesses attest that the most outcast people in the gay community were responsible for inciting the first round of resistance. Suddenly fights with a veritable chorus line of drag queens broke out. Singing to the tune of The Howdy Doody Show theme song, the drag queens mocked the police: "We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs."

One witness recalls, "I just can't ever get that one sight out of my mind. The cops with the [nightsticks] and the kick line on the other side. It was the most amazing thing.... And all the sudden that kick line, which I guess was a spoof on the machismo ... I think that's when I felt rage. Because people were getting smashed with bats. And for what? A kick line."

An anonymous participant recalls, “When did you ever see a fag fight back?... Now, times were a-changin'. "

The riots ran on for days as people continued to congregate in and around the Stonewall Inn. But something was different now. With graffiti on the walls of the bar, declaring "Drag power", "They invaded our rights", "Support gay power", and "Legalize gay bars” a new spirit of liberation began to take root in the community. One witness remembers watching the open affection and love between members of the community,: "From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets."

The writer Allen Ginsberg wrote this, “You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look [they] all had 10 years ago.”

What burst into bloom that night was a seed of human dignity, freedom and liberation. Spontaneous and unexpected the collective action that night was a seed sown for generations but only brought to flower that night. Michael Fader explained,

“We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough... It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration.... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us.... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that's what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we're going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren't going to go away. And we didn't.”

This seed of resistance, of revolution, had been planted for some time within the queer community. Resistance to the repressive policies of post war America began long before Stonewall. In the early 1950s “homophile” organizations began to sprout up across the national landscape: the Mattachine Society in LA, the Daughters of Bilitis in San Francisco and in 1956 the first ever North American Conference of Homophile Organizations. These North American organizations, of course, stood on the shoulders of faithful LGBTQ members throughout history who planted seeds of justice and love their actions, witness and lives. You know their names, faithful LGBTQ people and their straight allies who advocated for the rights of all people…who do you remember?

What happened that night is just one of many moments throughout history in which we see the wild and surprising way in which the humanity and the Holy Spirit conspire for justice. Working together to plant and nurture the seeds, the harvest bursts forth in unimaginable ways.
Who expected a routine bar raid to result in the beginning of the queer liberation movement? Certainly not the police, and perhaps not even the patrons. It was a moment in which the Divine and the human came together in the Spirit of liberation to bring God’s kin-dom one step further to fruition. Since Stonewall, we in the LGBTQ movement have continued to farm for justice together with the Spirit. In just 40 short years think of the progress we have made…what are some of the harvest moments you remember?

We remember Stonewall this Pride week here in Boston, not just in celebration of the movement for full inclusion of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, but for us as Christians, as a moment in history when we co-conspired with the Divine to bring forth the kin-dom of God from a tiny seed of resistance and rebellion to the fruits of justice and liberation.

And we are not finished yet.

God calls us on further, to have faith in the tiny and sometimes unnoticed seeds that we plant, not just in the movement, but in our own lives. Everyday rebellions of open affection, coming out, and refusal to obey the heteronormative customs of our culture. Whether it is standing up to homophobic remarks or proudly displaying your family picture, we participate with God in sowing seeds of justice. No act is too small. Everything we do matters, for with God all things are possible.

So let us join together with the Divine to bring forth a harvest of God’s love in the world!

________________________________

* The quotes from this sermon are all taken from here.

A Call to Action: An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes

2009-06-10T16:18:00.002-04:00

The state of Massachusetts has a bill on the floor titled, "An Act Relative to Gender-Based
Discrimination and Hate Crimes" (H.1728/S.1687). This proposed law would prohibit discrimination in employment, lending, housing, education, and public accommodations on the basis of a person's gender identity or expression. It also adds gender identity and expression
to the hate crimes statute, which reflects the heightened level of violence experienced by transgender and gender non-conforming people.

The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition is currently reaching out to have people write letters to two judiciary co-chairs. There is a sample letter below for your use. All you have to do is print and sign the letters and mail them out. It will take five minutes and about a buck in postage, but it could mean saving some one's job, home or even life.

Please feel free to email Calyb Hare if you have any questions about the bill, about the work the MTPC is doing or have additional questions about what it means to show your support via the letter.

Mail one letters each to;

Senator Cynthia Stone Creem
Senate Staff: Room 416B
State House
Boston, MA 02133

Representative Eugene L. O'Flaherty
House Staff: Room 136
State House
Boston, MA 02133

Calyb Hare
244 Cedar St, #3
Somerville, MA 02144

and email a hard copy to calybhare@gmail.com or fax to 781-902-7598

It's very important that Calyb Hare get a copy of your letter via fax, email or snail mail so that he can add it to our total packet to present to the full committee.

__________________________________________________________________

Sample Letter:

Senator Cynthia Stone Creem
State House Room 416B
Boston, MA 02133

Representative Eugene L. O’Flaherty
State House Room 136
Boston, MA 02133

Dear Senator Creem, Representative O’Flaherty, and Members of the Committee:

I live in Massachusetts, and I am writing to ask you to support “An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” (H.1728/S.1687). This proposed law would prohibit discrimination in employment, lending, housing, education, and public accommodations on the basis of a person's gender identity or expression. It also adds gender identity and expression to the hate crimes statute, which reflects the heightened level of violence experienced by transgender and gender non-conforming people.

I believe this bill is important because transgender people and others whose gender does not conform to rigid stereotypes are often harmed by harassment, discrimination, and violence. For example, transgender people are routinely fired by their employers either before or after transitioning from one sex to another; many others remain unemployed or underemployed as a result of discrimination, hostility and misunderstanding about transgender people. Widespread prejudices about how "real men" or "real women" should look or act often lead to harassment and unfair treatment in public accommodations, housing, and credit transactions.

This legislation is vital to our community. Transgender people face discrimination in many aspects of their lives. They are often harassed at work as well as on the street. They have been denied both routine and life saving emergency medical treatment due to their status as transgender. In countless dehumanizing ways, transgender people are denied opportunities to provide for their basic needs. The Massachusetts legislature has a chance this year to send a very different message; passing this bill makes it clear that Massachusetts values all of its residents, and protects all of them equally against discrimination and violence.

I urge you to support this bill, which represents an important step towards equality for all citizens of the Commonwealth. It is time for Massachusetts to join the 13 other states and dozens of municipalities that already protect their citizens on this basis, and once again take its rightful place as a leader in the struggle for equality for all people.

Sincerely,

Your Name

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Trinity Sunday

2009-06-10T14:54:00.003-04:00

Deep in the South in 1962, 22 year old Zelda was giving birth in a university hospital. Poor, indigent and black, Zelda was not like other patients. Far from the nice, genteel white southern women who complied to the hospital rules, lying. flat on their backs in a drug induced state, Zelda broke all the rules. Pacing naked back and forth on her bed, she moved and sang and moaned with each contraction.
Student nurse, Peggy Vincent, author of the memoir, The Birth Catcher, recounts being utterly bewildered with what seemed to her at the time as crazed behavior. Struggling to care for the woman and stay in good standing with the rigid rules of Mrs. Purdue, who was her instructor, Peggy remembers her own anxiety, panic and fear as she watched Zelda labor.

See pages 18-19 of The Baby Catcher.

Much to young nurse Peggy’s chagrin, the hospital rules could not contain Zelda. It was only in a moment of mutual vulnerability, Zelda in her need to labor her way and Peggy in her need to stay within the rules, did the two figure out a way to become “conspirators in birth.” Rather than try to impose the rules on Zelda, Peggy became her co-laborer, her co-conspirator. The minute hospital staff came near she would run in the room, Zelda would lie down and pretend that all was well. In an unlikely alliance, the two of them danced together toward birth.

It was only when Zelda began to push that the hospital staff realized what was going on. Despite Peggy’s horror, the doctors and nurses who rushed in at the sound of pushing were intent to follow the rules to the letter of the Law. With thick leather cuffs they strapped Zelda to the delivery table despite her desperate screams and kicks and pleas. As Zelda tried to birth her baby, the rules of the hospital clamped down on her with ferocity.

“She’s a crazy woman!” shouted one doctor.

“Why do we let these women breed?” cried another.

Devoid of any relationality, the doctors and nurses treated Zelda like an object to be controlled, rather than a person with whom to be in relation. And all the while, fighting back tears, Peggy observed, as rules trumped relationship and Zelda was subdued. For after all, a rule is a rule is a rule. Mrs. Purdue would approve.

A rule is a rule is a rule. No matter who it hurts. No matter what relationships it violates. A rule is a rule is a rule. It is this same sense of legalistic adherence to rules that Paul addresses in the text that we read today. In order to understand the passage, we must contextualize it within Paul’s wider argument about what it means to lead a life in Christ.

Without having read the previous 7 chapters, this passage seems quite problematic. The dualism of flesh and Spirit suggest a denigration of the body and the call to suffer with Christ seems a masochistic command to salvation through pain. Yet, I believe there is much more to this passage when we read it in the context of Paul’s full argument.

For no scripture was ever meant to be read literally or a historically.

We enter Paul’s argument at the moment where he distinguishes between two ways of living. The first is a way of living life according to what Paul deems as the “flesh.” Given the dualistic interpretations of this text throughout history, we all too quickly assume that Paul is talking about the desires of the body, of our sensuality or sexuality. However, in the context of the entire chapter we come to understand that for Paul living in the flesh meant living by the human values which seek to drive us away from God…selfishness, fear, greed, and legalism.

You see, the early fundamentalist Christians were enslaved by a life driven by the flesh, rather than liberated by the Spirit. They were held captive by the Law, trying desperately to keep the commandments, dotting their lives down to the last iota. For the fear they felt, the anxiety about the uncertain nature of the world around them drove them to seek security in the very concrete, seemingly eternal and objective truth of the Law as literally depicted in scripture.

Yet, in their fearful fervor, they found they failed time and again to uphold God’s requirements of love, mercy, grace and compassion. Paul recognized this earlier in the chapter when he asserted that this type of legalistic living drives people into a state in which, as William Loader puts it, “their guilt conspires with their sense of inadequacy to produce a kind of moral impotence in which people just keep getting worse.” Legalistic living, is indeed living by the flesh…living in blind adherence to human values projected onto the divine. Scripture driven or not, this way of living is not what God intends for the world. In many ways, this was how Peggy was living her life terrorized and paralyzed by the rules imposed on from high…from the divine Mrs. Purdue and her rigid rule book.

But there is another way to live….living not by the flesh, but by the Spirit. For Paul, the radical message of Jesus was that love initiated a new relationship of belonging with God…an at-one-ment with God, as William Loader claims, “from which goodness would flow, not because of fear of disobedience, but because love begets love. Love is the fruit of the Spirit. While the way of imposing the law leads people into slavery, love liberates.”

Love liberated Peggy, if for only a moment. In recognizing their own mutuality and interconnectedness in birthing new life, Peggy and Zelda allow relationality to trump rules and forged an unlikely alliance to bring forth new life together.

This momentary alliance was indeed exactly what Paul meant by living by the Spirit. It is not isolated act of personal piety, of an individual relationship with Jesus as your personal savior, but rather living in intimate, inextricable relationship with one another, the world and ultimately the Divine. And this type of living is just the opposite of the enslavement by the Law…it is the liberation of love.

When we understand the distinction between these two ways of living and when we come to understand what Paul means by flesh and the Spirit, we begin to see the implications of this passage in a much different light. Living by the Spirit is a gift given to us by God, by virtue of our status as joint heirs with Christ.

“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Loving Parent! it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”

By using the intimate language of familial ties, Paul emphasizes the true gift or inheritance of God as relationality. We are enabled and empowered to live life in the Spirit in and through our deep connection with God.

Living by the Spirit means living our lives, not by externally imposed rules and regulations, but rather by the innate, internal law of love in which and for which we were created by the divine. Living by the Spirit is living in and through our relationship with the Divine. Being glorified with Christ, is no pie in the sky heavenly prize, but the very real and present presence of the Divine working in and through us. For the last two weeks, we have been talking about the way in which the Divine dwells in and through our very being. This, indeed, is living by the Spirit. It is a divine dance of love in which we are an integral part.

Today, on Trinity Sunday, it is quite appropriate that we celebrate the relationality of the divine in our lives…for indeed this is what the Trinity represents. Christian tradition has struggled over time to depict the reality of the divine relationality through the concept of the Trinity. One God in three.

Early in the life of the church folks tried to make sense of the relationship between God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. If God is one, what do we make of these seemingly distinct revelations of the Divine. Some tried to distinguish by substance (what they are made of), others by role or action (what they do). Yet, these interpretations failed to express the inner relationaity of the Divine. It was Augustine and the Cappadocian Fathers who first began to describe the Trinity in ways that fully expressed the mutual interaction and relationship between the three. For Augustine, the Trinity could only be known in and through Love. He used the analogy of Lover, Beloved, and Love to describe the Trinity.

The Cappadocian Fathers developed a similar idea of God’s essence through the concept of relationality. The theo-babble word we they used to describe this reality of relationships was "perichoresis" which means a mutual "indwelling," "permeating," or "interpenetrating” or even "to dance around." Perichoresis describes the Trinity as eternally giving themselves over and into one another, as if in a Divine Dance. It is not a static relationship, but a dynamic, ongoing, active relationship….a dance that knows no end.

But this dance of the Trinity is not exclusive to the Divine. If we take the account of Genesis seriously in which we are created in the image of the Divine, if we believe Jesus’ words that we have become the hands and feet of Christ for the world, if we understand Paul’s assertion that we are indeed heirs of Christ, then we see how this divine relationship extends to include us…for we have been adopted into the divine family. We have been made heirs equal with Christ….In this way we see ourselves as participating in this divine dance of love.

For Paul, living in the Spirit, is living in and through this Divine relationship of love in which are called to join the divine dance, at once being the lover, beloved and love for and with the world. Yet, this way of being is difficult to maintain in a world ruled by the Law, by the legalistic demands of the flesh. It is this tension between the world of law and the world of love that may lead to suffering. Here, Paul is not prescribing suffering as a necessity of salvation and redemption, but rather explaining that to love so fully, may create conflict with the world and may lead to suffering…such as we witnessed in the life and death of Jesus. But, as full participants in the life of love, we are called to follow love at all costs.

Lest we understand this divine dance of love as exclusive, Paul makes clear that this relationship, this divine dance, is not limited to a human-God relationship but rather extends to all of creation. Paul looks to the renewal and rebirth of all creation. The Divine dance of love includes all of creation….from bacteria to baleen.

“For the creation waits with eager longing …” It is not just humanity that longs for redemption in and through and with the Divine…but all of creation.

In Paul’s understanding, the universe is like a mother in the final stages of pregnancy.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of the world.”

As William Loader imagines, “It is almost as though Paul sees the Spirit as the panting in the birth process. The Spirit - indeed God - is travailing with us for change.”

Several years after attending the traumatic birth with Zelda, Peggy was called upon to attend to Mrs. Purdue, the very instructor who had instilled such fear in Peggy that she became paralyzed to help Zelda in her time of travail. Now more than ever she had to be absolutely perfect. The rules were the rules were the rules and she had to demonstrate her ability to the one on high that she could indeed enforce them. As intimidating as it was, Peggy began her work with Mrs. Purdue with all formality and rigidity as she had been taught.

See pages 32-33 of The Baby Catcher.

Throughout the night Mrs. Purdue and Peggy abandoned the legalistic hospital rules and instead melded together in what Peggy calls the “dance of birth.” Rocking and swaying and dancing together, the two became one as they brought new life into the world. Suddenly the enforcer became the transgressor. Perhaps, these rules were always meant to be broken. Even Mrs. Purdue, the symbolic keeper of the rules, realized that relationship trumps all. For new life, cannot come under the scrutiny of rigid regulation, but must be allowed to be birthed in a divine dance of relationality that connects all creation through love. In their dance of birth, Mrs. Purdue and Peggy symbolized for us all the power of relationship to loose divine creativity in the world.

When we let go of the fear of disobedience, the anxiety of following the rules, the projections of good and right behavior, and instead give ourselves over the wild and unpredictable nature of the Spirit working in and through us, we find ourselves living not by the flesh of enslaving law, but rather by the love of the liberating Spirit. It is in and through this relationship that we join with creation in bringing forth God’s kin-dom.

We are called to allow ourselves to dance intimately with eth Divine, to let go of fear and rock with the rhythms of life being birthed in us and in the world.

Pentecost Sunday

2009-06-10T14:51:00.002-04:00

Today in churches around the world, we celebrate the festival of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, the birthing of the church, the breaking in of God’s kin-dom. Congregations far and wide drape the church in red, proclaiming the Good News of the day with trumpet fanfares, dramatic readings and thrilling music. It is the least the modern church could do, given the chaotic, euphoric outburst depicted in Luke’s Acts, isn’t it?

The text, itself, reads like a summer blockbuster movie script. It is now 50 days since Jesus’ death and resurrection and 120 disciples have gathered in the upper room awaiting the coming of the Counselor, the Comforter, the One Christ promised who would bring them healing and hope. Perhaps still in shock from the tragedy of the Lenten journey and the miracle of resurrection, they cower in silent anticipation. While the city below bustles with the excitement of the Jewish harvest festival, the Feast of Weeks, the nascent community of Christ anxiously and quietly waits and waits and waits. As ten long days and nights pass, the tension mounts in the stuffy, closed up space, the music crescendos and the audience senses something exciting is about to happen.

Suddenly there is a sound like the rush of a violent wind that came from the heavens, and there appeared divided tongues, as if of fire, flaming tongues that came and rested on each person, filling them with the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine the surprise of the disciples who awaited a gentle comforter? Here was no quiet counselor…here was a chaotic, loud, flaming presence that sent unknown power coursing through their bodies, compelling them to speak in a language they had not before known.

As the fire descends upon the heads of each person, they begin to speak in other languages given to them by the Spirit. The text tells us that this riotous spectacle drew onlookers from the festival below. Those who had traveled from every nation and state to be in Jerusalem for the festival gathered round to see what was happening. As the diverse crowd of gawkers gathered, they all heard the Galilean believers speaking, but rather than hear the new, unrecognizable language of the Spirit, the diverse crowd of people heard the disciples in their own native tongue. Ecstatic jibberish flowing forth in a cacophony of sound, yet being understood as loud and clear as if spoken in one’s own native tongue!

The text tells us that the crowds were amazed and astonished, not only that by the flaming presence of the Spirit and the miraculous experience of intelligible Babel, but by the fact that this holy deed was being accomplished in and through mere Galileans, ancient hill-billies, supposed ignorant country bumpkins. How was this possible?

The Pentecost story is often interpreted as a story of fantastic surprise…for the disciples, for the crowds, for the audience, both ancient and modern.

Yet, I wonder why we find this story so surprising? The Spirit’s arrival should have come as no surprise to the people of faith for God had been foretelling of this event for generations upon generations. The Spirit was not a novel creation of God, post-resurrection. The Spirit was not a new force sent to birth the church and set the world on fire. No, the Spirit had always been with the people of God, dwelling in and through them.

From the very beginning of Creation, our sacred texts declare the presence of the Spirit…

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while Spirit swept over the face of the waters.”

And when God created humanity, the text tells us, "God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, So God created humankind in the Divine image, in the image of the Divine, God created them.”

From the very beginning the Spirit has lived and dwelt in humanity…an integral part of their very being. Yet, the Spirit lay dormant for generations as the people turned from their own power in search of Divine salvation. We read of prophets time and again trying to awaken the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in humanity, prompting them through prophetic calls to action and pleas to God to pour out once again the Holy Spirit upon the people.

It’s what the prophet Jeremiah longed for when he wrote of God’s new covenant, “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time . . . I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).

It is what Isaiah prophesied, The spirit of God is upon me, because God has anointed me; and sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.”

It’s what the prophet Joel predicted when he said, “And afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all people” (Joel 2:28).

The Spirit has always been with us…even if at times it has gone unrecognized.
Jesus, too promised the disciples of the Counselor, the Comforter, the One who would come after him to lead the disciples. The Pentecost experience should have come as no surprise to the disciples for they had been instructed to wait for the Spirit. Indeed, in this text we find them doing just that. The problem was that the disciples expected something much different. I imagine they expected One who would come and take care of them, who would shepherd and enfold them, like a mother hen, healing them in their grief and defend them from those who sought to persecute them. I imagine that they sought the fulfillment of the hope of Jesus as the Messiah, of One powerful and mighty, who would rule from on high and exercise power on their behalf.

But instead what the disciples discovered was an unruly, chaotic force that coaxed up out of the depths of their being power unimaginable. It was not the Spirit who was to heal the wounds, confront the unjust world order and preach the Good News…it was them! They had the power all along…it just needed to be re-awakened, ignited, called forth.

This was not what the disciples expected, but then again, the Spirit is often not what we expect.

You see Pentecost is not the first arrival of the Spirit, but rather the reawakening of the Divine presence that already resides in the people. The pentecost experience unleashes the power of the Holy Spirit that already dwells in the disciples, but has been forgotten, covered over and ignored through the ages.

Last week, we read from a translation from Walter Wink in which Jesus prays for the disciples before the ascension. Here, Jesus laments that the people have for far too long projected their power onto him. Remember, Jesus prays,

“Until now they have been limited in what they can do, because they have projected all their own divine powers on me and on you. But now, they will no longer have me to carry their projections. They will discover powers unimaginable within themselves--your divine power within them and they will do greater works than even I did. Right now they are content with theophanies, disclosures of divine love and power, signs and wonders. But the thing they lack is completion in themselves. Like a catalyst I have opened them to their utmost possibilities, but they have persisted in identifying them with me. In my absence they will be thrown on your power within them. When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.”

It should come as no surprise that this power dwelt within the disciples all along…God created it, the prophets foretold it and Jesus promised it. Pentecost simply offered the disciples a second baptism, a reawakening of the divine fire, of the soul-force, of the grace, of the Spirit that resided in each of them from the beginning of time.

The disciples were not meant to cower in quiet fear after the resurrection. They were meant to live out resurrection through their own lives, going forth into the world to do as Jesus said, even greater things than I. Yet, it seemed the trauma of the cross and the miracle of resurrection had locked the disciples in their own tombs of fear and self-doubt. What Pentecost did was awaken and enliven the Spirit each of them already had dwelling within and ignited the fire of God’s love in all whom they encountered.

It is no coincidence that today we celebrate the baptism of Lucas Nguyen-Powell. It was a divine syn-croncity that this day was chosen for it is not only the church’s celebration of the second baptism of the reawakening of God’s Spirit in each of us, but it is also on this day 19 years ago that Jen confirmed her faith and entered the Church as a full member. Life come full circle…the Spirit poured out on one and passed down to another.

Pentecost indeed is the second baptism of the spirit. Our baptismal liturgy speaks of a dual baptism…one of water and the spirit. This day, this penetcost we celebrate that baptism of the Spirit. But we must remember, it is not a bestowal of God’s grace and Spirit, but rather a re-awakening, a recognition, an affirmation of the grace and Spirit of God already dwelling in and through Lucas. Our sacred scriptures tell us that even as we are formed in our mothers’ womb, God’s spirit enfolds us. Each of us here is born with that grace and that Spirit dwelling in us. The problem is that we sometimes forget that it is there, allowing it to become covered up, tarnished and neglected by the world around us.

This is exactly what had happened to a young woman, named Fayette, who was a new member at Edgehill United Methodist Church years ago.

She had come to the church one summer, pacing back and forth outside the open doors, listening intently to the music, the laughter, the words. She looked weary and worn by life. She walked with shoulders’ hunched and head hung, not daring to catch anyone’s eye for fear of them noticing her. There was no spark to her…not anymore…just a tired soul who longed for more, but expected little. Whatever life had dealt her the years the before, left her seemingly but a shell.

Occasionally she would crouch down on the front steps engrossed, amazed and astounded at what she heard. Little by little that summer Fayette moved from the sidewalk to the steps, from the steps to the door and finally one day from the door to the pew. It was as if something was being reawakened in her Sunday by Sunday.

Months passed and finally Fayette decided to join a membership class. As part of this class, the began to explain about baptism. She began, “You see, in baptism, each of us is named…” but before she could finish, Fayette jumped up and with excitement and enthusiasm, and began to finish her sentence….“each of us is named by God as bright, brilliant, beloved children of God and beautiful to behold.” “I know. I know those those words. I heard you say them before at all those other baptisms.”

“That’s right, we say them as a response to everyone’s baptism.

“Well,” said Fayette, “I can’t wait till you say them at MY baptism!!”

It seemed from that day forward Fayette began reciting those words over and over again whenever she could. During prayer time, in the middle of the sermon, in the midst of a hymn, you could hear Fayette shouting out, “You are a bright, brilliant, beloved child of God and you are beautiful to behold!”

Finally the day came for Fayette to be baptized. As she emerged from the waters, she sprang out of the baptismal, pool dancing and leaping for joy down the aisle. Turning to the congregation she said, “And now I am…” and the whole of the congregation responded to her, “bright, brilliant, and beloved child of God and beautiful to behold.” Clearly the grace and power of the Holy Spirit had been reawakended in Fayette through baptism and she was indeed a new person.

Well, not long after that, the pastor received one of those dreaded middle of the night phone calls. It was the local hospital calling to say that Fayette was there, having been brought in after a brutal assault. As the approached Fayette’s room, she could hear her mumbling to herself, “bright, brilliant, beloved…bright, brilliant…bright, brilliant, beloved child of…” Standing in the doorway Janet could see Fayette pacing back and forth. Her face was swollen and bruised, muddied and bloodied, hair going this way and that.

She turned to see Janet standing there and she said “I am bright, brilliant, beloved child of God…” but she couldn’t quite finish it. Again she started, “I am bright, brilliant, beloved child of God” and turning to see herself in the mirror with the reality of the words not matching the image staring back at her, she went on, “And God is still working on me! And if you come back tomorrow I’ll be so beautiful to behold you won’t recognize me!”

You see, Fayette knew, even in the midst of the tragedy and trauma that was so often her life, that there was nothing that could ever hide, tarnish or cover over the power of the Divine dwelling in her. No matter what people might say or do to her, no matter the reflection in the mirror, Fayette recognized the image of the Divine looking back at her in that mirror, for her baptism had re-awakened it in her. Fayette knew more than most of us that nothing could ever take back, erase, or wash away that mark she had been given in baptism…she was forever permanently and powerfully marked as that bright, brilliant, beloved child of God and she was beautiful to behold! There was nothing that could ever again

Today, we gather to repeat that ritual once again for Lucas in hopes that as he is marked as an infant the Divine spark within him is affirmed and re-awakened so that he might grow all his days with the knowledge that he is indeed a bright, brilliant, beloved child of God who is beautiful to behold. We do this ritual as a community, because we recognize that this rite is not only for Lucas but for all of us. Baptism is a pouring out of grace, but also an initiation into the life of the community…the community that is charged with reminding, not just Lucas, but each and everyone of us gathered here, just how very powerful we are. For it is only in and through each of us that we come to know the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within.

A Sermon for Mothers' Day

2009-06-10T14:49:00.000-04:00

These past few weeks, the lectionary readings have been from the First Letter of John. At the heart of each reading for the past three weeks and for the next two weeks has been one word…love. In this passage alone within the space of 15 verses, John uses the word “love” 25 times. You can hardly miss his point!

Yet, the word love, as frequently intoned as it is, is not so easy to define. Throughout centuries scholars have spent lifetimes crafting definitions of love that adequately describe the philosophical, ontological and metaphysical reality of this human phenomenon. Recently I received an email with this very question. But this time rather than leave the answers to the scholars of the day, a group decided to ask children ages 4 to 8 the simple question…what is love? Here are a few of their answers.

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine-age 5

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my mommy waving and smiling. She was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy - age 8

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

Love is like how my mommy says my name, When someone who loves you they say your name it is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4

The children need no fancy words or theological concepts to understand love…they know it when they see it…or better put, they know it when they feel it. You see, love is not an abstract concept or philosophical state of being, much to the chagrin of countless philosophers and theologians throughout time. No, love is a concrete reality that we as humans are open to experience through our relationships with one another.

Reading back over these statements, it is striking how many children identify love with their mothers. In the very ordinary events of making coffee, saying goodnight and speaking their names, the children recognize love in their mother’s actions.

For many of us our first experience of love does come through a mother’s love…the warm embrace and light kisses on our cheeks and foreheads (kisses that we soon struggle to avoid once we reach adolescence), the cold-compresses and hot bowls of chicken soup when we are sick, the compassionate embraces of forgiveness after we have done the worst, the unconditional support and encouragement no matter how poorly we might play the clarinet, or kick the ball, or swing the bat or dance in the recital.

Being a mother is never biologically determined…mothering transcends kinship ties. For some of us, our own biological mothers provided more harm than healing, more conflict than love and so we had to look elsewhere to find the mothering we needed. For many of us that first experience of love came through mother figures, people, both women and men, who modeled that type of unconditional love through their actions.

For me, I came to know love most fully in the arms of Mama Tana, my adopted Nicaraguan mother. Mama Tana was a beautiful, big round woman, with a smile and a laugh that could crack any frown. Although Mama Tana had her own brood…there were more than 25 people living in her three room house…her love was endless and overflowed to all who knew her. Everyone in town called her Mama, from the adopted daughters she took in to live with her to the street vendors to the children at school. Just as she mothered the town, Mama Tana soon became my mother as well.

I remember vividly one night coming to her house after work. I had had a bad day and felt horrible. I felt as though I was a bad teacher, a horrible person and a faithless Christian. Mama Tana took one look at me and asked me how I was…I tried to answer but found instead of words only sobs came. I could not explain to her how awful I felt, how inadequate, how alone, how alienated. All I could do was cry…and as I did, Mama Tana enveloped me in her in wide arms and held me close, rocking me as if I were an infant. In her embrace I suddenly felt warm all over, the dark depression in which I found myself was shattered by a light of hope and love. Mama Tana loved me no matter what I did. In those few moments, I knew the grace of God in Mama Tana’s arms. Soon after I bought the picture I showed to you, for it became to me a picture of the Divine Mama Tana, the God of love I had experienced in her arms.

It is through experiences like these of human love that we glimpse God’s love for us. John is clear that while we may not be able to see God, at least not in this lifetime, we can come to know God through the love we have for one another: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.” If we love one another, God lives in us.

You see John understands that love is the very foundation of God’s being. When all else is said and done, God is love. We know this not through theological speculation or philosophical deduction, but through our concrete relationships with others. It is only through the love we have for one another that we come to know and experience God in our lives.

In a very real way, the love of our mothers’, both biological and chosen, incarnates for us the love of God. God, like a mother, continuously brings forth new life nurtures and cares for creation, wipes away tears, gives comfort and grants us grace beyond measure no matter what we do. While not often as well known as the passages that compare God to a Father, the Bible is indeed full of images of God as mother.
God is described throughout Scripture as a loving mother: God is a woman in labor whose forceful breath is an image of divine power; God is a mother suckling her children; God is a mother who does not forget the child she nurses; God is a mother who comforts her children; God is a mother who births and protects Israel; God is a mother who gave birth to the Israelites. The early scripture writers understood the ways in which the Divine is known to us through our mothers. Through this human love we come to know divine love in God, as we are birthed, fed, nurtured, comforted and cared for. It makes you wonder why we call God “he” when the Bible is full of so much rich mothering imagery for God!
The imagery is indeed rich and multi-layered, giving us glimpses of the diverse and depth of the Divine character. Loving and caring, yes, but also fierce and faithful. God’s love as mother is also portrayed as fierce. In scripture we read of God as a Mother eagle and mother bear, fiercely protecting their young against life-threatening situations. Jesus himself is described as a mother hen who gathers in her brood, to shelter and care for them, to instruct and teach them in the ways of the world.
This fierce love at times becomes swallowed up in our hallmark inspired sentimentality around this special day. We romanticize the love of our mothers as gentle and soft and forget the ways in which mothers reveal to us the tougher ways in which God calls us to love. Love is never easy, even with our mothers!
The original Mother’s Day proclamation was not a sappy rhyming poem inscribed on a greeting card, rather this is how it read”
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender to those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
- from Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870 by Julia Ward Howe

Mother's Day in this country began not as a chance to support Hallmark, but as a cry for peace. “Our husbands will not come reeking with carnage and our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn what we have taught them.” This proclamation is more than tender reverence for mothers; it is a cry of protest amid a violent nation. Mothers everywhere are called to say no to violence and yes to peace, called to reveal God’s fierce love for humanity in a resolute stand against the world’s warring madness.

Having lived through the civil war in this country, Julia Ward Howe was keenly aware of the pain, loss and grief war inflicts on mothers everywhere …no matter which side they fought on. She understood the ties that bind those who mother and sought to use this common bond to seek peace and reconciliation in a time of war.

“We, the women of this country, will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.” Mother’s Day originally transcended nuclear family ties and instead of binding one small household in maternal love, stretched the familial ties across nations and around the world. In this proclamation she united mothers everywhere in a love that sought, not just comfort for some, but peace and justice for all.

Julia Ward Howe understood that the Christian call to family transcends our common notions of kinship. Rather than idolize the perfect nuclear family of mother, father, son and daughter, the kinship lines of the Church, of the Body of Christ, transcend these divisions, uniting us all in a common family, with God as our Mother, our heavenly parent. As Christians, we proclaim, “we are family” as a radical form of protest to the ways in which the world seeks to divide us from one another.

The early church knew that the tie that binds was not one of family lineage, nor city state nor nation. No, the family to which we owe our primary allegiance is our Christian family, that transcends common kinship bonds.

Jesus, who longed to gather us as a hen gathers her children, spoke of us as a single family, with one divine parent. He spoke of us as a single living vine, all of us branches of one being. “I am the vine and you are the branches,” said Jesus. We are all intimately connected to one another in this great global family. What happens to one, happens to all.

Peace begins in knowing that our enemies are not "other," but ourselves. The strangers whom we battle are the brothers and sisters whose hearts are bound with ours. Those whom we dehumanize and demonize and belittle and ignore are our own flesh and blood. When we turn away from genocide in Dafur and tolerate sweatshops in Nicaragua, it is our own family that we are abusing. And our divine Mother weeps equally for us all. We want so deeply for God to care a little more about us than our enemies, but she will not. If we can know God’s love through the love of the mother’s in our lives, we can understand the ways in which God loves all her children equally with a fierce and tender love that transcends our limited notions of human kinship. She loves all her children, and neither our pride nor our fear will dissuade her.

Give thanks for the love of our Mother God. Give thanks for our kindred, even the ones with whom we fight. Pray that God will have mercy on us and heal our bitter hearts. Pray that we will honor our unity in God's love. This Mother's Day, pray that we may come to know that we are all children of one Mother, loving and all-powerful, who gives her life for us, that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

Stand Our Ground

2009-05-26T14:45:00.003-04:00

"Weeping may linger for the night,"

- Psalm 30:5a

Today we weep at the news that California's Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the unjust ballot initiative that stripped the right to marry from thousands of loving couples. We mourn the seeming triumph of prejudice and discrimination and lament the loss of marriage equality for the citizens of California.

"but joy comes with the morning. "

Psalm 30:5b

Yet, we are reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." We have been promised by God a new world order in which peace and justice flow, in which love and compassion trump hatred, bigotry and prejudice. And it is in this coming kin-dom that we place our faith, for already we see glimpses of it breaking through. . .

Massachusetts
Connecticut
Maine
Iowa. . .

and many more to come. . .

Today we weep, but tomorrow we find our joy in action, making real that vision of the kin-dom through inspired commitments, passionate advocacy and unrelenting activism!

We 've Only Just Begun

2009-05-24T13:48:00.003-04:00

When I was little, I had a children’s bible storybook. It began with some stories from the Hebrew Testament…Moses and the burning bush, David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah. It went on to tell the story of Jesus’ birth and life, focusing on the miracles of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, raising the dead. The final chapter of the book depicted Jesus’ death on a cross and his glorious resurrection. I remember clearly the very last page of the book with Jesus draped in long, white flowing fabric, seemingly floating above the tomb with golden rays beaming from a magnificent halo hovering just above his head.

“And when the disciples went to the tomb, they found it empty, for Jesus had risen from the dead. The End!”

The end? Yes, the end. Most children’s books depict the Christian story centered chronologically around the life of Jesus. Birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection. The end.

Is resurrection really the end of the story? Is that really all there is to our faith? If resurrection is the end of the story, what is the point? Why bother being Christian? Why bother living a life in the image of Christ if all is done and accomplished once and for all??

Yet, resurrection is not the end of the Christian story; it is only just the beginning. While it is true that our faith tradition extends far back, sharing common ancestry with our Jewish and Muslim cousins through our ancestors Abraham and Sarah, it is equally true that our faith tradition extends far forward into the future, decades, centuries after Jesus life, death and resurrection as a living, breathing, dynamic faith.

Jesus knew that his death would not be the end of this radical movement of faith of which he was a part. Jesus knew that after he was gone, the disciples and friends would be called upon to do much greater things than he had ever done. Jesus knew that the story was not ending…it was simply beginning.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus articulates this understanding of post-resurrection life (really, post-death life, since it is highly unlikely even Jesus suspected the divine surprise of resurrection as depicted in scripture…). This evening, we read a portion of Jesus’ prayer on behalf of the disciples and the future church as paraphrased by Walter Wink. The author of John, writing almost a century after the death and resurrection of Jesus uses this prayer to frame both the hopes and challenges of the early church.

The prayer articulates both Jesus’ task while alive and the call of the disciples after his death. I appreciate Wink’s translation in that it highlights Jesus’ purpose not in dying, but in living. Jesus’ task was not to reveal Divine purpose in his torturous death on a cross, but rather to reveal the Gospel embodied, incarnated in his life and ministry.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. I have revealed your essence to those who have been responsive to me…Now they know that everything you have given me is from you. They have grasped the fact that everything I have disclosed comes from you, for I have taught them what you have been teaching me.”

This passing on of divine knowledge is not, however, merely a transmission of information or facts. It is not a deposit of holy secrets through rational, logical argumentation. Rather, the way in which Jesus taught the disciples happened in and through relationship. Theologian, William Loader, describes it this way: “The offer is, in that sense, not revelation (information, knowledge-about), but relationship (coming to know a person).” This relationship is an intimate connection not just between Jesus and God, but in, among and between humanity and the Divine.
Jesus prays, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine. They are yours, I am yours, you are ours.”

It is an intimate, mutual relationship that bridges the gap between the divine and human. Indeed, this is what atonement is. At-one-ment…the bringing together of divine and human in one…not just in the person of Jesus, but in all Creation. Through Jesus’ life and ministry the world and the Divine are made one.
This relationship is the key to understanding post-resurrection life. For this mutual, cooperative relationship between human and Divine sets the stage for what the disciples are called to do. Just as Jesus’ task was to reveal the Gospel through his life and ministry, so also the disciples, now seen as one with the Divine are also called to embody the Gospel for the world.

The post-resurrection call to the disciples is not about discrete knowledge which they are to pass on as a street corner evangelist shouting propositional truths. No, the post-resurrection call on the disciples is to embody a very way of being in the world so that in and through their lives, others can come to know and practice the way of resurrection life, so that the at-one-ment Jesus began can continue in the world in and through their witness.

Wink’s interpretation of this passage makes this point absolutely clear:
“As I have humanized your divinity, so you are divinizing our humanity. The qualitative distinction between you and us dissolves. The divine prerogatives are given to humanity…Your real capacity to incarnate in human beings, God, is evidenced not just by your presence and power in me, but in the capacity of these nobodies to create a movement that will span the globe.”

Clearly, resurrection is not the end of the story, for through this prayer we see that Jesus’ resurrection initiates a radical movement that will span the globe. Divinity does not simply apparate or ascend into heaven after the resurrection….no, this prayer suggests that indeed the Holy dwells even more intimately in and among the world through the concrete lives of the disciples. For in them, not just in Jesus, the Divine has been incarnated.

Here the focus shifts clearly from Jesus to humanity. From Christ to us. Look around. God is incarnate in each of us here today. We are the modern disciples who now bear God’s image for the world in our lives and in our ministries.
This indeed is a gift of grace, but this gift also comes with great responsibility.
We not only share in the same relationship with Jesus and God, intimately, mutually bound, but we also share the same task that we are to embody the Divine for the world. Look around. If the world is to know God, it is only in and through our witness. We are it, for better or for worse.

Easier said than done, right?

And Jesus knew that. This prayer in John that we read this evening depicts Jesus as a compassionate friend who knows well the dangers his friends will face after he is gone. The prayer itself is a plea for strength in the face of the inevitable challenges that come with embodying the Divine for the world.

The community of John knew these dangers first hand. The early Christians were marginalized, excluded and oppressed by both the mainline Jewish community and the secular culture in which they lived. The Domination System, that is the status quo of power, where might makes right, is diametrically opposed to the way of the kin-dom and challenges disciples then and now in their efforts to live the way of Christ. Love, peace, mercy, compassion, non-violence, forgiveness, justice…these are alien to the Domination System. To live lives marked by these qualities those who seek to follow Christ’s way must confront the domination systems in their lives and in the world.

Jesus understood that this constant confrontation with the world around them would be difficult. The temptations of losing hope, of giving up, of walking away from all they had been taught were real for the disciples…for Gospel living in the midst of the Domination System is no easy task! The reference to Judas reminds the listeners, ancient and contemporary, of the dangers of becoming alienated from God in the midst of struggle. For John, the danger here is not in discrete acts of sin (selling Jesus to the authorities for a bribe), but rather in losing touch with both the vision of the coming kin-dom and the intimate relationship between humanity and Divine. Judas gave up the vision of the kin-dom in which peace and justice flow both because he could not believe it to be true and because he did not understand the depth of relationship between himself and the Divine. By alienating himself from God, he cut himself off from deep love, compassion and mercy…so much so that he abandoned both Jesus and himself to death.

Often, these challenges are framed as obstacles only the Divine can overcome and the prayer interpreted as a plea on Jesus’ behalf to help the clueless disciples in their post-resurrection life. God help these poor souls! But this is no prayer to magically protect the disciples from harm. This is no Divine defense charm. Jesus understands that the way of protection is not through the elimination of challenge, sorrow or danger, but in and through the Divine relationship.

Jesus prays, “Enfold them in your very being. You cannot surround them with a perfect providence that prevents their suffering the normal outrages of physical illness or rejection and persecution by the Powers. You certainly haven't done that for me! But in that enfolding you can make them one with you and with me and with each other. You can give them a foretaste of your domination-free order.”

What I so appreciate about Wink’s interpretation is that he continues to highlight and emphasize the significance of the relationship between humanity and the Divine. It is in and through this relationship that the disciples find not just comfort, but power and agency.

In this translation, Jesus is not begging for the silly, foolish, lost disciples, but rather voicing their agency and power as the ones who will continue the task of being the Gospel for the World. In Wink’s interpretation, these are no helpless disciples. These are agents and bearers of great power.

“While I was with them, I protected them… I guarded them. I sent them out as sheep among wolves, but they were not, for all that, defenseless. Your very being was at their core, and that itself is a miraculously disarming power….Until now they have been limited in what they can do, because they have projected all their own divine powers on me and on you. But now that I am to be killed, they will no longer have me to carry their projections. They will discover powers unimaginable within themselves--your divine power within them, Abba. And they will do greater works than even I did, because I am getting out of their way. And we are getting into them in a new way.”

Far too often we imagine ourselves as powerless in the face of the challenges of the world. Far too often we project all of our own power onto the god-head, seeking help from above, when we already possess the power to change the world.

Jesus understands this, praying, “They do not yet understand that my leaving them will complete their joy. Right now they are content with theophanies, disclosures of divine love and power, signs and wonders. But the thing they lack is completion in themselves.”

Of course, this notion of powerlessness in the face of the Divine has been reinforced through our Christian traditions time and time again. The “infinite gap between human and Divine” emphasized to the exclusion of seeing in ourselves the image of the Divine. Now, don’t get me wrong, this passage does not say we are invincible. It does not deny that we will face challenges or even that we will sometimes fail. What it does do, is help us to see the Divinity that lies within us, so that not only do we have the power to face the challenges of the world, but we also have the assurance that God dwells in and through us no matter what happens.
Listen again to these words… “Like a catalyst I have opened them to their utmost possibilities, but they have persisted in identifying them with me. In my absence they will be thrown on your power within them. When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.”

“I have opened them to their utmost possibilities… When they discover that power, their joy will be boundless.” Our post-resurrection task is to discover and unleash that power we have been given in and through our relationship with the Divine. When we take these words of Jesus seriously, we begin to see ourselves as the very soul of the Divine making real for the world God’s love in our concrete everyday actions.

We are no hapless disciples, abandoned in the world without any help. No, we have been empowered, not just to proclaim the Gospel, but to be the Gospel.

The end? No, not ever. Resurrection is not the end of the story. It is just the beginning, for resurrection is Divine power for transformation poured out into human form….not just Jesus’, but ours. Look around. Christ is present!

Resurrection did not end with Jesus 200 years ago, but continues to transform and shape the world in dynamic ways to the extent to which we live out its practices in the world. When we begin to take seriously the at-one-ment with the Divine we witness through Jesus’ life and ministry, when we begin to understand the depths of our relationship in and to the Divine, when we look in the mirror and recognize the Holy incarnate in ourselves, we become empowered to take on the task and challenge of living out resurrection life each and every day.

Resurrection is not the end….it is our beginning!

Resurrecting the Radical Church

2009-04-08T19:48:00.002-04:00

I typically avoid reading the comments to online news articles because it seems to me that the majority of responses are extreme, offensive (often ignorant) reactions against the article. Thus, unless I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I generally stay away from the comments. But I did look at the most recent one in response to a Des Moines Register column that reported reactions and official statements from various religious leaders regarding the Iowa Supreme Court's decision to strike down the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

While I never expect anything profound in the comments, what I found in this one hit me particularly deep: "[W]hat was hated about [Jesus's] message was the love and acceptance it brought. The Church Establishment wants its authority, not for people to join together in love."

Before continuing, let me clarify "Church Establishment." When I speak of the Church in this post, I do not mean to suggest that there are not churches whose mission can be encapsulated in the idea of joining together in love. Indeed, we know that there are. I am thinking rather of the Church Establishment as the institutional church. Even here, the structures of the church function positively and justly in many ways. But we also know that institutions are by nature conservative, slow to change themselves. Authority is found in what can be stated and known concretely. Institutions rarely value fluidity and radical transformation. It is in this way that I consider the above statement to address a stark reality of the Church as an established institution, perhaps better suited for the maintenance of power and authority than for radical love and community.

As we journey through Holy Week, we are reminded of the expression of human power through violent repression of radical love and welcome. The Establishment wants its authority, not for people to join together in love. But love cannot be defeated, not even through death. Resurrection is the promise that new life, new hope, new ways of being in the world are the direction toward which we are called; it is the perfection for which we strive.

The early communities of Jesus followers were diverse and often very radical. They re-imagined their tradition in fantastically creative ways. They, including Jesus and Paul, interpreted their scriptures freely. They pushed traditional social, ethnic, and religious boundaries. We know that at least some communities practiced a new kind of radical equality. They were committed to living out Resurrection and opening it up for as many as wanted to join in a spirit of love.

These predecessors of the early Church did not set out to establish their own authority, but they challenged the norms, rooted in the authority of radical welcome, equality, and possibility that they understood Jesus to have taught. In contrast, the Church today seems largely reactionary and extraordinarily slow to change.

It has been state Supreme Courts, charged with upholding ideals of equality, that have paved the way for just and equal definitions of marriage, even when the public has not been ready. Indeed, this is the function of the justice system -- to uphold justice when the people will not necessarily do so on their own. And faced with new ways of thinking and being in the world, the people, over time, have generally expanded their understanding and acceptance of the range of human possibility on various issues.

What used to be the Church leading the way, welcoming in and advocating with and for the marginalized, could be yet again today. But sadly, the Church Establishment wants its authority, not for people to join together in love. I suspect that in the face of its own decline in public significance, the Church, by and large, is struggling to make itself relevant and doing so by looking back upon what has been authoritative.

Yet, the Church Establishment often fails to look back upon what perpetually looks forward: Resurrection.

Holy Week reminds us of the establishment's reaction against what was radical and transformative, what pressed forward. May we remember as we face the tensions, too often violent, that arise when courageous people push onward, that our faith indeed presses us on toward Resurrection. And may the Church become what it has always been called to be: not an enforcer of strict doctrines but a realization of Resurrected life in the world, a body that calls all to join together in love.

Lenten Reflections - Week 4

2009-04-06T12:51:00.001-04:00

After service Sunday, March 22, 2009 members of the CWM congregation gathered to discuss with whom we have a relationship. This is the first 'wheel' to come from that discussion. Further details are provided below the images.

Once the participants in the discussion with whom CWM had a relationship with, we then discussed how some relationships were connected, or had a similar relationship to CWM. This is the wheel from that discussion. Further details are provided below the image.

After service Sunday, March 22, members of the CWM congregation gathered to discuss with whom we have a relationship with, and then we took a closer look at those places with whom we have a ‘special’ relationship (special defined as important, relationships that stood out to us as a community). We discussed what characterized this special relationship and what our hopes were for the future of this relationship. There were six places designated as ‘special’ relationships: Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), Church within a Church (CWAC), College Ave UMC (CAUMC), NE Annual Conference (NEAC), Reconciling churches, and the CWM Diaspora. Below are the characteristics and hopes for these relationships.

RMN**
• Contact with national staff and programs
• Mutuality - Input/open communication between both organizations
• Mutual learning
• Respect from RMN and to RMN
• Commitment to principles on RMN side
• Power sharing between both organizations

Church within a Church**
• Loving pride
• Support national coordinating committee
• Mutual support
• Ongoing
• Intentional relationship with CWAC
• Intentional support of goals of CWAC

College Ave UMC** (and any future churches who may house CWM)
• Mutuality
• Cross visitation
• Joint services
• Increased lay communication
• Genuinely feeling welcomed by CAUMC
• Clear understanding and relationship on both sides
o Covenant

NE Annual Conference**
• Resource for CWM – mutual; non-dependent autonomous
• Visits from others to experience CWM
• CWM voluntarily pays mission shares
o Witness to the church
• Members of Annual Conference
• CWM congregants volunteer at General Conference
• NEAC support CWM financially like other missions
• NEAC recognize CWM as an authentic ecclesial community and that CWM has authentic worship
• Mutuality
• CWM is a model for inclusive ecclesial community celebrated by the NEAC
• CWM is a model for the NEAC on how to function on a low budget
• CWM seed to Reconciling committee

Reconciling Churches**
• Mutual communication
• Cultivate greater communication between laity
• One-to-one connection
• Financial support
• CWM visits to other Reconciling Churches

CWM Diaspora**
• Mutual communication
• Ongoing relationship between current members of the congregation and those who have moved
• Mutual give and take relationship
• Foster CWM ethos wherever relocated
• Different relationship – special correspondence should be maintained
o Newsletter?
• Know where they are so can possibly visit
o CWM initiated
• Lifting up in prayer
• Sharing stories
• Re-membering

wild success (in 2014)

2009-03-30T11:27:00.003-04:00

As part of our Lenten Vision and Discernment process, this past Sunday we were invited to take a few minutes and draft the opening paragraph of a newspaper article 5 years from now about CWM's wild success. These are the ones we wrote.

***

CWM is wildly successful! They may not be the biggest church, but their inclusive way or worshipping is spreading through the Methodist church! They are teaching a way of doing church that is radically relevant in the 21st century and are a training ground for future leaders. People are saying that coming to CWM is like "coming home." They are working to establish themselves as an anti-racism church and have teamed up with Join The Impact and Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and regularly work together on issues of equality. They have moved to a building with a big kitchen where all can cook and see service and with lots of room for people to join to help wash dishes after fellowship dinner.

***

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries started from humble beginnings. In 2002 CWM started as a mission of Grace UMC. Later they moved to College Ave. UMC as a mission of the New England Annual Conference. And here they are, 12 years after their birth as one of the forefront most sought after churches in the UMC denomination. CWM moved to their own space in 2010, and received a fulltime pastor appointment. This enabled CWM to offer a morning and an evening service for those seeking a safe worship space. "I couldn't believe how quickly we grew," one CWM congregant reveals. Hard to imagine only 15-25 people at their services, now they have about 100 on average. And Sunday worship isn't all CWM does. They are also active members of RMN, who now that ordination is possible for all people, have moved their focus to --

***

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries announced this week the groundbreaking on its Community Center. Housed in the city, the new center will not only be home to the dynamic congregation, but will also house a number of community resources for the city including a counseling center, office sharing for small non-profits, community room, day laborers' center, and interfaith worship space. The pastor, Susannah Wesley, said it has always been the vision of the congregation to reach out to and be in solidarity with the community. By building a coalition with the neighborhood groups, CWM was able to not just expand their mission, but also help create a new vision for the community at large. The small worshipping community continues to do great things through creative partnerships in the community.

***

We invite you to write your own and to share them with the community in the comments on this blogpost.

Reflecting on discipleship

2009-03-29T08:43:00.000-04:00

In my sermon on March 8th, I posed the question: What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? I depicted discipleship as a continual process of learning and growth. While there may be certain fundamentals to be a disciple – love of neighbor for example - how they are manifested depends on community and individual identity, historical context, geographic location, etc. Thus, although I put forth a specific definition of discipleship – to stand in solidarity with the suffering– we at CWM must question this definition and determine if it is appropriate given our community identity, historical context, experiences, etc. Perhaps as a queer community, this definition of discipleship is not helpful for CWM, since most of our congregation is oppressed and does experience suffering. How else might we defined discipleship? In Buddhism, there is an understanding that everyone suffers – this is part of the human experience. So perhaps, in understanding discipleship, it may be more helpful to think of our own experiences of suffering, and how that understanding and experience may help us reach out to others who also suffer. Perhaps this alternative depiction is helpful to you, perhaps not. I invite you to think about and share how you would define what it means to be a disciple of Jesus given the context of your lives and your experiences at CWM.

‘Discipleship is a continual process of wrestling with hard questions, but it is in the processing of asking questions that we discover who we are‘ (quote from my sermon).

How do we get there?

2009-03-05T15:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we posted thoughts on where and who it is that we are striving to be, and we continue to invite your input on that.

Today, we add the question of how we get there.

Those who stayed after supper this past Sunday for Community Discernment and Visioning listed the following Questions and Challenges:

The close-knittedness of the gathered community can be a challenge to newcomers who wonder, "Will I fit in?" "Will I be accepted?"
The number of people in the community studying theology can feel overwhelming.
What shape will community take?
Other stuff hasn't worked -- how will we be different?
Creativity
How do we inculcate community of Christ?
How do we become more diverse (e.g., not just white GLBTA)?
What questions do we need to ask ourselves in order to be more diverse?
What does it mean to admit imperfection and places where we struggle?
Do we want to grow or stay small? If we grow, will it be the same? Does what we want to be lead us to stay small?
What are our choices?
What about leadership in the future?
Uncertainty
The tension between working within institutions and doing what we feel called to do.
Money
Fear of stagnation/extinction
Fear of oppression
The institutional church -- Are we United Methodist?
"System stuff" -- e.g., navigating money, the pastoral appointment system

We invite you to share with us your own additions to this list as well as your reflections on the items already listed.

Who do we want to be?

2009-03-04T20:37:00.003-05:00

Community is a process, a journey. What is it that we are striving toward? Who do we want to be?

Those gathered this past Sunday answered:

- Community

- Different, radical, kick-ass!

- Those who inculcate community of Christ

- Kin-dom: new kind of family in which all are equal

- Community of justice, believing that things can and will be better, taking responsibility

- Prophetic and challenging, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable

- Called into transformed life, calling others into authentic transformed life

- Training ground for new way(s) to be/do church

- Creative

Comments are welcome from all who are in any way invested in the mission and ministry of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries.

Who are we? (I really want to know!)

2009-03-04T11:55:00.004-05:00

As part of a Lenten process of discernment about our future, Cambridge Welcoming Ministries is reflecting upon who we are as a community; what kind of community we'd like to be in the future; and the challenges and assets that will help or hinder us in realizing our visions for ourself.

Last Sunday after worship, the gathered community named their understandings of who we are as a church. These are our answers:

Cambridge Welcoming Ministries is

- Welcoming of those marginalized, and those who have experienced brokenness

- Justice-seeking; a community of hope & healing

- Koinonia (beloved community)

- A close-knit group; there's a lot of trust within the group

- Creative; especially in worship

- Mindful, reflective, and aware

- Queer

- Active in the world, a beacon of hope

- A community strengthened by the post-worship fellowship meal

- A training ground for new ways to do and be church

Of course, the Cambridge Welcoming family extends far beyond the circle of folks that were present, so I invite you to share your answers. My dear Cambridge Welcoming community, who are we?

Ash Wednesday Meditations

2009-02-25T10:30:00.002-05:00

Sacred Lessons

Joel 2: 12-13

“Yet, even now,” says God, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.

Psalm 103 by Walker Percy

Repeat. Do you read? Do you read?
Are you in trouble?
How did you get in trouble?
If you are in trouble, have you sought help?
If you did, did help come?
If it did, did you accept it? Are you out of trouble?
What is the character of your consciousness?
Do you have a self?
Do you know who you are?
Do you know what you are doing?
Do you love?
Do you know how to love?
Are you loved? Do you hate?
Do you read me?
Come back. Repeat. Come back. Come back. Come back.

2 Corinthians 6: 2-3

For God says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.

Come, Come Whoever You Are by Mevlana Jelaluddin Runi

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.

A Prayer for the Day

Come, O Life-Giving Creator and rattle the door latch of our slumbering hearts.

Awaken us as you breathe upon a winter wrapped earth, gently calling to life the coming Spring.
Awaken in these fortified days of Lenten prayer and discipline our youthful dream of holiness and justice.

Call us forth from the prison camp of our numerous past defeats and our narrow patterns of being to make our ordinary lives extra-ordinarily alive.

Show to us during these Lenten days how to take daily things of life and by submerging them in the sacred, to infuse them with a great love for you and for others.

Guide us to perform simple acts of love and prayer, the real works of reform and renewal of this overture to the spring of the Spirit. Help us not waste these precious Lenten days of our souls' spiritual springtime.

Oscar Hope

2009-02-23T11:40:00.002-05:00

"You gotta give them hope!"

- Harvey Milk

And that they did...

Last night at the 81st Academy Awards Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter for the film Milk, and Sean Penn, the actor who portrayed the legendary Milk, offered hope to the audience tuning in from around the globe.

Black, in the tradition of Harvey himself, spoke directly to the thousands upon thousands of young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in his acceptance speech:

"If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures who have value. And that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you."

God does love you! What a perfect Sunday night Gospel lesson and from Hollywood, no less!

Following Black's speech, Penn spoke out against those who continue to support discrimination out of hate and bigotry:

"…For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect, and anticipate their great shame, and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone."

Their words helped remind the watching world of the continued injustice against LGBTQ persons in the US and around the globe and offered hope in the midst of struggle

May these words of hope be translated into action and justice!

Remember...God loves you!

Lenten Reflection

2009-02-23T07:42:00.006-05:00

At our Bible study, we came up with questions for CWM to reflect on during Lent. I would encourage everyone to really think about and reflect on these questions as CWM reflects on its identity this Lent.

What is CWM's racial identity?
What is the racial heritage and identity of CWM's worship style?
How do other people worship?
Do we offer translation services? Do we have ways we can be bi-lingual?
What about our food - what racial heritage does it reflect?
What about the terms we use - or don't use - when talking about race? How can we have a honest and healthy conversation about race?

If you more questions for CWM to reflect on, please let me know! I will add them to the list.

Study guide

2009-02-22T13:51:00.011-05:00

Here is the study guide I created for Chapter 7 of Joseph Barndt's Understanding and Dismantling Racism. Please feel free to post thoughts, answers, reflections, questions, push-back and the like. Keep in mind that the Bible study group has covenanted to listen generously, respect each other and that it's okay if we all do not agree.

Chapter 7: Dismantling Racism

Discussion Questions:

What is the relationship between white LGBT persons and people of color?

Was this relationship affected by the passing of Proposition 8?

A CNN study reported that 70% of African Americans voted for Proposition 8 (note: accuracy of study dubious) and that that 81% of white evangelicals voted for the passing of Proposition 8. Do you think African Americans were blamed for the passing of Proposition 8? Why or why not?

Do you think white people were blamed for the passing of Proposition 8? Why or why not?

When reacting to difficult situations, do you think white people are more likely to blame the white race, communities of color or neither? Why? What does your answer say about race?

What are challenges to white people forming alliances with people of color?

How do we as white people form alliances with people of color?

What races are reflected at CWM? Why do you think that is?

Where and who are the LGBT populations of color in Boston?

What do you think about Barndt’s suggestion that white people need to acknowledge white power and privilege in their cross-racial relationships? Do you agree - why or why not? How could we as white people do that - as individuals? - as communities?

As CWM looks at its identity during Lent, what questions about race and racial identity should we ask ourselves?

Helpful videos for understanding race and racism

2009-02-22T08:59:00.004-05:00

Hi all!

Here are the links to the video for this past Sunday, "Race: The Power of an Illusion".

The video was created by PBS and you can click here for more information about the video and for ordering information.

To watch on-line, click here. Scroll down to Race: The Power of an Illusion and choose from part I, II or III (part II is the part that coincides with this past week's Bible study discussion on the definitions of race and racism).

For the transcript of part II, please click here.

Peace,
Joy

Food for thought

2009-02-18T10:13:00.041-05:00

Hi all,

As we move forward towards our third week of our Bible study on race and white privilege, I would encourage everyone to continue to look around in the news and in their world for everyday examples of racism (even first time blog readers and those not attending the study - I invite you to share your observations in the comments section). I would also invite everyone to continue thinking about the question: How is everything about race? (Push back question: Is everything about race?)

That said, author Joseph Barndt remind us in Chapter 3 of Understanding and Dismantling Racism that if we want to study the results of racism we can turn to people of color but if we study racism itself white people are the ones "who need to be investigated carefully" (p.85). Of course, this is remembering that Barndt defines racism as prejudice + the misuse of power by systems and institutions (for more background on his definition, check out chapters one and two).

So that said, we are turning to study Barndt's chapter on white power and privilege this week. As homework, I am posting one of the exercises he uses to help white people think about these concepts in their lives. If you have push back please post it. Thinking about being white can be really challenging - how often do we, as white people, really talk about it? Yet what is striking is, as Barndt says "being white is probably the most significant feature of our identity that makes it possible for us to live the way we do, even more so than gender, class and nationality" (p.88) - and yet how often do we talk about it at the dinner table? Personally, I may talk about being female (especially when I am around feminist friends), I talk about being straight and having a male partner, I can tell you I am going to college and am middle class - these are all prominent parts of my identity that I can name and talk about. Yet, when it came to identifying myself as a "having a white racial identity" (what, white is a race?), it took me twenty years to be able to understand that being white was part of my identity. The key question here then is: What does it mean to name and claim our individual identity as white persons, and our collective identity as white people? What does it mean to say: "I have a racial identity, I am part of the white race"? What makes us white? If we continue with our definition of race as a social construct, this means we have had similar social experiences as the "white race". We lets continue to dig deeper, what are our similar social experiences??? If you say you are white and I say I am white, how can we relate, what can we relate to? These are all questions I would challenge you to think about this week.

Homework:
Below I am quoting Exercise One: Tracing your Family History from Understanding and Dismantling Racism. It can be found starting with the last paragraph on page 100 and it continues to page 102.

"This exercise is designed to help white people get in touch with the benefits and advantages we are still receiving as a result of the momentum of history. Chances are, whatever you and I have in life - our educational achievements, our economic class, our social position, our community status, our professional competence, our attitude toward life, and our self-esteem - are all tremendously influenced by our inheritance of white power and privilege.

[Barndt - white power "is held collectively and passed on collectively from generation to generation as an inherited birthright"; it is " the product of historical intentional design, and is still inherently present within our systems, institutions and culture today" (p.90). Barndt defines white privilege as the individual result of white power (p.90)]

For many people this exercise is not overly difficult. There is a direct correspondence between with their parents and grandparents had and did and what they as the inheritors have received and what they have been able to do. For such people, white inheritance is easy.

Other people are not able to see the correspondence quite as directly. They may have made great advancements in educational, economic, or societal achievements far beyond those of their parents and grandparents. For those people, it is easy to deny the white inheritance. They may say things like, 'I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps,' or 'I earned everything I have in life by hard work and personal initiative.' Even if such direct inheritance is not obvious, we need to see that the collective power and privilege has made possible these great strides forward over the last generation.
...
1. The first set of questions is based on your family's history and status in life. How far back can you trace your family history? Choose from the following scenarios the one that most fits your reality and answer the questions connected with it:

-You have inherited wealth and position because your forebearers arrived in this country as rich immigrants, or they became well-to-do long ago in past generations. If this describes your history, here are some questions: If they arrived rich, how did they use and pass down their wealth? If they arrived poor, how many generations did it take before their descendants achieved greater status in life? Did anyone in your family ever have slaves? Did they take advantage of westward expansion and homesteading on Indian lands? What other historical factors in their lives have brought you advantages in your life?

-Your family is relatively well-off, but it was only in this generation or in recent generations that they escaped from lower-class status or from poverty. If this describes your history, here are some questions for you: How did that escape take place? What advantage did being white play in those achievements? Did they get housing through the G.I. Bill?

[The G.I. Bill is a bill following WWII that offered returning soldiers some of the lowest credit terms for houses in our nation's history ... relators refused to sell to people of color and so, because of this overt racial discrimination, it was only white people who became home owners and moved out to the newly built suburbs ... these white people were then able to build collateral and transfer both the house and capital to future generations]

Did they move into white suburbs that were designed to exclude people of color legally [think redlining]? Did they enter professions that discriminated against people of color and in favor of white people? Are there other advantages designed primarily for white people that helped our family in this recent entrance into greater security and stability?

-You are among those white families in this country who are still either poor or relatively poor and whose lives are insecure and unstable. If your history fits this description, here are some questions for you to work on: On whom does your family blame their condition? Who are the models that provide images for their aspirations to be other than poor or lower class? How do they relate to people of color who are also in struggle against the same forces of poverty and oppression? Even in their insecure setting, what advantages does your family have over families of color?"

Interesting that Barndt says that, just by thinking about and analyzing white privilege, the system of racism starts to fall apart ... Does that mean that the system of racism need us to be silent and unaware? And, if so, are we going to comply?

Food for thought. I am really looking forward to our Bible study discussion this week.

Peace,
Joy

Bible Study: Racism and White Privilege

2009-02-09T22:30:00.001-05:00

From Joy... I wanted to thank everyone for a good Bible study on Sunday. It was an "intro" session and I think we were able to ask some really important questions. I would invite CWM to continue to reflect on these questions.
-What does it mean to support the "status quo" as white people? What does that status quo look like? What privileges might white people receive? What does it mean to be white in a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender context?
-Question to ponder this week: In White Like Me author Tim Wise claims that people of color think about race all the time. In what ways is "everything about race"? Is it a privilege for white people to walk away and only think about race when it is convenient for them?
Homework: I would encourage people to continue to look in the news and in their everyday life this week for examples of racism (in what ways is "everything about race"?). I will invite you to share these examples at Bible study on Sunday.

Actively Waiting for the Divine

2009-02-08T22:47:00.006-05:00

The power of scripture—the reason that God is not dead and that the Bible is not just another ancient book among many, despite scholarly deconstruction and even considering the Bible’s use as a tool of oppression—is that certain words and images and ideas still come alive to us thousands of years later. The particulars are different for everyone. What means something to me will not necessarily have the same significance for you. And when we read passages that make no sense in our contemporary contexts, we know that the values and practices of the ancient writers do not and should not necessarily translate into values and practices for today. It might seem then that all meaning is relative, that there can be no substance greater than or beyond what is understood and assigned by the individual. But we gather together in community to share parts of ourselves and receive the stories of others—narratives both old and new—in order that we might know and celebrate the Divine that is so beautifully and colorfully manifested in all creation. In unexpected ways the words or actions of another can stir in us experiences of the Divine presence that are so deeply personal and at the time orient us to turn outward beyond the self.

I was already formulating a sermon on the Gospel lesson when I finally looked at the other lectionary texts for today. All stopped with the first words of the Isaiah passage. I knew what was coming: words that would cut through all my intellectual-scholarly-pastoral musings to awaken feelings at the core of my being—words that would still my body and mind in heightened awareness of the Spirit pulsing through me. The rest of the text flowed freely across my mesh of thoughts and emotions because I knew it well after months of rehearsing and performing a musical setting with the Luther College Nordic Choir. Music has a way of endowing words and images with meaning that comes to life again and again with each new playing, reading, or viewing. But the breathtaking sounds of the Nordic Choir only served to reinforce the true power of the Isaiah text for me. As I came to the last lines of the passage, I saw my Grandpa Betts, and I knew what it is to “mount up with wings like eagles.”

Isaiah takes me back to a very particular moment on a bright summer day in July 2007. To return there, I should explain the factors that combine to bring this instant into being and make it so deeply special. My grandpa loved sports. He fondly shared memories of playing them in his younger days and always thoroughly enjoyed watching athletic events, especially those involving his family. My younger brother Johnny shared this passion from the time he first had a ball in his hands and became very active with local sports teams. While Grandpa made sure that he never missed a home game, he had given up traveling for out-of-town events by the time Johnny’s teams hit the road. There would be only one exception. As a youngster with big aspirations, Johnny asked Grandpa, “Will you travel if I ever make it to state?” And a deal was struck.

This pact between grandfather and grandson would be tested in the summer of 2007. A very promising baseball season was in full swing when my grandpa had a heart attack. Though he survived, the damage significantly slowed down a man already physically limited by a previous heart attack, an incidence of cardiac arrest, and congestive heart failure. Simply standing up and moving around was a struggle. But as the baseball team headed out for the sub-state game, Grandpa renewed his promise to Johnny. That night he took the short trip to experience the team’s victory, and nothing could keep him from going the distance for the next game. And so my mom, dad, and I helped Grandpa into our car and headed to Principal Park, home of the Triple-A Iowa Cubs, in Des Moines, Iowa.

It worked out that the baseball coach was able to procure tickets for one of the skyboxes. That way my grandpa could at least escape the sweltering heat of the July afternoon. Still he opted to be closer to the action, choosing to sit in the shaded outdoor seating in front of the box. And when I say sit, I mean just that. Getting there was a challenge and standing up again would not be an easy task. From his perch above the general seating, Grandpa took in what turned out to be a fiercely contested game between the opposing team, rated number one in the state, and the young Coon Rapids-Bayard squad, led by a lone senior who would later be named the best pitcher in the state for all classes. CR-B had made it to state multiple times in baseball and other sports but had never won its first game and advanced to the next round. As this game stretched into extra innings, excitement and anxiety rose. And in the bottom of the ninth inning (only seven being played in regulation in high school), the best hope of getting past the top-rated team was on the line; a tenth inning would mean that, by rule, the starting pitcher—CR-B’s ace—would have to give up the ball. With one runner on third base after a walk and two passed balls, Johnny came up to bat. It’s a Hollywood scenario, right? Big game, tense moment, and the outcome rests in the hands of the protagonist’s grandson. And in this story, the outcome is joyous for the featured team. My brother drove the ball between the center and right fielders, giving more than enough time for the star pitcher—what poetic justice!—to touch home plate and deliver CR-B its first-ever state victory.

At least half of the largest crowd ever assembled for a 1A state baseball game erupted in jubilation. After hugging and high fiving everyone around me, I turned around to look up at my grandpa. There, with the sun behind him enhancing the aura of radiance, stood Grandpa with arms raised and the proudest smile spread across his face. It is an image that will forever be etched in my memory. Yes, the moment depended upon the game, the big hit, and the victory, but the deep significance for me is that something was so special for my grandpa that he could do no other than be brought to his feet, no matter how worn and tired was his body. That fleeting instant is frozen in time as emblematic of my grandpa’s resilience and his profound pride in and love for his family.

Grandpa would recover relatively well for an 84-year-old man who had suffered from numerous heart-related issues. His mobility improved so that he was able to be independent and get around without major struggle. But then last April when doctors replaced Grandpa’s defibrillator/pacemaker—what should have been a routine procedure—they nicked a valve, and the resulting complications led to the rapid deterioration of his health. He survived the hospital, and he even made it out of the nursing home, but with just a fraction of his heart working and fluid on his lungs, Grandpa was always tired. He lamented being unable to do anything beyond the simplest activities. I would talk to Grandpa on the phone, and he’d say, “I just want to be able to get up and run around.” I joked with him, “Grandpa, when was the last time that you could run?” but we both knew that running really meant just getting around with ease. When his heart finally wore out this past November, my mom asked me for suggestions as to what Bible passages to have read at his funeral. I heard Nordic Choir singing out Isaiah’s words: “But those who wait for God shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” I saw Grandpa standing at that state baseball game as if lifted up on the wings of eagles. And Isaiah spoke to me across the centuries, stirring within my heart recognition of God’s presence. Whatever death means for the person who has actually died, waiting for God meant for me to be comforted in memories that could run and not be weary. The words from Isaiah directed my attention away from a worn out body now laid to rest toward the enduring image of resilience, pride, and love that so much defines my grandpa for me.

I share this with you today because I can no longer read Isaiah 40:21-31 without seeing my grandpa. It is a reading that has nothing to do with God and everything to do with God, nothing to do with community—having no particular relevance for Cambridge Welcoming—and yet everything to do with community. And it is this paradox that for me characterizes the impulse of faith: that in valuing the dignity inherent within each individual we are called to look beyond ourselves and participate in the divine work of healing and sustaining creation. But only through my grandpa am I able to get there with Isaiah because in the passage for today, it actually is all about God. “Have you not heard? Have you not known?” God is fantastic! God is powerful! If God so chooses, God can uproot and dispense of earthly rulers. “Lift up your eyes and see.” Direct your attention upward from your lowly state toward God who reigns above the earth. If you wait for this everlasting, creative God, you are going to take flight. You will run and not get tired. No more weakness. No more fainting. God has the ability to empower anyone who recognizes God’s awesomeness.

But what happens when a person waits… and waits… and waits for God, but there is no healing, no restoration? Can God really be so great if there are so many people suffering? What do we make of a God who promises through Isaiah to renew the strength of those who will but simply rely upon God when their weary, hurting lives remain unchanged? And what about Jesus? In our Gospel lesson, Jesus is on the move, healing and exorcising demons everywhere he goes. But where is Christ today? What of those who are in need of his restorative touch 2,000 years later? We hear stories of present-day miracles, and in many instances there is little reason to doubt a person’s experience of the Divine. But is this divine power that is extolled in Isaiah and exemplified in Mark really for all who wait for God, or is it only experienced by a special few?

I would venture to say that these are questions that many people grapple with, and I’d assume that quite a number have found the answers in church to be unsatisfactory, walking out the doors and never coming back. If the God about whom Isaiah writes is not going to show up, the thinking must go, why should I? In my own reading of the Isaiah passage, God is actually not an actor at all. My brother’s baseball team wins their game. My grandpa, though feeble, is on his feet in triumph that represents far more than a sports win. And in light of his longing to be able to get up and run once again, in death I imagine my grandpa as free from the limitations of an exhausted body; forever in my memory he is standing tall and strong. Then in the context of selecting a biblical passage for a funeral, Isaiah’s words speak poignantly to a particular vision engraved in my heart and mind. But God does not need to be present. What begins in Isaiah as praise of God ends up having nothing to do with God at all, and yet the experience of reading the text is profoundly meaningful and quite spiritual for me.

The significance goes beyond even the connection that I feel with my grandpa. “Have you not heard? Have you not known?” does in fact stir in me a heightened awareness of something greater. As I read Isaiah’s description of the awesomeness of God, I begin to sense that the Divine cannot be confined. It is not a satisfying answer to me that horrible things happen in the world—even to those who “wait for God”—because God has foresight that humans just cannot comprehend. To envision God as a singular, anthropomorphic character—the old, white, bearded man in the sky pulling countless puppet strings that direct the dances of humanity—seems to me to limit the depth and breadth of the Divine. I am compelled to believe that when Isaiah says, “Because God is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing,” the infinite reach of God says more about what the Divine has invested in all that God calls by name than it does about God’s self. Here again we encounter the paradox: to direct attention away from “God who sits above the circle of the earth” and toward humans is to say nothing of God and yet everything of God as reflected in the lives of all creation.

I do not even have to stray outside the tradition to get to this place. We know that some early Christians—a significant enough to number to warrant strong reaction from dominant church leaders—considered divine salvation to reside not in the body of a crucified martyr but within each individual. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus answers the question of what it means to be saved by saying, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Jesus is describing the Divine as light that has no bounds, light that shines deep within all persons, and to be saved is to most authentically express the Divine as it is uniquely reflected in one’s self. Even if we cast aside the Gospel of Thomas as heretical, “more mainstream” Christian thinkers understood humans to be elements of the Divine whole. Clement of Alexandria, as I discussed a few weeks ago, proclaims that humans are living, breathing statues that are the very image of God, fully capable of acting as God’s likeness in the world. And if we still must solidly locate ourselves within the authority of tradition, in the first chapter of our scriptures we have the idea that God created humans in God’s image and likeness. Indeed, God is not confined to God’s roost above the circle of the earth, but the Divine is ever moving, ever present in the lives of all people. To speak of God is to speak of all creation that is in God’s image and likeness.

Taking this conception back to Isaiah, we might better answer why there is not always rest for the weary and why those who wait for God are not necessarily lifted up on the wings of eagles. The Divine is present in and through human failings. We see every day that people systematically fail to take care of and nourish one another. We do not always act as God in the world. We can call upon a mighty and powerful God to enact justice and bring restoration, but to take seriously the notion that we are God’s image and likeness in the world is to take responsibility for carrying out the Divine work of healing and building up our neighbor. When we read Isaiah and ask, “Who is this God of infinite capacity for good that sits above earth and watches people tear one another apart?” we ultimately reflect back upon ourselves. Who are these people created in the image of the Divine who behave so unlike their own descriptions of God’s likeness?

If we can attribute suffering to God, we have a figure against which we can cast our anger. We can walk away in disgust. Or we have a space in which we can fit all that we cannot understand, trusting that everything really does have meaning and purpose. If we think about the Divine as manifested in the individual, we can have faith in ourselves, trusting the lone character whose thoughts and actions we can actually predict and comprehend. But these ways of conceiving and knowing God are insular; the relationships are entirely personal. And it is against this kind of solitary, self-centered spirituality that John Wesley wrote in 1739, “The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness, but social holiness. Faith working by love is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection.” He went on to say (in androcentric language that I have edited), “This commandment have we from Christ, that one who loves God, loves the neighbor also; and that we manifest our love by doing good unto all people…” I would go a step further to say that acting in faith is not just manifesting our love of God but actually bringing into being the Divine in our midst. Faith working by love is the length and breadth and depth and height of not just a human, Christian perfection but of God. God is present when the Divine within us is made social. To read Isaiah and wonder at the magnificence of God is to know that same God as alive in humanity and to turn outward from the self to participate in God’s healing and restorative activity.

In the Gospel reading today, Jesus is doing all the healing work. And at this time in the church calendar, we focus on Jesus as the primary actor in ministry. But as people living 2,000 years later, we are left to wonder what happens when the leader is gone. Is healing still available? Christians talk as if it is. We speak of Jesus’ ministry as if it continues into the present, but when faced with practical reality, we ask as we did with Isaiah, “What does it mean when there are those who still cannot walk without being faint?” John Wesley answers again, “The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social.” Jesus is the dominant figure of the Gospels, but he gradually directs his audience outward from himself and toward the world. The stories reach their climax with central focus on Jesus and the cross, but this moment has nothing to do with Jesus and still everything to do with Jesus. Laying aside all the issues regarding how Jesus got there and what it means, the crucifixion scene requires those faithful to Jesus to reinterpret their own lives. What are we to do when God made flesh is gone? The Christian narrative is clear to me. After the resurrection, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, and followers are empowered to be as Christ in the world. The whole Gospel of Christ, centered on an individual, points away from singularity to entirety, teaching what it is not just to believe in the length and breadth and depth and height of God’s love but to be God’s love, to be the social Divine. And so when we ask where is Christ’s healing touch today, we are called to turn to one another, to continue the ministry of Jesus told by Mark and the other Gospel writers, and to care for and nourish and build up and sustain our neighbors.

The burden may seem too great. To be God in the world? To participate in Christ’s sustaining work? We have our own suffering, our own need of healing. But the message is not that we are or at all times can be the Christian perfection of which John Wesley speaks. We have our own pains for which we must take time. To be socially minded, we must take care of our own spirits, be for ourselves what we need to be. There are times when we must wait for God—for God lived out in the activities of another human—in order that our strength be renewed. And it is the heartbreak of the world—the reality of injustice—that a helping hand and rest from weariness will not always come. So we gather, and we pray, and we strategize, and we speak out, and we admonish and correct, support and encourage, deconstruct and re-imagine, and we call upon the Spirit that we might recognize the Divine within ourselves, acknowledge the image of God in others, and actively participate in the healing and sustaining of all creation.

Reading Isaiah conjures for me an enduring image of my grandpa, one etched in a moment that did not depend upon God. God did not cause my brother to hit the ball that won the baseball game that brought my grandpa to his feet. It was not waiting for God that brought a renewed instance of strength. But something bigger than my grandpa, greater than my brother, and beyond myself moved my grandpa in an unexpected way: deep and abiding love for another, pride in another. Love that goes beyond the surface, that identifies with and rejoices in and wholly respects and admires and celebrates another human being. Love that is communal, that is social. Love that lifts up, that causes one to mount up with wings like eagles. Love that must sometimes be those wings. Love that is God. And when I hear Isaiah’s words and I do not necessarily see God, I know God’s presence. I feel the Divine revealed in deep connection with another. I understand that faithfulness to God means not simply waiting for God but participating in God’s work in the world, being Christ for others. Have you not heard? Have you not known? We possess the Divine for which we wait.

Love Will Prevail

2009-02-05T16:06:00.041-05:00

These days, the final words of a typical United Methodist wedding has a special poignancy to the people of California:

Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.

To the 18,000 couples married during the brief time equal marriage reigned in California, the fears of their marriages being annulled, cancelled, or, in other words, put asunder, are becoming more and more real.

I would invite readers to watch this collection of images and video of those 18,000 couples, made by Courage Campaign...then take action!

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Remember: let no one put asunder. Not Ken Starr. Not even 600,000 people's votes (the pass margin of Prop8). No one.

Let's Get Real

2009-02-05T10:08:00.001-05:00

I am really looking forward to Coffee and Conversation on February 15th and talking about real events in the news! I would really appreciate if people used this blog post to copy and paste (and discuss if you want to) recent news articles that have struck their interest. Personally, I am a fan of cnn.com but there are lots of good news sites (feel free to recommend one as well!). Also, feel free to indicate topics you are interested in talking more in depth about -- politics, veganism, our war in Afganistan, the situation in Thailand with the Burmese refugees, etc. Please post early and post often :)

Peace, Joy

The Kairos Has Come

2009-01-29T14:18:00.003-05:00

On the eve of April 3rd, 1968, amidst tornado warnings and torrential downpours, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a crowd of folks as they gathered in preparation for the city’s sanitation workers’ strike that was to happen the following day.

Knowing the whispers of threats were growing louder around him, he addressed the fears of the crowds. Rather than allowing them to go unspoken and gain power in silence, King talked about the risks and dangers he faced in a way that brought clarity and perspective, not just to King’s life but to the movement for justice of which they were all a part.

Foreshadowing what was to come, King told the tale of how he had nearly died a decade earlier when he was stabbed in a book store in Harlem. And he recounted how even on the way to Memphis a bomb scare on the plane necessitated a special guard to accompany him. And then, King said this:

“And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.

And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” - Martin Luther King, Jr "I've Been to the Mountaintop" -

- "I've Been to the Mountaintop," delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

Not more than 24 hours after uttering these words, Martin Luther King Jr. would lie dead, shot by an assassin’s bullet. I may not get there with you…

Recalling these very same events theologian, Dan Clendenin, notes that what was so remarkable about King was his unique ability to distinguish between the chronos time of the world and the kairos time of God. In Greek there are two different words for time. Chronos is the daily, ordinary time of the tick-tock of our clock. It is linear time that marches on second by second, hour by hour, day by day. But kairos time is different. Kairos time is God’s time. In Greek it denotes a time of great opportunity that irrupts through the daily grind of chronos time as something special and unique happens.

King knew the difference between these two times and while at the beginning of this speech he marched through the chronos of human history, he paused for a moment to reflect about the times in which they were living…there was something different, something unique happening in that moment. King told the crowds that out of all the remarkable epochs of human history, he would ask God for just a chance to live in these times in the mid 20th century. He said,

“Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that [people], in some strange way, are responding. Something is happening in our world."

- "I've Been to the Mountaintop," delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

And so, as King gets to the end of the speech and contemplates his own chronos life span in the midst of the kairos opportunity, we see that for King, as Clendenin wrote, “longevity, length of days, is a pale imitation and sad substitute for a decisive choice at a critical moment, however short the time.” (From his essay "The Time Has Come," January 2009)

This notion of kairos time is not a new idea. In fact, it arises from our sacred scriptures. Some of the very ones we read this evening. In both the passage from Corinthians and the passage from Mark, the authors announce a kairos opportunity in their midst. We hear Paul warning the Corinthians, “Kindred, the kairos has grown short.” And Jesus, calling the disciples, “The kairos has come! The kin-dom of God is near.”

In both of these passages we see the authors employing kairos as a way to indicate the rupture of the ordinary by the coming of the extraordinary.

In the Gospel the very first words spoken by Jesus according to Mark announce the breaking in of kairos time, of a time of great opportunity, expectation and decision. For kairos time always requires action. "The kairos has come. The kin-dom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

In announcing "the good news of God" Jesus proclaimed the initiation of God's Commonwealth, God’s Shalom, God’s vision of peace and justice. No longer were the people to yearn for this time, nor prophesy of this time to come…now was the kairos of God’s kin-dom in which they were living!

It is with this proclamation that Jesus invites Simon Peter and his brother Andrew to join him, "Come, follow me.” “Come, the kairos has come! Now is the time!” The text goes on to detail the newly called disciples' response: "At once they left their nets and followed Jesus." At once. No hesitation. No questioning. No doubts. At once.

You see for Mark it is essential that the readers understand the depth and significance of this kairos time. Kairos demands a response to God’s invitation to opportunity and possibility. There is no time for discussion, no time to make a list of pros and cons, no time for deliberation. Once one is confronted with the kairos of God’s kin-dom, one is required to respond….immediately!
Some may choose to ignore the invitation. Others to accept it. The text does not tell of the countless numbers of folks Jesus invited who were not yet ready to accept such a life changing job opportunity. We know that the choice to accpet the invitation necessitates a radical re-visioning of their lives, doesn’t it?

The text goes on to tell us that in choosing to join the march of kairos time with Jesus, those Jesus called had to leave everything behind. Not just their nets and their boats, but their livelihoods, their vocations, their families, their friends, their responsibilities, their preconceived futures. All left behind in the wake of God’s time. The decision to work for God’s kin-dom, God’s vision of peace and justice requires that one abandon the ways of the world.

William Loader understands that this choice is not simply a choice to change one’s life, but rather to transform the world. “The calling of James and John and Simon and Andrew and such other callings to leave all and follow function as a protest not against life at home, but more generally against societal structures which simply perpetuate the past and trap people into the service of the status quo and its gods.” (From Loader's First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages from the Lectionary: Epiphany 3)

This is exactly what Paul is trying to tell the Corinthians in the second passage we read. "The kairos is short...this world in its present form is passing away." With the initiation of the kin-dom proclaimed and embodied in Jesus everything has changed. Absolutely everything! The crisis of the kairos demands that one change their lives immediately.

We read these passages and sometimes I think we imagine that these radical, life altering events only happen in “biblical times.” As if somehow, once the canon closed and the imaginations of the authors ceased to spin tales, that God too stopped acting. “Well, that kairos thing is a great idea for the people back then. But, we are living in the midst of chronos, plain and simple. There are no great opportunities for change, for life altering experiences. You know I’ve got school to finish, a job to find. I have family responsibilities and I’m really quite busy.”

I know these excuses because I confess there are times when I too believe I am too mired in the chronos of quotidian life to ever find time or space to live in the kairos. I look around at the world, the Church, my community, even my family and friends and I think, nothing is ever going to change.

More often than not, even here at CWM, we talk about the kin-dom as if it is some far off distant future and yet, the reality is that the kin-dom means nothing if we don’t live into it. King knew that. That night in Memphis he preached to the crowds,

“It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here! It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”

- "I've Been to the Mountaintop," delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee

King understood that once the kin-dom is initiated, there is no turning back. The kin-dom must be manifest on earth if it is to be at all. With Jesus, kairos time disrupted business as usual and every single day since, in every age and epoch, humans have had the choice to join God’s movement for peace and justice in the world, or to ignore it and escape into the chronos of status quo drudgery.

The choice is ours to make! Now is the time!

If you do not think we are living in kairos time, consider this, just this week we inaugurated the first African American president of the United States of America, who not less than 60 years ago would not even have been able to have lunch in the nation’s capital! Right now in the United States of America we have been given the unique opportunity to renew our historic work in racial reconciliation. While Obama is no messiah, he symbolizes a new advent, a new opportunity to begin once again to talk about race in this country, and not just to talk but to do something about it. This is kairos time and it demands a choice, it demands action!

Friends, we are in the midst of kairos time. God is breaking in all around us. But the choice is up to us what we will do with that eternal invitation to peace and justice. Susan B. W. Johnson has noted that “there are about ten weeks between the January 20 commemoration of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. and the April 4 anniversary of his assassination. This time has become a uniquely American pre-Lenten period, a time for self-examination and atonement related to issues of race and class, and issues of freedom and nonviolent activity.” (from her article Love's Double Victory, Christian Century January 15, 1997)

I invite us as individuals and as a community to use this pre-Lenten time period to do exactly what Jesus instructed…”Repent and believe.” Repentance in it’s original meaning does not mean to feel guilty or bad about the past, but rather to change the future. For Jesus to repent historically meant to think and act differently. In Hebrew it literally means a turning around, changing directions, choosing a different path, or making a radical rupture.

In the coming days, we have a choice to make…will we continue to live beneath the oppressive and stagnant weight of the status quo or will we dare to join the inevitable march of God’s kairos and change our lives, change our world? We each have the opportunity to go to the mountaintop, to see and believe in the promise land that is breaking forth in our midst.

The choice is ours to make. Now is the time.

The Scandalously Radical Body of Christ

2009-01-25T15:38:00.006-05:00

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 might seem a surprising pick for the focus of a sermon at Cambridge Welcoming. So why use it? Why publicly speak the words, “Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.”? What can we make of this text, even though (perhaps especially because) it provides ammunition for those professing a limited, heterosexual, marriage-centric sexual ethics? Can we move from it toward the radical inclusivity of sexual diversity?

I consider this passage to be crucial to understanding Paul’s overall project. We must keep in mind that Paul’s letters address specific concerns and questions of particular communities, and he does not lay out any kind of systematic theology. But here in 1 Corinthians, we catch a glimpse of what it is that makes Paul so incredibly frustrating. How is it that the same man who readily quotes the baptismal formula that declares, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” can also instruct women to remain in silent submission? With the risk of oversimplifying complex issues in Pauline interpretation, I suggest that our 1 Corinthians reading for today can shed light on Paul’s oscillation between radical equality and status quo hierarchy.

One of Paul’s main concerns is for the health of the corporate body of Christ. If any member of the community does wrong, the whole body is contaminated. To be fair, this concept does not necessarily prohibit inclusivity and mutuality. We might say, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” to urge all to work together for the common good. But in chapter seven of 1 Corinthians, we discover a potentially problematic implication of Paul’s thinking. Earlier in the letter, Paul says that there are a few Corinthian men who are claiming to follow in the Way of Christ but remain sexually promiscuous; this, Paul contends, pollutes the Body of Christ (our reading from chapter six). Then Paul teaches in chapter seven that sex is still appropriate (for those unlike himself who cannot resist it) but only within the bounds of marriage. (Note: Paul does not say that sex within marriage is restricted to the purpose of procreation as some would argue. Indeed, Paul never defines “good sex” as a solely procreative act.) The problem, as feminist biblical scholar Antoinette Wire points out, is that these men who cannot “keep it in their pants” need women who will marry them. Wire explains that the Corinthian women who enjoy prophetic authority and autonomy as a result of their abstinence from sex would be the eligible bachelorettes called to service in order to restore communal health. While Paul does not seem to explicitly obstruct equality here—in fact promoting mutual authority within husband/wife relationships—he implicitly sacrifices the freedom of the Corinthian women prophets to control their own bodies in favor of providing marital opportunities for lustful men. For Paul, the individual body is in service to the community, the Body of Christ.

Paul’s concern about members of Christ’s body being “united to a prostitute” becomes incredibly interesting and surprisingly thrown into question in the work of a second-century reader of Paul, Clement of Alexandria. I am referring to the way that Clement engages a philosophical debate in the Roman Empire over how it is that humans can be rendered divine. Clement does his intellectual and spiritual work in a city that is full of statues and images that depict humans as gods, and he finds it all quite disturbing. Statues of Roman gods tell the stories of their lavish existence and licentious behaviors, and so according to Clement, the artistic images actually teach adultery. In contrast, Clement argues that people are breathing statues, naturally embodying the image of God, and so humans should strive in their deeds to be like God. The idea that all humans are in the image of God is not an unfamiliar one in contemporary culture, especially at Cambridge Welcoming. The assumption of God’s reflection in all persons lends itself toward the ideal of equally valuing and respecting all individuals as diverse and valid manifestations of the divine image. But Clement goes even a step further. He claims that humans do not simply possess the image of God; that is, people do not just reflect God, but that they have the capacity to be God, to render themselves divine.

It will be useful here to clarify the way in which Clement differentiates between the image and the likeness of God. Foundational to his thinking is Genesis 1:26a-27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” While Jewish commentators and biblical scholars have generally considered “in our image” and “according to our likeness” to be a mere literary doubling, Clement joins some other first- and second-century Greek Christians in reading the text as intending a difference in meaning. “In our image” comes first and then to be “according to our likeness” is a greater potential that follows. Clement interprets the Genesis verses to mean that all humans are made in God’s image, and goes on to clarify that there is a more significant second step of being “according to our likeness” that has only been accomplished by Christ.

That Christ is the only one to have attained ‘likeness’ does mean not that humans cannot move beyond the original blessing of being in God’s ‘image’. Clement insists that it is possible for humans, in the same way as Christ, to become like God. He bases his argument upon Philippians 2:6-7 (“though he was in the form of God, [Christ] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness”). In the words of Clement:

The Lord himself will speak to you, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,” the compassionate God who longs to save humanity. And the Logos itself already speaks to you manifestly shaming unbelief. Yes, I say, the Logos of God became human, in fact in order that you too should learn by a human how it is ever possible that a human become a god. (Prot. I 8.4)

Clement declares that just as the Logos of God (Christ) took the form of a human—specifically a slave—humans are able to become gods.

The concept might seem radical (or perhaps just bizarre) today because we do not typically speak of humans as able to be gods. While we talk of encountering God in another person, Clement says that humans can fashion themselves fully in God’s likeness; we can actually become gods. I suspect that many contemporary Christians would consider this idea blasphemous, but Clement’s philosophical-religious-cultural milieu is one in which the lines between human and divine are not so strictly drawn. I am not suggesting that we should adopt Clement’s theology, but rather, there is something to be learned from the way that Clement engages the broader debate over what it means to be in God’s likeness.

The first lesson is that we can find Christianity’s potential for radical inclusivity creeping through the work even of old, traditional, elite, presumably heterosexual (or perhaps asexual) men. I call attention to Clement today because the way that he uses the physical body of Christ (Jesus) dramatically shakes up and reconceptualizes the corporate Body of Christ (the church). To make his argument that humans can come to be in the likeness of God, Clement puts the spotlight on Christ embodied as a slave, using Philippians 2:7 as his authoritative source. This is absolutely remarkable considering the status and role of slaves. A major and unavoidable reality for slaves was that they lacked control over their own bodies; slave bodies were at all times available for use—sexual and otherwise—by their masters. The body of Christ that Clement considers able to teach humans how to become gods is thus a vulnerable, perpetually-unclean body.

This is really quite extraordinary! Clement completely shatters the prevailing philosophical ideals of his time and undermines Paul’s teaching concerning the Body of Christ. Regarding our Corinthians passage for the day, New Testament scholar Jennifer Glancy asks if slaves could have been included as members in Paul’s conception of holy Christian community. Paul shuns the one who is united with a prostitute, and yet slaves could not control their own bodies so that they were vulnerable to being prostituted. While Paul acknowledges slaves in the community and might even instruct them to take advantage of possibilities for freedom (depending upon translation), he defines the Body of Christ in a way that marginalizes and potentially excludes slaves. But then comes along Clement of Alexandria who lifts up Jesus as a slave—a physically-available, impure sex object—in order to teach what it means to be in God’s likeness. Suddenly the Body of Christ is not an impenetrable, masculine paragon of self-control. And if the slave body of Christ represents the corporate Body of Christ, all persons are able to be joined to the community regardless of their status or ability to control their own bodies.

The full implications of Clement’s thinking are profoundly radical. However, the second lesson we learn through Clement is that sometimes the kernels of radical potentiality that are available in the tradition end up constrained and stamped out by the status quo just as soon as they are uttered. What Clement teaches to be the way of one who is in God’s likeness is a Christianized version of the Platonic elite male who is passionless and in control of his body. Clement does say that women and slaves are able to attain divine likeness… in theory at least. But it is the practice that is exclusive; in reality, human possibility is limited for women and especially for slaves. Clement puts forth words that have the power to utterly transform the Body of Christ, but he does not take them toward their radical ends. Perhaps this is because he would be embarrassed to condemn the divine representation of sexually promiscuous Romans and then to base his theology on the body of a slave. Slave Christ is simply too scandalous, and so Clement—in the way of the controlling slave master—uses the slave body for his own purposes and then discards it when it has done the desired work.

And this is why progressive Christians generally have an uncomfortable relationship with the first few centuries. “Thank you for Jesus, thank you for the Gospels telling us of Jesus, thank you getting this whole church thing going. However, what you do with the message—the way that you translate it through the oppressive social structures of your time—is your own business.” It is somewhat surprising then that in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honor with a federal holiday this month, actually challenges the modern church to be more like the ancient one. He says, “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”

From what we have read today in Paul and Clement, King is really quite generous. While not simply replicating popular opinion (probably because popular opinion condemned and largely ignored early Christian groups) and certainly putting forward some transformational ideas, the early followers of Jesus whose work was preserved and considered authoritative generally shied away from too much social change and remained within (or at best tiptoeing along the periphery) of social constraints. But what King is getting at is that early Christians were absolutely committed to their beliefs regardless of the consequences. They remained faithful to a new way of living and being in the world. In many respects, they were innovative, coming up with fresh ways to talk about old debates, such as how it is that humans could be rendered as gods.

Clement did challenge the dominant culture. In his commitment to Christ, he exhorted all people to change their behaviors and to live according to the one who could truly teach what it meant to become divine. He was certainly creative, offering a unique contribution to religious and social debate. And most significantly, by epitomizing slave Jesus, he approached the radical tipping point whereby all could be included in the Body of Christ regardless of the status of their own bodies. But he could not go all the way. He remained committed to Christ and reinterpreted the social and divine order, but being limited by the ideals of his time, Clement did not seek to completely overturn the establishment. Standing on the brink of change, he chose a more socially acceptable and comprehensible route to Christian transformation.

With the inauguration of America’s first African American President, a man who campaigned on the promise of change, we find ourselves at another moment in history that presents the opening for new possibilities. Particularly relevant to this community, we can finally allow ourselves to believe that the unfair practices of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will be ended and that legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will actually be signed into law. Just as Clement realized an opening for all people to become divine, we are presented with the chance to further the possibilities for all people to be full and equal citizens.

That being said, the opportunity for radical transformation is tempered by acquiescence to social constraints. While positively mentioning lesbian and gay people (though not so much transgendered persons) in most major speeches, and despite speaking against California’s Proposition 8, Barack Obama still declares that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Perhaps it is that Obama thinks his general support for LGBT people to be safe enough that it does not stoke widespread controversy but that he considers endorsement of same-sex marriage to be too great a political liability in light of the current social climate. In much the same way that Clement uses the slave body of Christ to make a particular argument but discards it before it can embarrass him, Obama lifts up the queer community as part of his progressive agenda but might fear that the ends of complete inclusivity will be too radical to be widely supported. This is not to say that queer bodies are mere pawns in a political game, but it is an acknowledgment that any genuine respect for LGBT people is filtered and manipulated according to social-political interests and calculations.

What we realize in all of this is that, often behind thinking that conforms to traditional norms, there is a moment at which radical potentiality is given over to the status quo. Paul proclaims the end of ethnic, social, and gender division in Christ but implicitly limits women’s autonomy and marginalizes slaves. Clement calls attention to the positive value of the scandalous slave body of Christ but immediately covers up the scandal with elite male philosophical language. Obama declares that sexuality should not preclude equality but maintains an unequal definition of marriage. We might read this resistance to dramatic fundamental social change in the terms of Paul’s commitment to the unity of the body. The Body of Christ (or the body politic) might assume a new meaning—one that is based in the idea that all can be members—but the movement of individual bodies is dictated by the needs and limitations of the group. As with Paul, there is an unwillingness to allow individuals bodies to contaminate or somehow limit the progress of the corporate body. The margins of the whole are privileged over and restrict the potential of its parts.

In reaction to this attitude, Martin Luther King, Jr. prophetically expressed, “Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.” King realized on the basis of his experience that conformity to social constraints would not actually protect the Body of Christ but would allow continued abuse of its members. Even Paul acknowledged all parts of the body as being essential; one part cannot be rejected or mistreated if the whole body is to be healthy and fully functioning. But the theory and the practice are not always easily reconciled. The theory demands a dramatic restructuring of society, and it is at this point that those with the power to affect change often stop short of radical transformation for fear of becoming socially unrecognizable, ineffective, and ultimately powerless. The challenge then is for us to wade through the translations of Christian tradition into the language of the status quo and to uncover the words of radical potentiality. In Clement—an unlikely source for those wishing to subvert cultural and religious norms—we find words, that if allowed to speak out their full impact, locate the power of divinity in the bodies of those traditionally oppressed and considered spiritually unclean.

It may seem that I am preaching to the choir, and to an extent I am. Cambridge Welcoming exists as a church body that represents the socially and religiously marginalized. We know that tradition can be hurtful because we experience the pain. We know with Martin Luther King, Jr. how society and the church has “blemished and scarred [the Body] through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.” My message today then is one of affirmation. It is the acknowledgment that the texts and practices of Christianity and the broader culture from the first centuries through the present have obscured Christ’s message of radical welcome. But it is also an opportunity for this and other marginalized communities to expose the moments when compliance with the status quo occurs, to realize the kernel of transformative possibility that still stands as the alternative, and to utter once again the radical words that were previously left silent, this time speaking them until the fullness of their prophetic power is realized. We can lift up the Body of Christ as Paul does but pay attention that its members are not cut off or abused. We can think along with Clement to declare that the slave body of Christ teaches what it is to be in God’s likeness but push onward toward the radical implication that even, in fact especially, the socially downtrodden can appear divine. And politically, we can echo Obama’s calls for the equal valuing of queer people but urge his words to manifest equality fully in all realms of life.

If there is one thing we might take away from Clement, it is the idea that recognizing humans to be in the image of God is not enough on its own. We are called to actively work to present ourselves as like God. So what does it mean to look like God? According to Clement, it is the slave body of Christ that can teach us how it is that humans can come to be in God’s likeness. What Clement ultimately avoids I read to mean that the very fleshiness of humanity is divine. In this way, becoming like God does not mean conformity to the prevailing ideals but rather means living out the fullness of one’s humanity. In Tony Morrison’s words from Beloved, “Here in this place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.”

The Christian tradition can be incredibly frustrating because it is full of radical possibility—sometimes in the most unexpected places—that too often is surrendered to the status quo. Our challenge is to uncover the moments of radical potentiality and to press on them, to slip through the cracks and to open up the new possibilities, even those that have previously been avoided. In closing, I offer the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” May we call attention to and continually speak the words of justice that they might affect all persons toward the realization of radical inclusivity in the Body of Christ.

Belovedness and The United Methodist Constitution: Does All Mean All?

2009-01-11T09:04:00.005-05:00

There is a story that another UM pastor, Janet Wolf, tells about one of her parishioners. This story about Fayette has become gospel for me in understanding the fullness of the meaning of baptism in our Christian tradition. You see Fayette, although new to the Church understood the power of baptism deep her in soul.

She came to Janet’s church one summer, pacing back and forth outside the open doors, listening intently to the music, the laughter, the words. Occasionally she would crouch down on the front steps engrossed, amazed and astounded at what she heard. Little by little that summer Fayette moved from the sidewalk to the steps, from the steps to the door and finally one day from the door to the pew.

Months passed and finally Fayette decided to join a membership class. As part of this class, Janet began to explain about baptism. She began, “You see, in baptism, each of us is named…” but before she could finish, Fayette jumped up and with excitement and enthusiasm, and began to finish her sentence….“each of us is named by God as bright, brilliant, beloved children of God and beautiful to behold.” “I know. I know those those words. I heard you say them before at all those other baptisms.”

“That’s right,” said Janet, “we say them as a response to everyone’s baptism.

“Well,” said Fayette, “I can’t wait till you say them at MY baptism!!”

It seemed from that day forward Fayette began reciting those words over and over again whenever she could. During prayer time, in the middle of the sermon, in the midst of a hymn, you could hear Fayette shouting out, “You are a bright, brilliant, beloved child of God and you are beautiful to behold!”

Finally the day came for Fayette to be baptized. As she emerged from the waters, she sprang out of the baptismal, pool dancing and leaping for joy down the aisle. Turning to the congregation she said, “And now I am…” and the whole of the congregation responded to her, “bright, brilliant, and beloved child of God and beautiful to behold.”

Well, not long after that, the pastor received one of those dreaded middle of the night phone calls. It was the local hospital calling to say that Fayette was there, having been brought in after a brutal assault. As Janet approached Fayette’s room, she could hear her mumbling to herself, “bright, brilliant, beloved…bright, brilliant…bright, brilliant, beloved child of…” Standing in the doorway Janet could see Fayette pacing back and forth. Her face was swollen and bruised, muddied and bloodied, hair going this way and that.

She turned to see Janet standing there and she said “I am bright, brilliant, beloved child of God…” but she couldn’t quite finish it. Again she started, “I am bright, brilliant, beloved child of God” and turning to see herself in the mirror with the reality of the words not matching the image staring back at her, she went on, “And God is still working on me! And if you come back tomorrow I’ll be so beautiful to behold you won’t recognize me!”

You see, Fayette knew, even in the midst of the tragedy and trauma that was so often her life, that there was nothing that could ever take back, erase, or wash away that mark she had been given in baptism…she was forever permanently and powerfully marked as that bright, brilliant, beloved child of God and she was beautiful to behold!

I often wonder why, if Fayette could remember those words in the midst of crisis and trauma, why it often seems so difficult for many of us to remember those same words in the midst of our own lives.

Each year on this particular Sunday, I go back and read again the short little book by Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved. Nouwen, a Catholic priest who struggled throughout his life accepting his own sense of belovedness knew that there was something about the world in which we live that seeks to destroy our belief in our belovedness. Nouwen believes this is a gradual process that happens overtime as we define ourselves, not by our baptismal vows or promises, but by the measures of the world; by what we do, by what people say about us, or by what we have.

And it is true, isn’t it? We measure our lives is by what we do. What we do in life determines who we think we are or how we judge ourselves. What is the very first question we hear when we meet someone new? “So, what do you do?”

In an instant who we are becomes reduced to what we do. And when we do it well, we feel good about ourselves and our lives but when we do things poorly, all our self worth flies out the window. What we do can never fully satisfy us as we seek to know who we truly are.

We also try to identify ourselves is by looking at what people say about us. What people say is a powerful thing. When someone speaks well of us, we are on top of the world. Life is good. Yet, when one person has something negative or critical to say it seems that our whole world collapses in on us. Whether it be gossip, or criticism at work or at home, these little comments can destroy who we think we are. When we depend on the evaluations and affirmations of others to tell us who we are, we find once again it never fully satisfies us.

And so, we turn to answering the question by looking at what things we have. Our families, our health, our education, jobs, our bodies, our material possessions. When we tally up the sum total of what we have we may feel good. Perhaps our new job is paying more than just our monthly bills for once. Perhaps we have finally lost those last ten pounds, or we are close to finishing that eternally long degree program. And while all of these things are good things for which we should be thankful, they also do not satisfy our quest for who we truly are. The moment we lose any one of those things, when we lose our jobs, or worse when a family member passes, we can fall, and slip into a deep depression of inner darkness. The world seems to make no sense and our lives
crumble before us. And again we find that even measuring ourselves by what we have never fully satisfies us.

The truth is that no external source of affirmation, whether it is what we do, what others say about us or what we have, can ever truly satisfy that deep need of our soul for love. There is only one perfect love and that is the love we seek, the love of God.

Jesus knew that he was the beloved child of God through his baptism and it was this knowledge on which he hung his entire life and ministry. On that day so long ago when the clouds parted and the dove descended with the divine words, “You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased,” Jesus knew instantaneously who he was. There was nothing more he needed to know. It didn’t matter what he would do, what others would sayabout him or even what he might have…all that mattered was that he had been named by God as the Beloved.

This mark, this identity as the Beloved, is not just reserved solely for Jesus. As Christians we believe that God has also chosen and marked each one of us through our own individual and communal rites of baptism. Baptism is the outward sign and symbol of God’s grace poured out upon us as we are incorporated into Christ’s Body as the Beloved. It marks us, names us and claims us, just like the Spirit did that day to Jesus at the Jordan, proclaiming that we too are indeed God’s beloved children, we are pleasing to God.

This divine naming and claiming radically changes our identity; it transforms who we and shapes us into a new way of living and loving that is Christ’s Body, the Church. The first letter of Peter states it quite well, when in the translation of Clarence Jordan, he writes, “the former nobodies are now God’s somebodies” Or, in the more familiar translation, once we were not a people, but now we are a people.

Peter says, "the former nobodies are God’s somebodies."

In many ways, this is at the heart of our mission and ministry here at Cambridge Welcoming Ministries. Through our worship, our fellowship, our witness and our advocacy we strive to make a space where former nobodies are recognized as God’s somebodies.

There are a whole lot of people who have been told they are nobodies by their families, by those in their workplace, by their so-called friends and even by the church. But our distinctive voice needs to say again, the former nobodies are God’s somebodies. We are the Beloved. No matter what we do, what others say or what we have…we are the Beloved!

"The former nobodies are now God’s somebodies; the outcasts are now included in the family."

If we as a Church truly believe in the Gospel proclamation of the Belovedness of all people, then we must be compelled to pass the proposed Constitutional Amendment to Article IV of the United Methodist Constitution which would protect all people as members and participants in the Church. This simple amendment states that all people are to be included in the Church. Rather than list some protected groups and leave out others, this new amendment would ensure that all means all...that the divinely ordained Belovedness of all people is recognized by the Church...so that what God sees, the Church finally recognizes. (To find out more about how you can help pass this amendment, go to: http://www.rmnwitness.org/)

I often think back to that story of Fayette and wonder at the power of baptism for her that even in the midst of being beaten and abused she could not just remember those baptismal promises, but she could believe them. She believed those words with the whole of her mind, body and soul, even when everything else around her seemed to contradict those promises. She believed that baptism had forever marked her. She believed that no matter what happened to her, no matter what the world did to her, no matter what was said about her…she was no longer a nobody…through baptism she had become a somebody God’ bright, brilliant, beloved child of God and beautiful to behold!

And that is the most wonderful thing about baptism, isn’t it? It is a permanent sign from God that can never, ever be washed away…not by what others say, think or even do to us…no, our baptisms mark us as permanently and powerfully part of the family!! We have all been marked and we are all the beloved of God, bright, brilliant and beautiful to behold!

If we can learn to live out of that core of God's love, we can be freed to truly love one another without the burden of expecting that all these exterior things will satisfy our souls. We have been created with a heart that only God can satisfy. When we are grounded in God's great love for us we become free to live as the beloved, and love as the beloved. When we claim our belovedness, when we begin to live our belovedness, when we come to believe in our belovedness, we become as free as Jesus to love, minister to and care for the broken world around us.

May we leave today with the knowledge that despite all that the world may say of us, we truly are bright, brilliant, beloved children of God and oh-so-beautiful to behold.

Being Gay Is a Gift From God

2009-01-08T13:08:00.003-05:00

This week Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show created controversy across middle America as Rev. Ed Bacon proclaimed on national television that "being gay is a gift from God." Click here to watch the clip as Rev. Bacon counsels Sedrick, a young gay man.

While Oprah, herself, seems to be behind the times, claiming this is the first minister she has ever heard say that being gay is a gift from God, many of us know this truth from experience. All of our sexual orientations and gender identities are blessings to us...gifts from God. If we truly believe we are made in the image of God, as our Judeo-Christian heritage tells us, then we must proclaim the divine gift of our sexualities in all their diversities.

How have you lived out your gift of sexuality in your life?

A Christmas Service of Lessons and Carols

2009-01-05T10:29:00.007-05:00

For the second Sunday of Christmas at CWM we held a service of lessons and carols. Interspersing readings from Scripture, history, literature and theology, we celebrated Christmas through Word and song.

All of the non-canonical readings were taken from Imaging the Word: An Arts and Lectionary Resource, Vol. 1-3 (United Church Press, 1994).

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First Lesson Isaiah 9:2, 6,7

Those Who Saw the Star by Julia Esquivel

Isaiah 9:2-6a

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined.
³You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you
For the yoke of their burden,and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian. For a child has been born for us, a child given to us;

Those Who Saw the Star by Julia Esquivel

The Word became Light,
The Word became History.
The Word became Conflict,
The Word became Indomitable Spirit,
and sowed its seeds…

and those-of-good-will, heard the angels sing.

Tired knees were strengthened, trembling hands were stilled, and the people who wandered in darkness saw the light!

Then,
The Word became flesh in a nation-pregnant-with-freedom,
The Spirit strengthened the arms which forged Hope,
The Verb became flesh in the people who perceived a new day…

The Word became the seed-of-justice and we conceived peace.

The Word made justice to rain and peace came forth from the furrows in the land.
Grace and Truth celebrated together in the laughter of the children rescued by life.
And the Word shall continue sowing futures in the furrows of Hope.
And on the horizon the Word made light invited us to relive a thousand dawns
toward the Kin-dom that comes…

*Christmas Carol UMH 219 v .1,2 "What Child Is This"

Second Lesson Luke 1:26-35,38

People of Ceaseless Hope by Walter Burghardt

Luke 1:26-31

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a young woman engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The woman’s name was Mary. And Gabriel came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! Our God is with you.’^* But she was much perplexed by these words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a child, whom you will name Jesus.

People of Ceaseless Hope by Walter Burghardt

[We] must be [people] of ceaseless hope…Every human act, every Christian act, is an act of hope. But that means [we] must be [people] of the present, [we] must live this moment - really live it, not just endure it - because this very moment, for all its imperfection and frustration, because of its imperfection and frustration, is pregnant with all sorts of possibilities, is pregnant with the future, is pregnant with love, is pregnant with Christ.

*Christmas Carol UMH 238 v.1,2 "Angels We Have Heard on High"

Third Lesson Matthew 1:18-21

First Coming by Madeleine L’Engle

Matthew 1:18-21

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah^* took place in this way. When Jesus’ mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of God appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a child, whom you are to name Jesus, for your child will save God’s people

First Coming by Madeleine L’Engle

God did not wait till the world was ready, till...the nations were at peace.
God came when the heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time. God came when the need was deep and great.
God dined with sinners in all their grime, turned water into wine. God did not wait

Till hearts were pure. In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours of anguished shame God came, and god's light would not go out.

God came to a world which did not mesh, to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of Word made Flesh the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait til the world is sane to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain, God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

*Christmas Carol UMH 224 v.1,2 "Good Christian Friends Rejoice"

Fourth Lesson Luke 2:1-7

In the Middle of the Night by Dom Helder Camara

Luke 2:1ff

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn child, wrapped the child in bands of cloth, and laid the child in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In the Middle of the Night by Dom Helder Camara

Then you chose to come.

God’s resplendent first-born sent to make us one.

The voices of doom protest:

“All these words about justice, love and peace—

All these naïve words will buckle beneath the weight

of a reality which is brutal and bitter, ever more bitter.”

It is true, Lord, it is midnight upon the earth,

moonless night and starved of stars.

But can we forget that You, the son of God, chose to be born

precisely at midnight?

*Christmas Carol UMH 230 v. 1,2 "O Little Town of Bethlehem"

Fifth Lesson Luke 2:8-20

Aztec Story of the Nativity

Luke 2:8-14

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of God stood before them, and the glory of God shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah.This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours!”

Aztec Story of the Nativity

The angels came down from the sky like birds. Their voices were bells. They sounded like flutes.
“Praise God in heaven Alleluia!” They came flying out of the sky, singing, “Peace on earth, alleluia!”
Sweet smelling song flowers were scattering everywhere, falling to earth in a golden rain.
“Let’s scatter these golden flowers, alleluia!” The flowers are heavy like dew, and the dew is filled with light,
shining like jewels in Bethlehem. “Alleluia!” Heart flowers , plumlike bell flowers, red cup flowers.
They’re beaming with dawn light, they’re shining like gold. “Alleluia!” Emeralds, pearls, and red crystals
are glowing. They’re glistening. It’s dawn. “Alleluia!” Jewels are spilling in Bethlehem, falling to earth, “Alleluia!”

*Christmas Carol      UMH 245 v. 1, 2           "The First Noel"

Sixth Lesson Matthew 2: 1-12

In Choosing to Be Born by Peter Chrysologus, 5^th Century

Matthew 2: 1-2

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi^[a] from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw this One’s star in the east and have come to worship this child."

In Choosing to Be Born by Peter Chrysologus, 5^th Century

In choosing to be born for us, God chose to be known by us. God therefore reveals God’s own self in this way, in order that this great sacrament of love may not be an occasion for us of great misunderstanding. Today the Magi find, crying in a manger, the one they have followed, shining in the sky. Today the Magi see clearly, in swaddling clothes, the one they have long awaited, laying hidden among the stars. Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, humanity in God, God in humanity, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body.

*Christmas Carol UMH 254 “Queens and Kings”

Seventh Lesson Che Jesus, Anonymous, Argentina

Che Jesus, Anonymous, Argentina

They told me that you came back to be born every Christmas. Man, you’re crazy! . . . with this stubborn gesture of coming back every Christmas you are trying to tell us something:

That the revolution that all proclaim begins first of all in each one’s heart. That it doesn’t mean only changing structures but changing selfishness for love. That we have to stop being wolves and return to being brothers and sisters, That we . . . begin to work seriously for individual conversion and social change / that will give to all the possibility of having bread, education, freedom, and dignity.

That you have a message that’s called the Gospel, and a Church, and that’s us -- A Church that wants to be servant of all, a Church that knows that because God became human one Christmas there is no other way to love God but to love all people. If that’s the way it is, Jesus, come to my house this Christmas, Come to my country, Come to the world of humanity.

And first of all, come to my heart.

*Christmas Carol UMH 246, v.4 “Joy to the World”

Inaugural Honors for Rev. Joseph Lowery

2008-12-29T09:04:00.002-05:00

In recent weeks there has been much hub-bub over the announcement of President Elect Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren to lead the invocation at the January 20th inauguration. And while that controversy continues to rage, little has been said about Obama's choice of Rev. Joseph Lowery to offer the benediction.

Rev. Lowery is an esteemed United Methodist clergyperson who has spent his life struggling for the civil rights of all people. In 1957, Lowery co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Revs Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph David Abernathy. Just a few years later he was appointed assistant to the Bishop in Nashville and led efforts to desegregate the local hotels and restaurants. In 1965, he was asked by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to deliver the demands of the Selma to Montgomery march to Governor Wallace and in 1968 as pastor of an Atlanta congregation he led efforts by faith communities to build affordable and low income housing. And, this is just a small sample of the long list of accomplishments on Rev. Lowery's resume!

Over his lifetime, Lowery has been a tireless advocate for the civil rights of all people...including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. In fact, Rev. Lowery was the first person at Coretta Scott King's funeral to mention her support for the LGBT community, reminding the congregation that King "frowned on homophobia." Although stopping short of advocating for same-sex marriage, Lowery himself has come out in support for the full civil rights of gay and lesbian folks. In a statement to the Southern Voice he said,

"I support civil rights for all citizens and this includes gay and lesbians citizens. I support civil unions and full benefits (visitation, insurance, etc) for partners in same sex relationships...I am strongly opposed to propositions or amendments that put into law any discrimination against citizens because of sexual orientation."

While the anger and disappointment at Warren's selection still stings, I have to wonder what would happen if instead of controversy, all Warren received was silence. Indeed, Lowery himself speculated in an article in the Washington Blade that "By the time Aretha sings, the poem is read, people may have already forgotten what Warren said.”

And that very well may be true.

The Plausibility of the Possible

2008-12-28T14:26:00.003-05:00

"Hope is believing in the Plausibility of the possible over the necessity of the probable." (Mimonides. 12th century)

The reading from Luke follows the young holy family from the birth we celebrated just a few days ago to the ritual infant dedication at the temple today. Everything seems to be going according to planned. According to Jewish custom, the infant was presented before the assembled crowd, a sacrifice of two turtledoves was made (sound familiar), and the family about to depart. The rite of dedication and purification seemed complete. But just as the young family was about to leave, something unexpected happened.

An elderly man, by the name of Simeon entered the temple and swept the infant Jesus into his arms. Holding Jesus high he recited a poetic, prophetic thanksgiving to the babe, saying, “My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared of all peoples, a light to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

And as they stood in awe at this revelation, yet another prophet entered, Anna, a woman of great age and tremendous devotion. And she too, like Simeon took the child in arms and offered up a prophecy, naming the child not as Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, but as the very redemption of Israel.

Now this passage should be familiar to us for we read it just a few months ago at the christening of Endelyn Jean. If you remember, we came to see that this event was not simply a mere cultural or ritual dedication. Rather what happened here was something much more significant…it was a naming and calling forth of Jesus as the person who he would grow to be, as the Messiah, the Chosen One, the Liberator, the Savior of all nations.

While Mary and Joseph had merely come as duty to offer a sacrifice in God’s honor for the birth and life of their firstborn child, now something more was happening. More than just bestowing a given name upon the child, more than being raised as a sacrifice and offering to God, more than an act of devotion or praise, now Jesus was being called into the future, named by strangers as the savior, the messiah. If you remember, we understood this action as was a prophetic calling into being.

This naming was a calling forth of Jesus’ identity, a calling into being of Jesus’ self, and a call into the future of what was to come. Rather than compel the child to do or be something the parents or society desired, the prophetic blessings was a lure into a future not completely known, yet bursting with possibility and potential. Naming Jesus in this way, both Simeon and Anna bestowed upon the child a living hope for the future. Full of expectation and promise, this dedication was more than just a static offering of praise to God, more than an act of reverence for the past, it was participation in the living hope that is God. It was the belief in something more than the tiny infant they saw. It was the hope beyond the frail limbs and the wrinkled skin. It was a dream beyond imagination.

It is ironic that the ones to predict the future are the ones of the past. Imagine for a moment, Simeon and Anna, standing with the tiny babe in their arms. The contrast must have seemed stark…the soft, tender skin of the child embraced by elderly, wrinkled hands, weary and worn by the ages. We are told that after merely holding the infant, Simeon declared that now he can die in peace, for he has seen the salvation that is to come. We might imagine that the old man is overcome so completely by the prophecy, so consumed by the joy that snatching an infant from its mother’s arms seems perfectly acceptable. Perhaps we envision him jumping and dancing, giddy and laughing, or perhaps we see him astonished and transfixed in wonder. Or perhaps the joy is so intense the most he can manage is to stare at the child with tears flowing as he takes in salvation for the first time in his life. Holding the child and believing in the possibility of redemption is all Simeon needs.

Both Simeon and Anna seem to find their greatest hopes and dreams fulfilled in this child, yet we must ask ourselves, what have they really seen, after all? We who read with the advantage of 2000 years of hindsight, understand immediately the significance of proclaiming this child the savior. But, how in the world would Simeon and Anna have had any knowledge of this? John Stendahl reminds us ,

“All they could see was a little child, a powerless, speechless newcomer to the world. Whatever salvation this baby might work is still only a promise and a hope; whatever teaching the child might offer will remain hidden for many years. Nothing has happened yet. Herod still sits on his throne and Caesar governs from afar. The world looks exactly as it did before.”

Simeon and Anna, both well advanced in age would not live to see the fulfillment of their prophecies in Jesus. They would never know if what they proclaimed that day ever came true, yet, they believed nonetheless. There they stood in grateful wonder at the future held so tenderly in their hands. The promise of this child was enough. Despite all signs to the contrary, Simeon and Anna believed. You see they for us today embody hope “as the plausibility of the possible as opposed to the necessity of the probable.”

Indeed what was the likelihood of a child from Nazareth being a light to the Gentiles and a savior to the Israelites? Wasn’t the Messiah to be a strong, powerful warrior, who would liberate the Israelites from the political captivity of the imperial powers, who would right the wrongs of the past and replace foreign rule with an unending reign of the House of David? And yet, Simeon and Anna see in this tiny, vulnerable babe, the one who will be both the savior of Israel and a light to the Gentiles, the ones who have oppressed the Israelites for so long. Come to think of it, it’s not a likely scenario at all and yet, Simeon and Anna believed, nonetheless. They believed in the plausibility of the possible and not the necessity of the probable.

Perhaps we might be tempted to take this as one more redaction from the later writers of the gospel, as evidence of their writing in the history they wished to be…and perhaps it is. Yet, the story remains powerful for us. For what more do we have now than Simeon and Anna had then? John Stendahl reminds us that,

“We too are people who have seen something, but not its full unfolding…What we have, in a sense, is hardly more than they had. We have the scriptures that school us in hope and attentiveness. We have stories and covenants and signs. We have moments, or the memory of moments, when the tender compassion of our God has come close enough to see and feel. We have something like the shepherds would have had, recalling all their lives a night of mysterious glory, or like what the magi brought back to their homelands, a vision of a different kind of king and kingdom. Their eyes had seen the glory of Israel, the light for the nations. We have that as well, though for us the world has resumed its accustomed form and, in the light of day, seems largely unsaved and unchanged.”

What does it mean for us to believe in something we have yet to see the fullness of? How can we like Simeon and Anna give ourselves to a promise not yet tangible, one that goes against all our expectations and past experience? What does it mean to let go of the shields and walls we have built to protect us from the pain of disillusionment and disappointment and believe in the goodness we proclaim at Christmas? To believe in the presence of God dwelling with us even in this world that seems at times so cruel, so broken, so bitter?

How can we learn like Anna and Simeon knew that the past does not determine our future…that what was, is never what must be? How do we free ourselves from the tyranny of the probable to embrace the promise of the possible?
Sometimes it takes a little child to teach us, doesn’t it?

James was a fifth grade student who had struggled his entire academic career. The neighborhood schools had labeled him as learning disabled and as a fifth grader who still could not read, that label might have seemed apt. And yet, James had bigger dreams for himself. He would tell his mother his dreams of going to college to study and learn, to become a doctor to help others. Most days his mother would just sigh and smile, “That’s nice, James.” But what chance could her child have of becoming a doctor when he could not yet read?

It was then that James and his mother met Maggie, a friend of mine who was starting a new charter school in the city. Maggie had been canvassing the neighborhood to invite students to enroll for the fall. Door by door, home by home, she talked with children and their families about the possibilities of this new school, a school where standards would be high, the learning rigorous and the results phenomenal. She told tales from other charter schools half way across the country and the success they achieved…95 % perfect attendance, 100% passing standardized tests, 90% of graduates going to college. She wove visions of dedicated teachers, rich resources, and diligent students. Yet the more she talked, the more it seemed the doors closed in her face. This type of school was just not possible. Not here. Not now. Parents and kids alike could not imagine such a place. Uh-uh. Not possible.

And then she knocked on James’ door. From the moment Maggie began speaking, James was entranced. Perhaps, like Simeon on that day long ago, James glimpsed his own future and he believed. James’ mother was not so sure. Why should this school succeed when the dozens of neighborhood schools around it had failed? What would be different this time? But Maggie promised… “It will be different. I promise you that with hard work and dedication, James will not only be able to read by the end of the year, he will be able to pass all the state tests.” Maggie didn’t know James, but she believed in his potential nonetheless. Only after weeks of pleading by James, did his mother finally relent. “You know,” she told Maggie, “I don’t expect any change whatsoever. But, if my boy wants to try this. Well, what can I do?”

And so that fall James enrolled. The child who could barely sit still long enough to eat his supper, the child who had been kicked out of more schools for discipline problems than anyone could imagine, the child who in the fifth grade could not read, became one of the best students Maggie had ever known. He came to school every day an hour early at 7 AM for special tutoring so he could stay in his grade level and stayed every night until 7 PM so he could get help with his homework. He came to school on Saturdays and spent extra time periods working with teachers to stay at grade level and when the standardized test results for the sixth grade came in that year, Maggie called in James and his mother to report the scores. “James, we have received your test scores and I am pleased to tell you that you passed every single section!” Before Maggie could get the words out of her mouth, James’ mother had jumped clear out of her seat and reached across the desk to grab and hug Maggie like she had never been hugged before. Literally, pulling Maggie from her chair, James’ mother exclaimed, “I never thought this was possible!” All the while James sat sill and smiled. He knew it was possible all along.

You see James saw something different in himself, no matter what teachers said, no matter what his past performance told him. And when Maggie came knocking at his door that day, James saw something amazing in her hope of a different type of school. James believed in the plausibility of the possible and not the necessity of the probable.

In James, we see our faith made real and our hope lived out.

This belief in the possible is not just something that we take for our faith lives…it is not a “shut up and believe” kind of message. This is not something we simply apply to how we read scripture or understand our faith tradition. This is about something much greater. It is about a way of being in the world engendered by our experience of the gospel that shapes and forms the whole of our lives. The message of the gospel itself is to believe in the plausibility of the possible over the necessity of the probable, isn’t it? In a world of violence, resentment, disappointment and grief it is no easy task to believe in a different world marked by peace, love, forgiveness, non-violence, and justice….isn’t it? And yet that is what we proclaim each and every week.

The question remains, how do we take our faith statements outside the walls of the church and begin to apply them to every aspect of our lives? How do we allow our optimism and hope, real hope, about the way the world can be to permeate our everyday actions in the world? How do we, like James, begin to see the plausibility of the possible in ourselves and the world, over the necessity of the probable?
This year, how will you live out the Christmas hope in your own lives? To what possibilities will you give yourself? In what dreams will you believe? What actions will you take to make the possible real in the world?

Change Is Afoot: A Sermon by Joy Perkett

2008-12-21T13:38:00.000-05:00

Change is afoot. In the passage of Isaiah we heard today, valleys rise up, mountains lower, rough ground levels, grass withers, flowers fade and the breath of God blows by. In this passage, the breath of God blows through the grass to bring comfort to God’s people – in the midst of turmoil, in the midst of new life and old life, the passage assures us that the intimacy of God’s breath & spirit is eternally present. The word for breathe or spirit – they are the same Hebrew word - is also found in Genesis 1:2. In this verse, the breathe of God hovers over the face of the waters of an oceanic deep. In the article “Be This Fish”, Catherine Keller describes the Hebrew sense of the word ‘hovering’ as “a spirit rhythm as in the beating wings of a seabird, the oscilliation of breath, or the ebb and flow of the ocean”. In the beginning, creation was not empty, but rather the breathe God oscillated with the oceanic deep.

Let me share with you my own image of the breath of God:

We stand as sand in dunes and God’s breath the wind. We are caught up in a vital, active force of God’s breath, moved and shaped around. And yet, we do our own shaping. We etch our names on rocks, we dance in the whirlwind of creation and we call the other sand to come and join the dance with us.

We stand as sand in dunes, sometimes thinking we are sure in our formation. And yet the breath of God blows by and again we are caught up in the process of creation. We ask questions, questions upon question. It is our questions that make us more aware of the presence of God in our surroundings. God is here with us, in the process of creation.

The Christian year is similar to this whirlwind of creation. It ebbs and flows, each year catching us up and re-shaping us. Each year it is the breath of God that blows on and reinvigorates us, calling us to join the dance of creation.

Advent is typically thought of as a time of hope, of waiting, of creation not-yet-formed and yet it is intimately tied to the ebb and flow of the Christian calendar. What is Advent without Lent? These are two times of year not typically thought of as compliments. Advent is a time of pending joy, while Lent is a time of pending sadness. Yet can we have one with out the other? Advent calls us to a vision of hope, of the coming Savior and of the coming kin-dom of God that Jesus heralds. Lent, on the other hand, calls us to a time soberly anchored in the reality of the present and of self-critical-ness and self-awareness. Yet I dare to suggest that it is this self-critical-ness and self-awareness of Lent that makes a realistic vision of advent and the coming kin-dom of God possible. It is by being honest, painfully honest perhaps, with ourselves that we are able to carve out a space for God to work in our lives. God’s creative breathe blows by.

Let me share the ebb and flow of “Lent” and “Advent” in my own life. In my college years, I took a class called “Black and White in America” that caused me to be very self-reflective, in the spirit of Lent, on what it meant to have a White racial identity.

Originally, I had grown up “color-blind”, uncritical of race. This class forced me to realize that we do not live in a perfect world and racism still exists today. I realized, in fact, that racism is an institutional system that privileges me as a White person, whether I like it or not. In fact in the book White Like Me, the story of a White ally, the author Tim Wise argues that at some point in their lives all White people have been collaborators. Before this class, I would have argued that I have helped with this cause or that cause or that I have friends of color, so that I could not possibly be a collaborator. Reluctantly, I now must admit that that is not enough. White privilege is such a part of society – manifest in our churches (the most segregated time of the week), in educational opportunities and in growing income gaps – that I cannot claim to not be a part of it. In White Like Me, the author Tim Wise writes that by White people owning their collaboration, they can “regularly see [their] own shortcomings, place them within the larger context of … culture subsidizing those shortcomings, and then commit [themselves] to doing better next time.” Wise writes that “the most dangerous person is the one who refuses to admit that [the person] does in fact contribute to injustice at least as often, if not more so than [the person] truly rebels against it”. For that person, there is nothing that person needs to work on, no point at which the person too is part of the problem and no room for growth.

I was struck deeply when the Pilgrims for Peace came to our congregation and during fellowship we shared our vision of peace. Marla shared an incident of gender identity- based violence, and then asked, “What is it within ourselves that causes that to happen?” Marla did not ask what is it within other people, but within ourselves. Thus, we too must ask what is it within ourselves that allow systems of injustice and of violence to continue in our society. Perhaps even if we are part of the solution, we must also acknowledge we part of the problem – whether it is in our silence, our identifying with the dominant majority, or even because we are not cognizant of the problem.

Yes I have participated in systems of oppression that I haven’t even been aware of! I would dare to suggest so have we all! Yet I come before you, honest and humble, with a searching heart and I enjoin you to the same. Let us come to God and admit the structures of privilege we have in our own lives – whether they be of economics, race, ability, gender identity, etc. I know it is not easy process, but it is honest, it is authentic. Let us move through the self-reflection of Lent, and then let us be fully present in the radical vision of Advent. The Christian years ebb and flow as we continually move through the self reflection of Lent and celebrate the radical vision of Advent, of a baby who will one day challenge systems of oppression and bring hope of God’s kin-dom of love, compassion and equality. God’s breathe blows by.

God’s creative breathe blows by. We are part of the creative process! What a sense of power we should feel! We come with good news – we can all participate in the dance of the creation not-yet-formed. It is for us to etch justice, love and equality on the rocks in the sand dunes. We are a people empower by the Spirit and Breathe of God. As the lady at the Proposition 8 protest said, we will not give up, we will not shut up, we will never go away. God’s love is radical and change is afoot. In the creative process we are both the created and the co-creators and while we must be an active part of the process and we must also carve out space for God to work in our own lives. Only by admitting our faults and our privilege, can we move forward to etch the words of justice, love, inclusion and equality on the rocks. There is something about deeply living, deeply loving, deeply feeling and being present and honest with one’s self that makes us fully alive, swept up in the dance of creation. This sense of reality and authenticity brings us in a grounded way to the radical vision of advent. We are ready to construct new ways of living and of loving. We are ready to construct a new way of being that is radically equal and inclusive! We are ready to celebrate the awesome vision of advent! God’s breathe blows by. Change is a-coming!

The Wild Promise of Advent

2008-12-18T10:55:00.000-05:00

Each year, the sixth graders from my elementary school went on a “graduation trip “ of sorts. For two nights and three days the older, wiser ones of Clovernook Elementary went to a magical and mystical place called Camp Knickerbock.

My sixth grade year was filled with anticipation for this trip. From the first day of school we were already planning who would sit next to whom on the bus, which cabins we would stay in and what things we would do late at night. And while our imaginations ran wild with possibilities, one thing remained certain. The social hierarchy would follow us to camp.

The cool kids called the back of the bus and filled their cabin with the social elite from our elementary ranks. Those who did not meet the standards, myself included, quickly formed alternative bands to secure a cabin of our own. And then, of course, there were those who year after year found themselves isolated and alone at the bottom of the playground pyramid, those who simply did not dare make plans. For an overnight trip with bullies seemed like nothing but sheer torture.

When we finally left the confines of our urban elementary school for the wilds of Camp Knickerbock, we found that indeed our plans unfolded as we imagined. The lines of cool were drawn just as tightly at camp as they were on the playground every single day. That is except for one night.

Camp Knickerbock had a tradition of nighttime hikes reserved for the last night at camp. That evening, long after the supposed lights out curfew, the counselors came to our cabins and fetched us for an evening adventure in the dark. Although we started off with flashlights, the goal was to darken our lights as we traveled so that we might experience the wilderness as it is…dark, foreboding, promising, exciting. The counselors had split our cabins up so that we were now walking single file cool kids intermingled with nerds, mixed with jocks, and interspersed with preps. We were simultaneously thrilled and anxious. What would it be like in the pitch dark blackness of the forest?

As the lights went out one by one, we had to rely on the person in front and behind us to make our way. Increasingly we became more dependent on one another as we walked farther and farther into the wilderness. And as we journeyed, something magical and mystical did happen. Step by step, we found the social hierarchy began to crumble as our terror and excitement of being in the wilderness rendered us one. If we were to make it out safely, we had to rely on one another…hold each other’s hands, talk to one another: where to step, where to duck.

At long last the final light was extinguished as we circled up in a small clearing surrounded by tall, slender trees pointing us toward the starry sky. As we stood there, each of us in the circle realized something profound had happened. Each of us were a little different for the hike. Somehow, the wilderness had managed to break down our prejudices and preconceptions and allowed us for one brief hour to experience a community bound by common purpose and perhaps even a little admiration for one another. The walls of division had been rendered useless in our common quest to find our way.

The wilderness has a way of doing that, doesn’t it?

There is something about the wild that challenges and confronts all of our preconceptions and prejudices. Out in the vastness of the wild, we find our social conventions useless as we struggle to find our way. It is precisely for this reason that the wilderness has become a potent symbol and site for religious reflection for many different cultures and faith traditions. From the time of the prophets to the time of John through the age of the mystics and right up to our own modern era, the wilderness has always symbolized a place of miracle and divine revelation, of pain and complaint, of hope and visions. To those steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition, wilderness evokes stories of Exodus, of Sinai, of moving through the exile into hope. The wilderness is that place in our faith tradition where we are allowed to dream new possibilities that have been forbidden to us in our former city dwellings. In the wilderness we seek hope and find it.

You see, the wilderness presents us with a liminality…an in-between place of neither here nor there that offers us space to un-make and re-make our communities, norms and lives. The wilderness strips us of social pretense and confronts us with the challenge of being in a place without predetermined boundaries. The wildness of it all, allows us to dream and imagine things thought not possible within the confines of the tightly regulated social hierarchies of civilized space. It is as if the power of nature itself unlocks and unleashes our imaginations, summons different values, evokes new visions, and inspires creative solutions never dreamed before.

It is no coincidence that this week’s reading places John the Baptist in the remote Judean desert. The wilderness is the perfect space to find a prophet pointing to a new way of being, a new way of living and loving. In fact, the wilderness may be the only place where such prophecy becomes plausible. The liminality of the desert offers both John and the followers an opportunity to shed the cynical realism of daily life in exchange for the power of possibility.

Finding wild prophets like John in the wilderness was was nothing new to the ancient Israelites. Popular movements excited by the prospect of change throughout history moved to desert places, gathered armies, conducted retreats, readied themselves for revolution – all kinds of groups, military, religious, prophetic, visionary. The historian Josephus lists many such groups and individuals in the first century of the common era, including John who we read about today.

John’s movement for change though is not a military movement as many of the people expected, but rather is a revolution of the imagination.

John announces change, metanoia, traditionally, “repentance for the forgiveness of sins,”but also understood as a turning around and away from sin, a change of direction, a paradigm shift in mind and in action. Summoning the words of the Prophet Isaiah, John gives us a glimpse of the new vision towards which he demands we look, that vision of peace, justice, hope, love, a vision of shalom here on earth. By quoting Isaiah, which many of the people would have known well, John summons up for them this idea of God’s vision of Shalom on earth and brings new insight to old ideas.

Yet, what John was initiating was not just a new way to look at old ideas, but rather he was demanding new ideas for a new way. This was a drastic change, a paradigm shift. John invited us to see the world in a new way, turning the old order on its head, raising valleys and flattening mountains. It was not that John just wanted to create new paths, he wanted to evoke a new destination, a new hope, a new salvation.

Salvation for John was not otherworldly, remote or inaccessible, salvation was near, at hand, in the here and now as we envision and imagine new ways of being in the world that are governed by peace and justice and as we work toward their full realization on earth as it is in heaven.

John embodied this new way of being in concrete actions that communicated a new message of conversion, forgiveness, inclusivity and simplicity. By offering the people a moment of conversion…an opportunity for metanoia… John gave the people an opportunity to change the way they were living, right there, right then.. John also offered the people a new way of forgiving sins that was inclusive. Far from the ritual rites of the temple, this forgiveness of sins did not depend on one’s wealth, power or status…simply on one’s desire. It was this simplicity that also governed John’s way of being in the world. Donned in camel hair and a leather belt and subsisting on a diet of locusts and honey, John embodied for the people a new way of living that challenged and confronted the lifestyle of the rich and famous. John lived what according to Matthew and Luke Jesus later preached: live simply; consider the flowers, the birds, how they feed. John was pointing the people to a new way that was already incarnate in their midst.

Yet while John lived in the wilderness in which there was amble space and time to dream new visions such as these, we tend to find ourselves confined to the daily grind of our lives. Brimming with busy-ness we can lose sight of that vision to which Isaiah and John have called us. It seems too remote, too idealistic, too impractical, too impossible. Our lives are such that we can easily become worn down by trying to survive in the current order of things that we cannot see or even hope of a different way of being. What are things in your life that make it difficult for you to imagine a new way?

When we find ourselves so immersed and entangled in the busy-ness of our lives, we are called like John, to seek out the wildness of the wilderness where we might begin to imagine God’s new world order!

I would like to tell you that returning from Camp Knickerbocker the change we experienced on that dark night in the forest remained and a social shalom was ushered forth in our midst. But the reality is, that liminal space is hard to maintain amidst life’s pressures. Once back on the urban asphalt playground, the social lines of division appeared again. Yet, something was different. Although we could not bear to sit next to one another at lunch or dare to play together, the geeks and the cools kids, the jocks and the preps, we all looked differently at one another. Somehow, the magic and mystery of Camp Knickerbock remained, if only revealed in sly smiles and locked eyes across the classroom.

In order to keep the dream of new ways alive, we must practice at it, not just one isolated evening in elementary school, but regularly and ritually.

That is exactly why we come together every week here at CWM, as the Church. It is in the Church, in the community of faith, as part of the Body of Christ, that we are empowered to begin not only to imagine new ways of being, but also to begin practicing them, through the forgiveness of sin, commitment to non-violence, acts of mercy and compassion, radical sharing of leadership, power and resources, and unconditional love. This is where we begin to imagine and create change. Unrestrained by the limiting structures of our lives and the oppressive systems in which we live, we become able to begin to participate in God’s vision of peace and justice. We begin to make real the kin-dom on earth. We begin to take part in God’s plan for salvation.

The Church is not about being practical, feasible, or even possible, the Church is about dreaming new visions of how things should be, regardless of whether or not they ever can be. The Church is the place of radical hope and new vision. If we cannot dare to dream of a new world order in the Church, the locus of hope for us as Christians, then where and when will we ever be able to move beyond the tension and strife of the world in which we live to dare to dream of new ways of being, new ways of living and loving??

The time is now! This Advent season, a ritual time of liminality in our Christian calendar when we are called to move to the wilderness places of our lives, to the desert, to the margins, to the edges, to the places where we have the opportunity to begin to think and act differently, where we have the time to contemplate our lives, our values, our choices, where we have the freedom to dream new dreams, and where we have the possibility of making them come true.

The question is how will you take the liminal, wilderness experience of our Church community out into the world this Advent season? How will you embody who we are in here out there? In the next week, look for opportunities, spaces and places where the community we have within these walls might break forth into the community through your actions. What will you do to bring the wildness back to the world?

An Advent Litany

2008-12-07T10:00:00.001-05:00

God of surprises you call us
from the narrowness of our traditions
to new ways of being church,
from the captivities of our culture
to creative witness for justice,
from the smallness of our horizons
to the bigness of your vision.

Clear the way in us, your people, that we
might call others to freedom and renewed faith.

Jesus, wounded healer, you call us
from preoccupation with our own histories
and hurts to daily tasks of peacemaking,
from privilege to pilgrimage,
from insularity to inclusive community.

Clear the way in us, your people, that we
might call others to wholeness and integrity.

Holy, transforming Spirit, you call us
from fear to faithfulness,
from clutter to clarity,
from a desire to control to deeper trust,
from the refusal to love to a readiness to risk.

Clear the way in us, your people, that we
might call others to freedom and renewed faith.

J. Puls, G. Cashmore/cw copied from Rex A E Hunt's liturgies online.