First Trinity Lutheran Church ELCA

Tongues of Fire Aren't Warm Fuzzies

2007-06-01T16:37:00.000-04:00

This month we celebrate a day which took the world by storm, or so Luke reports when he tells us of the Holy Spirit’s coming upon those first disciples of the risen Jesus on Pentecost, as tongues of fire.

Since then, the storms that seem to have taken over the world, crusades, earthquakes, floods, genocide, hurricanes, plagues, tornadoes, tsunamis, terrorism and wars, are too numerous to mention. And their combined toll on the human spirit is unimaginable.

We live in an age when “spirituality” is all the rage. Everybody, it seems, has one, even if they also have no church home, no religious affiliation, nor belief in the God of the Bible. More than that, followers of these assorted spiritual paths are eager to have us salute their practices because, as they say, “We’re all on the same journey, we just walk along different paths and call our ‘higher power’ by different names.”

Those are “nice” sentiments; seemingly “harmless” beliefs; and, even make the politically correct among us feel all warm and fuzzy because we’re all so darned tolerant.

Inside the story of the Bible’s God, where the coming of Emmanuel is announced, where the Messiah’s breaking open and pouring out is declared; where the raising from the dead of Jesus the Christ is affirmed, warm fuzzies are not sufficient for the spiritual life prompted by the outpouring and indwelling of this Holy Spirit.

As Luke writes, Peter’s announcement about the Holy Spirit’s arrival onto and into the borning community of Christian believers offered simply stunning consequences. Quoting the prophet Joel, Peter testifies to the reality that now, life in the Spirit offers God’s dynamic embrace to the lowest of the low. No longer are the roles of speaking in God’s behalf, visioning God’s alternative reality, and imagining God’s otherwise restricted to a few chosen agents. Henceforth, all people are brought inside the margins of God’s boundless love. From now on, all people are gathered into God’s unearned “for-us.”

In God’s Jesus, the final judgment has been rendered. The judgment brought an unexpected mercy, an unanticipated righting of the wrong, an unmerited belonging, and, an unwarranted opportunity to share a common life as God’s holy and whole people.

Peter’s encouraging refrain, offered to all those who would hear, was, “Repent!” In other words, “Turn around! You’ve been looking and seeing this all wrong.” Simply admit the world’s nice, neat, orderliness is a cruel hoax that’s kept us bound to the ravages of nature, tied in knots by greed, and separated from God by our selfishness and pride.

In that Spirit, we repent and are reborn at worship each Sunday. On occasion, it feels nice!

An Experience of Spirit

2007-06-01T13:54:00.000-04:00

Last week I mailed a card to a member of our congregation. The note I wrote said something to this effect: There's a new spirit alive among us, thank you for your generous contribution to our mission and ministry.

As the celebration of Pentecost lies just over our shoulders, I'm puzzled by how I communicated my word of thanks. What did I have in mind? Frankly, as I wrote the note I struggled with whether or not to capitalize the "s" in spirit. I made a conscious decision not to do that.

I sat at my desk for several minutes staring at the page. I knew that the next word I wanted to write was "spirit." What I was unsure about was whether or not I wanted to make either a personal or a corporate claim for knowledge about the Holy Spirit's presence and activity.

What was going on here -confusion or cowardice? Those of you who've heard me preach can attest that I know how to sound bold when I want to. Those of you who've heard my fulminating know that I can communicate with a bravado that masks for certainty!

What was my claim? What is my claim? Was I citing evidence for an esprit de corps, or was I trying to testify to what I take to be evidence of the presence of the abiding Spirit of the loving God who seeks to be with us always?

Esprit de corps is no trivial thing. It can make grown men, like the Indiana Pacers, shave their heads to win basketball games. It can also impel someone to leap onto a hand grenade to save comrades in arms.

St. Paul says that no one can say Jesus is Lord unless by the prompting of the Spirit. Luther says, The Holy Spirit reveals and preaches that Word (Christ), and by it illumines and kindles hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it and persevere in it.

Our tradition gives us lots of language, even personal language, by which to speak about God and to speak to God. Jesus taught us to say, Abba, Our Father. Doubting Thomas taught us to say, My Lord and My God.

But we don't have much language by which we make personal claims about the Holy Spirit. In fact, part of our experience makes us leery of those who speak as though the Holy Spirit were handy in their pockets, or otherwise hooked-in by some sort of pipeline to direct knowledge of God.

Perhaps the insight lies here. It's not we who claim the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Spirit of the Living God claims us.

In John's Gospel, especially chapters 15 and 16, Jesus tells the disciples that he will send the Paraclete. That is, one who "stands beside" to be their comforter, advocate and teacher. In his letter to the church at Rome, St. Paul says, For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a sprit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 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 -if in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

This Spirit is neither a silent partner nor an idle sidekick. The Spirit is the presence of God with us and in us. The Spirit is the ongoing work of God to transform us into a continuing declaration of concrete Good News, in the face of particular bad news.

So in the choice of language I used in my note, I was right and I was wrong. It's difficult to claim the Spirit. But it's even more difficult to deny the signs of God's presence, nearness, and activity in a congregation of believers whose love for God and neighbor becomes increasingly evident day after day.

That I can claim. Your faith makes it so. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

Blow Spirit, Blow!

2007-05-30T18:37:00.000-04:00

They hung in the Lobby for more years than I’d care to admit. They were well past their prime. Their bright colors faded. Missing pieces left both contraptions lopsided and unattractive. Still, I couldn't remove them.

I’m referring to the mobiles that hung from the Lobby ceiling until just a few weeks ago. They were made by youngsters in our Wednesday youth bible study years ago, to celebrate Pentecost. Originally, each mobile ferried eight doves made of bright paper. Written on one side was the name of the child who’d traced and cut the dove from a pattern. On the backside of their paper dove, each child had written these words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … God has anointed me to proclaim Good News!

While the words paraphrase Jesus’ first sermon (see Luke 4:16-21), my reasons for keeping these increasingly unsightly objects in a space of honor was sentimental, not theological. I left these wobbly, colorless mobiles in the Lobby because both pairs of dowel rods, and the fishing lines that suspended the cut-out doves, had been fastened together by Pastor Chuck Schroeder. He completed this task at least two years before his death in 2004.

Removing them, unsightly as they were, was a “departure” I could not make. In the end, what persuaded me was my realizing that the mobiles were single-handedly responsible for nearly fifteen false burglar alarms. It seems our motion sensors were overreacting to the unusual flight pattern these mobiles took on windy days and nights!

No doubt the mobiles could have been moved to another room, or put some place where I reverence way too many treasures from days gone by. But in reality, it was long past time for them to go.

Jesus said, in John 3:8, “You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.”

As a new season of Pentecost unfolds, the Spirit keeps calling us not only to new places, not just to new opportunities for mission, but to new heights of intimacy and belonging with God and with each other. Experiencing this newness will require our making a departure from our comfortable “now,” to what might be an alarming future.

Please pray with me that our “letting go” and our “departing” moves more readily than my redecorating!

Religion's Anti-Toxin: Jesus' Bread and Wine

2007-05-15T13:40:00.000-04:00

Our kitchen’s being remodeled. By 7:15 Friday morning, there were three workers in that small place. At one time, seven men, six workers and me, crowded there. As the day wore on, three more came and went. The last carpenter left at 7:20 that evening.

Through the day, I took and made phone calls finalizing plans for Bethlehem, New Orleans benefit banquet. It was a fabulous evening. Larry and Patti, along with their friends Laurie and Bill, played terrific jazz. Yatz restaurant provided great Cajun food. Pastor Patrick Keen inspired us all. Generous Christians from across the Indianapolis conference donated upwards of $8,000 to support that mission.

Frazzled by the day and jazzed up by the evening, I couldn’t sleep. At midnight, still tossing and turning, I turned on Charlie Rose thinking some boring talk might lull me to sleep. It didn’t occur to me to play a tape of one of my sermons.

Charlie’s first guest was comedian, Bill Maher. Maher’s riffs against the president meant no sleep for me, yet! The second guest was a British author, Christopher Hitchins. Here, I thought, is a fast-acting sedative.

In his intro, Charlie spoke of Hitchens’ latest books. The first, he said, praised Thomas Jefferson for taking a razor to the New Testament and editing out the miracles. That left, Hitchins says, Jesus as philosopher and moral teacher. A second book was, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. I have no clue!

Charlie then said, “You’ve never been a fan of believers of any sort. Why am I not surprised by the title of your latest book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything?” I rushed downstairs to finish watching the show. Finally, in bed again at 1:15, I still tossed and turned. This time arguing with Hitchins where I thought he has it wrong and fighting with myself over what I have to admit Hitchins has right.

At one level, Hitchins doesn’t say anything new. Way back in 1711, Jonathan Swift, who authored Gulliver’s Travels, wrote, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

Both Christopher Hitchins and Jonathan Swift are onto something. Each of them, though, misses the richness of the banquet table’s food, by focusing mostly on the corruption of those who:
• operate the hall
• select the ones to be invited as guests
• serve the diners
• as well as, how some of the welcomed diners behave both before and after the meal.
This, too, is nothing new.

Before we heard Jesus’ instruction to his disciples at their last supper together, in John 13:31-35 we heard Peter’s testimony about how God worked through Peter’s dream and Peter’s following through on that dream, for the benefit of Cornelius and his whole household, in Acts 11:1-18. I’m using the word, “testimony” not to describe Peter’s inspirational witness of faith. Testimony is the most accurate word because this event, happening not more than a few weeks or months after Jesus’ ascension, is the New Testament’s first recorded church fight and heresy trial. I find that to be way cool!

What’s cool isn’t the fight, obviously. What’s cool is that God inspired the believers who experienced it to record the whole messy event for our benefit. See, it never occurred to them that we might hear a story like this and find it to be poison.

Hitchins says religion poisons everything because so many believers hold that by obeying a few simple rules and holding some rather bizarre ideas, they will be rewarded with everlasting life in heaven. We’d have a hard time arguing his point. And if he’s completely correct, we’d also have to wonder why Bear and Lilly not only support this step we celebrate in Sarah’s and Paul's faith walk, they encourage it.

Here’s where Hitchins has it right. Religionists, then and now, work overtime to turn who the Bible says God is, and what this God does, on its head. Here’s where Hitchins has it wrong. Being Christian, becoming Christ-like, doesn’t have to make you a religionist.

What makes it hard to argue against Hitchins is that it often looks like there’s more evidence for his conclusion than there is for mine, for ours, for what Jesus commanded us to be and to do: By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Today, in this banquet hall, where everyone is welcome as guest, we inept discipling, caterers are serving a rich food and drink to Sarah and Paul for the first time. Whatever it is we have not done before this meal, whatever it is we may fail to do after we’ve eaten, doesn’t change the One who is this Meal’s true Host. Nor does our doing or not doing change how Jesus, as our Host and this table’s food and drink, can transform Sarah and Paul, as well as us.

What God has in mind at this meal, what’s going on in Jesus’ heart in this meal, is that we become nourished and strengthened to join what God always does, what Jesus accomplished in his life, by his death, and now in his resurrection. Namely, that we might have life, and have it so abundantly that we, like Jesus, will give it away. We’re called to give our life away not as burden, or as a test, not as sacrifice, but as rich grace, as priceless, costly gift, from one beloved to another.

Martin Luther’s insight here, against religionists, with whom we still differ, is this. Eligibility for belonging in this body, criterion for welcoming by disciples of Jesus, entitlement for table service from the likes of us is not a reward for right rule keeping.

This banquet, as Jesus commanded it, is not open only to those who can afford a ticket. This dine-in experience is neither repayment for holding correct beliefs, nor is this an incentive for a promised place in heaven. Rather, the talk, the action, the visioning, the dreaming of rootednesses, relatedness, belonging and becoming in God start here, at this simple meal, the foretaste of the feast to come.

What God desires, what Jesus longs for, is that we become what we eat: breaking open persons, a pouring out people. What God desires, what Jesus promises, is that we who maintain this hall prepare and share this meal with all those whom God loves, keep on listening to God still speaking. That’s what obeying commands means – listening to God still speaking, following God still loving. That’s a far cry from the poison pill that makes folk run roughshod over people for the sake of rule keeping.

This morning, in their young faith, Sarah and Paul move beyond what they can see, and touch, and taste to listen to the command and to trust the promise that, somehow, Jesus is in this bread and in this wine, for each of them, for all of us. That’s, in part, a testimony to what they’ve seen as our faithful listening and trusting.

As their dining here continues, those of us more mature in faith, now get to model something else for Sarah and Paul. We can show them that it’s possible and desirable to move into and through what we see, and touch, and taste, to believe that despite the inept things we do before we eat, the God who is the true host of this table, remains truly for us. We can show them that by this eating and drinking, regardless of those corrupt things we do after we eat; this God still desires the kind of intimacy with us that nourishes us toward becoming Christ-like, out there.

Here’s a simple prayer to keep us all alert for God’s doing that and make us all acute to hearing that godly-call: God is great. God is good. Let us thank God for our food. Amen.

Mother's Day with Jesus' Other Mother

2007-05-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

Would we have a Jesus worth having if it were not for this Canaanite mother? Even though Mother’s Day thrives on sentimentality, let’s stop being sentimental about Jesus. Sentimental comes from the Latin word sentire. It means to form a judgment or hold an opinion based, primarily on feelings rather than thoughtfulness.

As Matthew tells the story, the meeting between this foreign mother and Jesus comes well after his Sermon on the Mount. That is, by the way, another of our opinions about who Jesus is, as well as what he said and did, that we hang onto, more sentimentally, than thoughtfully. We just love those sweet sounding “blesseds” don’t we? Look quickly at Matt 5:43ff. 43You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Nice happy thoughts, huh, but not many of us go there much.

We can’t, in all honesty, square the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount with the Jesus who meets the Canaanite woman. 21Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." 23But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." 27She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly (Matthew 15:21-28). This is Jesus’ Don Imus moment. Look how he is.

First, in verse 23, he flat out ignores her. Now you can’t make the case that he hasn’t heard her. In the same verse his disciples say, “Yo, you deaf? Can you hear that screeching? The Greek word they use is kradzo. It means to croak, or to screech like a raven.

Most likely to shut them up, he brings them up short with his, suddenly much narrower vision of who he’s to shepherd. Back in 9:35-36 Matthew tells us that after healing the woman with hemorrhages, after raising the synagogue official’s daughter from the dead, seeing crowds of needy people flocking to them in Jewish synagogues, Jesus was moved with compassion.

Here, it seems, seeing this outsider, this foreigner, this Gentile, Jesus is moved with contempt. “It’s not fair,” he says “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Not a phrase our mothers or grandmothers stitch on our throw pillows, is it? I’m tellin’ you, this is Jesus’ Don Imus moment.

Let’s step back. Who is this woman? Start there. Back then, women don’t start conversations with men they don’t know. Women don’t roam the streets unescorted. Canaanite women, or men, don’t go seeking out any Jew, much less some sort of a rabbi. All that said, who we have here is a person with her back up against the wall. Most of us know that feeling, as well as the thoughts that go with it!

What she wants to know is, does this Jesus, and the God who he claims sent him, have anything to offer folk who have their backs against the wall? She seems to have found a flaw in Jesus’ his inclusive humanitarianism. The wisdom of his God (Proverbs 2) - that those who truly seek God will come to understand righteousness and justice and equity - seems to have escaped Jesus’ footpath.

To be fair – and, no, I’m not going to offer any excuses at all for Jesus’ arrogance, classism, racism, or sexism, this is a question that folks with their backs against the wall have been asking Christians for years. Does the Christ we Christians profess, offer a Good News that is concrete and relevant to particular experiences of real, bad news?

Most Christians have still the nasty habit of proclaiming an exclusive Gospel. We also make our proclamations of Good News more burden than grace. We preach a Jesus who asks folk to take up a cross, then we abruptly declare their current states of injustice, oppression, inequity not inhumane conditions which followers of Jesus ought to rail against, but burdens of faith they must bear, as they give out of their neediness to those who have less!

Like Jesus, whose narrow mission focused on the maladies of insiders, we are quicker to talk about the bounty of membership than we are to act in ways that make God’s blessings available to all God’s children. This mother, and all those still walking in her shoes, will have none of that from Jesus. Neither will they abide that kind of alienation from us; no matter we offer it in the name of God.

In her neediness, with her back up against the wall for the sake of her daughter’s wellbeing, she accepts Jesus’ vulgar description of her ethnicity. Kneeling before him in a submissive position, addressing him with a title of reverence, she adopts the oppressive identity he’s used to put her down and says, “Even B-words get to eat scraps from the master’s table. You got any scraps left for the B’s, Mister Rabbi? Cuz I’m thinkin’ Lord Master, that the One who made us both, and my daughter too, in God’s image and likeness, draws on a wisdom that prefers equity to fairness.” See that? She’s doin’ the dozens on him.

By the strength of her “right back at ya” faith in that kind of God, this woman, whose ethnicity, race and gender were held by Jews in Jesus’ day to embody all the wickedness and godlessness of every non-Jew, works a conversion is Jesus’ heart. He now calls her, “Woman,” the same word used in Genesis, for who it was that God made from Adam’s rib. It’s a word reflecting dignity, worth and belonging.

More than that, Jesus describes her faith as great. This is the only place in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus uses that word to describe someone’s faith.

Standing on and in the dignity and worth of her creation as woman, this Canaanite mother does nothing short of rebirthing Jesus. The one who brought the new teaching from the mount, be perfect, literally, be complete and whole as your Father in heaven is complete and whole, is moved to wholeness and completion by the heart of soul of this one who was called godless and wicked.

Here she represents all that God has in mind for the women who would share God’s own life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making mission for all God’s children. Here she demonstrates for us the height and depth, the length and breadth God is willing to go to make life whole and complete for all those whose backs are up against a wall.

Were it not for her stamina, the charge Jesus gave his disciples, the command we call the great commission, to go out and make all nations disciples of this now inclusive Gospel, might never have been uttered. Were it not for her willingness to suffer the travail Jesus laid on her, we, so-called honorary Jews (Krister Stendahl), would not share in either the grace or the faith she experienced.

She is, for all of us Gentiles, the mother of our faith. By grace, most of us can claim an experience of a woman who has suffered travail for us. By grace most of us can name an encounter with a woman who has borne indignity to bring about our wellbeing. By grace most of us have a relationship with Jesus based on the great faith of a woman we call mother.

Today is a good day not to just find warm feelings for your mama. Today is a good day to make time to think about your mama. Remember her travail. Recall the indignities she bore on your behalf. Remind yourself of her stamina. Reminisce about the ways she sought to distinguish fairness from equity. Recollect her courageous faith.

When you’ve got all that thinking done, notice how you feel, then give God thanks for the gift of God’s own wisdom and presence you’ve seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled and relished in, with the Mama God chose just for you. Like the Canaanite woman, against all kinds of odds we seldom call to mind, she mothered you best she could.

Snatches of Faith

2007-04-30T17:34:00.000-04:00

By the end of this month I’ll have a new license plate on my car. It won’t be one of the new, free “In God We Trust,” vanity plates. I’m relatively sure I trust God, on most days. What I’m less sure of is: how much I trust God, on any given day, and what is it I trust God with / for, on any give day. There’s a clue.

Any day, every day, is a given day. Each day comes to us as a gift from God. Whether we are mindful of that, of course, is a whole ‘nother story!

Some folks I know contend that what we call faith really is trust. The intellectual, emotional state of believing may best be described, in English, with the word, confidence – a synonym for trust. Of course, in our everyday speech we don’t make much of a distinction between what we “believe” and what we “know.” It’s only when we say things like, “I’m taking X ‘on faith,’” that we seem to be admitting that our knowledge about X is less than certain, still we choose to hold on to, i.e., “believe in” the truthfulness of X.

One thing I do trust God, “in, with, and under,” as Luther was fond of saying, is what Jesus said in John 10:27-28: My sheep hear my voice. I know the, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Try preaching on that whole Good Shepherd shtick. It’s not a very urban metaphor. By the time the preacher explains all the nuances of agrarian shepherding and Hebrew prophets’ usages of shepherd imagery for various and sundry Israelite Kings - past, present and future - listeners have mentally retreated to that emotional space in the brain where decisions about the ACLU’s suing the state of Indiana over “religious” license plates are made!

I don’t know, for certain, that I’ve heard the Shepherd’s voice. I believe I’ve heard it before and I believe I will hear it again. I do know that I’m not the world’s best full-time follower.

I don’t know that I’ll have eternal life. I do trust I will and I believe it’s already begun. I have no clue what it means that I (they) will never perish. We translate the Greek word, apollumi, as perish. Its literal definition is: to destroy, as in to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to, ruin, to render useless, or to kill.

I’ve also come to trust that no one snatches me out of the Shepherd’s hand. They don’t have a chance. I do it all for them! No sooner do I trust that I’m held in the palm of God’s hand than I jump off / out, of my own volition. Perhaps it’s because I think I know more or better. Maybe I believe I’m the better navigator. Looks like I’m much more suited to a vanity license plate than I’d like to admit.

I take all sorts of wrong turns, make outrageous maneuvers, go down blind alleys, cross untold byways, retrace my tracks to nowhere and wonder how I arrived onto a strangely random, dangerous road. On most occasions, I have the audacity to blame God for the lost-ness in which I find myself!

Part of what makes that doable, not right but doable, is that God always arrives at my lost-place before I do. I’m learning to trust that. In Romans 8:35ff Paul writes: The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (The Message)

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. Trusting in you, I’ll not snatch vanity from the embrace of victory!

Gut-Check; Soul-Check

2007-04-26T12:28:00.000-04:00

Hot town; summer in the city…go lyrics from a golden oldie I still enjoy. Sad to say urban ministry hasn’t kept pace with music’s evolution. What’s a city church to be and to do at a time and place when the chief of police sends five-page memos to the city’s pastors, pleading with them to attend a meeting?

I’m still a fan of a, now, ten-year old article recommending that church folk establish new theologies of creation, redemption, teaching, worship – the hole nine yards - for post-modern metropolitan centers. These should take social realities into account, without using mono-vision. Rather, church folk must use both the lenses of social science and theological science in tandem to ensure faith claims are relevant (not trendy) and concrete (not more blue ribbon commissions), as they articulate the Good News of Jesus Christ. His proclamation was nothing if it wasn’t both concrete and relevant.

Reworking faith and church at this level would include taking into account the very evident urban / suburban apartheid where fear, as well as a variety of –isms, meet. But where to begin.

Let’s start with an old book. Recommended to me, by a brilliant scholar and man with a deep, contemporary, Christian faith, Dr. Stephen G. Ray, Associate Professor and Director of the Urban Theological Institute at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, is Howard Thurman’s, Jesus and the Disinherited.

In his forward, Dr. Vincent Harding highlights the maladies of soul and spirit for which Thurman’s spirituality is the remedy. These inner demons are: fear, hypocrisy and hatred. While Thurman’s insights predate both the civil rights movement, and our own postindustrial experience, those of us whom these demons still hound - and we are legion – still require the divine grace, as well as the determination of will, to acquire the “profound succor and strength to enable them to live in the present with dignity and creativity.”

Dr. Harding also suggests that contemporary experiences of what Thurman addressed are detailed in a work entitled, Testimony. Published in 1994, the book is a collection of essays and poetry written by some forty young African American writers. Natasha Tarpley edits the piece.

If you’re at all feeling like your back is against the wall, (Thurman’s phrase) find someone with whom you might read and discuss Jesus and the Disinherited. It looks to be a way cool gut- and soul-check for would-be brave believers at the edge of a looming hot summer.

Make Way for Cho Seung-Hui

2007-04-20T14:01:00.000-04:00

Editorialists Leonard Pitts and Eugene Robinson warn us to beware of the narratives we bring to our interpretation of events. Good advice for those of us with children on college campuses this week. Sage advice for college students. Astute observations for people of faith.

It simply cannot be too soon to carry the meta-narrative of scripture as the lens through which we force ourselves to reckon with the events occurring at Virginia Tech. The record of that narrative will, as always, convict and console us amidst our weeping.

Once, again, we’ve witnessed another of civil (not civilized) religion’s “memorial” services which fails to include the perpetrating sinner. Once, again, we’ve demonized a wrong-doers personhood. Once, again, we’ve ethnically cleansed an American cultural phenomenon with loaded descriptors of an immigrant’s long-ago origins, over and against his long-standing American upbringing.

From the same biblical codex that sprouts privately purchased monuments to the biblical Decalogue in public places comes this word: You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21.) A later rewrite commands more than avoidance: The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34.)

On Monday we asked of the unfolding, deadly narrative, “Why.” By Wednesday we regretted the storied shooter’s answer; finding him to be neither alien, nor loving, and, by his own account, unloved.

Through our tear blurred vision we get to read this tragic episode inside a grander meta-narrative, the one so many claim to live in, with, and under. Our burning eyes, tear stained cheeks and salt-tasting tongues must find a way for our heavy hearts to makes room in God’s “always for-us, never at-us story” for Cho Seung-Hui.

The God of our, “There’s no way,” is the One who keeps sending us Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. That’s the same Jesus who wept over a city whose inhabitants kept deceiving themselves. It’s he who longed to gather each and all as a hen gathers her chicks, absorbing their pain, protecting their vulnerabilities, even as he lived and died to ensure that Death, no death, is ever the last word for anyone.

For Him, there is no “unlovable.” In Him, even salt-dried lips can heave through the sobbing, “Receive a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Alleluia!”

In short, “Make, we pray, a way out of our, ‘No Way!’”

Jesus is Risen! - Now What? Tell Imus

2007-04-15T14:02:00.000-04:00

If you’re tired of hearing about Don Imus, you came to the wrong place. Mind you, I hadn’t intended to talk about him. In last week’s Easter message I said the evangelists don’t intend to address either “how” or “why” questions about Jesus’ resurrection. Their focus, ours too, is on the “so what” question. The title of that sermon was, “Jesus is Risen! – So What?”

I said, answering that “so what” question, “Easter is God’s new way of saying, ‘I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.’”

Every year, on the week after Easter, we hear about Thomas. My first thoughts about this week’s message focused on what it means to believe, or how we might distinguish our beliefs from our believing. That seemed like a reasonable follow-up to the “so-what” message. But in the wake of the Don Imus debacle, “Show-Me” Thomas and his poking fingers will have to wait until next year.

Throughout the week that doomed Don, what played out was another example of our culture’s doing a poor imitation of church. Many of the right words were in play: confession, contrition, penance, forgiveness, and forgetfulness, but too few Christian attitudes, principles and behaviors were on display.

Despite the abundance of “reverends” on so many talk shows, Jesus was under-represented. Most talking-head clergy sounded like graduates of the schools of Annas and Caiaphas, rather than alumnae of the Sermon on the Mount.

It’s verse 19 – 23 from the 20th chapter of John’s Gospel that’s on point here. See, the focus here is, “Jesus is Risen! – Now What?” That was missing from our “Christian nation’s” response to the peculiar pain Imus inflicted on the women from Rutgers as well as the sadness and outrage we felt.

Look at what happens in this upper room on Easter evening, before Thomas’ goings and comings redirect our focus. First, Jesus shows up. Amidst the disciples’ worst fears, Jesus hasn’t abandoned them.

Next, before they can react or respond, he offers Peace, Shalom. This isn’t wishful thinking on Jesus’ part. Neither is it some high-fivin’ homeboy’s way of saying, “Whazzup!” Nor is Jesus suggesting that they get caught up in some inner tranquility.

What Jesus is bringing and giving is the belonging and wholeness that comes from the dawn of God’s Kingdom Rule. It’s God’s new gift, through this risen Christ, from the future, here and now! Look at the third verse of Herbert F. Brokering’s hymn, Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!: Jesus the vine, we are the branches; life in the Spirit the fruit of the tree; heaven to earth, Christ to the people, gift of the future now flowing to me.

Then Jesus shows them his hands and feet. Though fresh from the future, in some sort of different body that’s able to move through locked doors, this risen Jesus has continuity with the Jesus they knew, loved, and watched get buried. They’re ecstatic.

Lest they miss the true source of their joy, he tells them again, “Peace be with you.” Rejoice in this life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making Shalom. Under this holy rule, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Don’t miss this. This verb, “has sent,” is the past perfect form of the verb, “to send.” That means it’s an action begun in the past, which continues in the present and goes into the future! Isn’t that cool? And you thought those Language Arts teachers were wasting our time!

Breathing on them, Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This breathing-thing is crucial. We should hear, here, the same activity that occurred in Genesis where the Spirit-wind blew over the chaos and tamed it. We should hear, here, the same Genesis-action by which God breathed God’s own self into a mound of clay.

With this new-creation action, Jesus declares, Have on you, in you and with you that Advocate I promised you. Be empowered and become emboldened to do as I have done. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

This is huge. This is not merely Jesus inventing some ritual action we call confession and forgiveness. Jesus is doing more than establishing what we call the Office of the Keys so pastors can comfort the anguish of morally afflicted members.

You see where this is goin’? What the disciples hear Jesus say – by the way, he’s speaking to us as well – are words from the same guy who washed their feet. This same Jesus said, “If, I, your Master and Lord, have washed your feet, you should do likewise. I have given you an example.”

The One who’s sending them is the One who told them to love others as he loved them. That same One said, “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The last paragraph of Easter Sunday’s message was, “So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people, we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!”

Where were all the Easter people on Easter Monday when Don Imus needed them most? The only one who came close was, C. Vivian Springer, the women’s basketball coach at Rutgers, and even she, in her own woundedness couldn’t get all the way there.

Don Imus is a public sinner. We’re not talking politically incorrect, intellectually challenged, morally bankrupt, ethical lapse, or slip-of-the-tongue. We’re talking, the guy doesn’t get it. But the only difference between Don Imus, public sinner, and you and me, is the word, public.

We’re also talking about someone who, like us, is never going to make it on his own. Look at Acts 5:31, from a testimony Peter made, after he, like us, had been breathed on and sent, “God exalted him (Jesus) at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

Who, in the name of God, is going to give repentance, i.e., change of mind and change of heart, to Don Imus? It seems to me, if the man has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of the pit, it will only be because someone like you or me, an Easter person, washes his sinful, undeserving feet – even before he confesses adequately or apologizes appropriately.

That’s how it was, and is, for us isn’t it? While we still were in our sin, God so loved the world that he sent the Son to save the world not to condemn the world. Jesus is risen – now what?

Look, Don Imus is both responsible and, in this case, blameworthy for his actions. We have a right to expect there to be consequences. He may even suffer through these. What we don’t have a right to expect are consequences intended to inflict pain, cause shame, or spring from revenge. That’s not what forgiving or retaining sin means under God’s Shalom.

I’m not imagining y’all rushin' outa here to go phone Imus. But I can imagine, in fact I pray for, and will do whatever I can to help your leaving here and finding someone you know, close to home, maybe in school, perhaps in the next pew, at work, or where you volunteer who is responsible, blameworthy and stuck in a Pit they can’t get out of on there own.

The public of their sin may even have been directed at you. If you, an Easter person, don’t tell them the Good News, that Jesus is risen – now what, means Jesus has opened his crossed up arms wide enough to include them in his new Shalom loving and belonging, how will they ever trust that message enough to believe the risen Jesus just might give them repentance, too? If you don’t embrace them with God’s otherwise, how can they ever know risen Jesus now has a place for them at this table?

The new creation power Jesus gives us by the presence of the Spirit is the mighty dose of grace we need to carry on, to put into real people and real places the Shalom Jesus went ahead to bring back for us. It’s a huge task. It can often be very nearly unbearably unpleasant. Look at verses 30-31: But these (signs) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through that believing you may have life in his name.

Jesus is risen – now what? It's time to wash feet, even of the nastiest, not nice at all, down-right ugly and undeserving. That’s what believing and living in Jesus looks like.

Trusting Easter's Enough - Whenever!

2007-04-11T13:50:00.000-04:00

I love Easter. After more than two thousand years of fearing science; imitating emperors; impersonating philosophers; mirroring cruel dictators; adopting the tactics of snake-oil salesmen; and diluting the sheer gall of the Gospel, Easter brings us back to the clear message that through this Christ our lives belong to God.

It’s a message that’s simple to say, but not quite so easy to understand. Finding room to enter the message today, against the backdrop of Don Imus’ “comedy,” the death of a Kokomo guardsman in Iraq, or worse, the silent, private sufferings of your own heart may leave you in one of two places. Either you tolerate Easter even though you think this is all a bunch of hooey, but it’s harmless hooey, or, you’ve given yourself over to the truth of this incredible drama that’s beyond your wildest dreams.

What’s the message? That God sent Jesus to say and do everything he did, and to validate that God raised Jesus from the dead - and by that act God has triumphed over sin, death, and the devil.

If you take this at all seriously, you’ve had to, or will have to, try and wrap your brain around it. You’ll go after as many facts as you can. You’ll look for evidence and proof and test it all out against alternative theories. That’s part of what it means to have a mind in the first place. Then, you’ll move on to a way of trusting this so that metaphors and songs and poems do a better job of saying who you are inside the story of this God. That’s part of what it means to have a heart touched and grasped by this kind of God.

You can certainly enter the message today - either for the first time, or as a reaffirmation that this message defines who you are in ways that no other story can do. Meaning that, before your anything else - parent, spouse, employee, offspring, widow, divorcee, entrepreneur - and deeper than your anything else - you belong to this God, through this Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

The consequences, or effect, of this basic message - that:
• our sin, that is our over and over again tendency to miss the mark about who we are, is over come
• death is not the final word about who we are and who we are to become
• the devil, or any other power that competes for our loyalty, has been defeated.

The results of living in this message are radical and comprehensive:
• looking forward to the future replaces anxiety
• shame gives way to serenity
• distrust is displaced by joy
• self-discipline replaces addiction
• meaning overcomes maddening efforts to make an identity for ourselves
• relationship outstrips a desire for revenge
• persistence overpowers boredom.
• death gives way to life; darkness to light; fear to conviction; despair to confidence.

These effects are something like the fulfillment of your wildest dreams, your deepest hopes, your secret wishes. Only living this message, inside this story your hopes, dreams, longings, and desires spring from the heart of God - for you - not from your own, not completely trustworthy heart.

And there’s the rub, isn’t it? The Easter message goes against our grain, stands everything we know on its head. Despite appearances to the contrary, death is not the final word. Death is a door-way to a life that still, keeps on, continuing in God.

But instead of trusting in that, receiving an incredible freedom in the here and now, freedom from making our own meaning; we focus on the what of it, and the how of it, not the why of it.

Not one of the Gospels tells us what happened on that Sunday morning. They do - each one - all tell us that the Jesus who was crossed up, then shut up - somehow kept up coming after them - for them. That’s the heart of the message that Easter brings. Yes, in Jesus’ resurrection sin, sickness and the devil have been undone. AND, this God does that for you, for me. Despite everything we know, because of everything we know.

One of the grandest prayers in the Jewish Seder meal is the Dayenu prayer. After the eldest in attendance answers the question from the youngest, “Why is this night different from any other;” those gathered pray this way:
Dayenu - enough:
• O God had you made us in your image and likeness
• had you clothed us when we offended you in the garden
• spared Noah in the great flood
• given Abraham a son
• spared Isaac
• freed us from bondage in Egypt
• given us the 10 commandments and Torah
• forgiven King David his wrong-doing, etc.

But the facts of that prayer deny the truth of our being - a truth God knows and longs to undo. For us, it’s never enough.

And so, in the fullness of time God took flesh, became Emmanuel, God-with-Us. The heart of the Easter message is God for us. God, hard at work, trying to be enough for us. The crucified Jesus, still calling Mary’s name, still explaining scripture to the two on the road to Emmaus, still showing up in a locked room, still putting Thomas’ fingers into his wounds, still cooking breakfast for friends on the beach, still coming for us gathered in his name, still presenting himself to us in the Holy Spirit, in this word, at this meal.

Try as we do, it’s still never enough. Paul says, this side of the grave it will never be enough. We see through a glass, dimly. We have but a foretaste of the feast to come. He also says this: When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. That means “when,” as in whenever.

Despite what appears to us to be the continuing power of sin, death and the devil, glimpses of that Easter resurrection’s WHEN are breaking out all over. Whenever:
• the sun peaks over the horizon one more day
• a way out of now-way suddenly appears
• strangers put their strangeness aside in favor of relationship
• we let go of vengeance
• someone chooses to forget why they’re angry
• we employ our talents to make beauty, art, music, kindness
• we make room in our hearts for friendship and forgiveness
• our mouth’s declarations about injustice guide our hands and feet toward building justice.

Is this message believable? Not the way we usually use that word. Even Paul said as much. This is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Then he went on to stake his own life on both the reality and the truth of the message.

So have countless others. The women who were last at the cross and first at the tomb believed. So did the centurion at the cross and the wealthy Joseph of Arimethea. So have famous folks like: Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Barbara Jordan, James Weldon Johnson, and Senator Paul Simon.

So have the not so famous. Like Ollie Filer, Bill Ecker, Dorothy Siersbeck, Chuck Schroeder, Irene Strom – David Neil Simmons of Kokomo, and our own lists could go on and on.

With that great cloud of witnesses, I stand on the shoulders of those first apostolic believers who trusted the why of it, without giving a hoot for either the what or the how of it - and am privileged to shout, once again, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Jesus is Risen! - So What?

2007-04-09T12:34:00.000-04:00

If you ask, most people will tell you the four evangelists give us all the wrong information about Easter morning. One source is Luke 24:1-12. Inquiring minds want to know:
• how did this happen
• when was it - just before dawn, at dawn, or after dawn
• did Jesus raise up, or was he raised up
• was the tomb’s stone pulled out or pushed out
• who folded the linens
• does the son of God make his own bed
• was there 1 angel like Mark says, or 2 like Luke says
• were soldiers on guard, as Matthew says, or not.
Of course, if those archeologists are right and they’ve found the bones of Jesus, none of that matters.

This is at least the second team of scientists in the last 30 years to make such a claim. So before we get too bothered about what they found, maybe we should let them finishing arguing over which group has the right set of Jesus’ bones. It reminds me of the time I spent a month touring Europe. Having gone through nearly 30 churches and cathedrals I saw at least 12 kneecaps belonging to John the Baptist. Remember, the Bible says John ate locusts. It doesn’t say he ate so many he turned into one!

If we believe the evangelists don’t answer the right questions, it could be that we’re asking the wrong questions. Most of us have lots of experience with that. Students ask teachers, “Will this piece of information be on the test?” The teacher answers, “The test is on the whole unit.” You say, “Hey Mom, what’s for supper?” She says, “I’m the adult here; whatever I fix, you eat; understand!” You ask a dealer how much a car costs and you get about as many prices as there are ducks floating in a shooting gallery. Ask your spouse, “Honey, what do you want for your birthday?” He or she says, “Surprise me.” You just have to make sure that really doesn’t happen.

The evangelists are not answering “how” questions. They’re answering the “so what” question. Now most of us don’t ask that question. Because we’ve been through this story so many times; because we’ve heard so many sermons, that question isn’t much on our minds.

We imagine God rewarded Jesus for being such a good guy. Or, God finally admitted that since Jesus was willing to jump through such a huge hoop on Good Friday, God owed resurrection to Jesus. In our own way half-hearted amazement, we say Jesus’ resurrection is God’s way of fixing God’s “Oops!”

Amazement is not a bad thing. Luke says Peter, once he’d proved to himself that his women friends weren’t hysterical with grief, was amazed by the empty tomb. Luke also says, in verse 12, Peter left the tomb as unbelieving as he was before he ran there. Amazement doesn’t address the “so what” question.

The word “amaze,” or some form of it, is used roughly 60 times in the bible. No one who has that feeling is moved to faith merely by having that feeling. The same bible uses the word “remember” just over 200 times. Even when the word is used in reference to God, as in, God set a bow in the sky so God would remember the promise God made to Noah (Geneses 9:8-17), remembering brings those who do that into relationship.

Amazement is often the feeling we have when we’re hanging so tightly onto the last thing we believe God did, we have difficulty believing the next, new thing God is doing.

Luke says, in 24:6-10, when the women followed the instruction of the two men in dazzling clothes to remember Jesus’ words, faith seized them and they ran to tell the apostles that Jesus was risen.

Amazement looks backwards, fixes its gaze there. Remembering reaches backwards and brings something forward into our present reality.

Remember Christmas? We say God is doing a new thing for the world; such a new thing, in fact, that God requires a new name, Emmanuel, God-With-Us.

Remember the Sermon on the Mount? We say God is teaching a new thing to the world.

Remember Maundy Thursday? We say God is feeding a new thing to the world, and establishing a new way to remain present in the world.

Remember Good Friday? We say God is finding a new way to conquer evil, as well as a new way to demonstrate the depth of God’s love for us.

So what is Easter? It’s God’s new way of saying, “I meant what I said and did in my Son, Jesus. I’ve come down to deliver you from bondage to sin and death. I’ve come down to save the world, not to condemn the world.”

Will you be only amazed by that, or will you remember that, from the beginning, my heart’s desire is to keep creating you, to keep saving and freeing you and to keep on blessing?

Will you be only amazed by my promises, or will you remember them well enough so you can see and join me in living in, with and under them, as they keep unfolding in your life and in your world?

Will you be only amazed by my Son, Jesus’ wise teachings, wonderful works, and profound prayers, or will you remember to expect him, alive, to go ahead of you each day, everywhere you go, offering you new opportunities to complete the good work God has begun in you?

Will you be only amazed by these new things or will you remember them, bringing them forward to help you to comprehend and to celebrate whatever way cool way I dream up next to hold you, to forgive you, to love you and to lead you?

Will you be only amazed by one long ago Easter, or will you remember that Easter is more than an event; it’s more than a nice story designed to tidy up a messy Friday. Can you remember; Easter is a new relationship, a new identity, your new autobiography, alone and together, you are my Easter people.

So what will you remember? Will you remember, tomorrow, and the day after, that because we are an Easter people we not only remember differently, we live differently, and God’s world is alive, anew – for the love of God – Alleluia!

Why Do We Call it Good Friday?

2007-04-06T11:40:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest struggles I have in carrying out this pastoral role is dealing with beggars at the door. Someone who we’ve helped in the past came to the door yesterday. Just hearing the bell I knew it was a beggar. I even said that to the copier repair technician who was here at the time.

When I got to the door, the man said, “Can you give me $5, Reverend, I’m hungry?” “No,” I said, “can’t do it.” “But it’s your job to help.” “You want help,” I asked? “Okay, what’s your story?” “Whaddya mean,” he glared. I shot back, “Well, I’m guessin’ your mama didn’t birth no loser, so how’d you turn from that beautiful, proud boy into a loser?” Without pausing he said, “Well, I didn’t get into the NBA cuz I dropped outa school. Then I got shot here in my chest, see (he opened his shirt revealing a long scar). Then here in my head and I ain’t been right since, see,” (he took off his ball cap and pointed to a crescent suture line arching across his temple).

I wonder what it will take for me to see the truth. We’re all hungry; no, starving. We’ve all dropped out; each of us has lost a dream; and none of us, by ourselves, is right in the heart or in the head.

The One who we remember this day, the one whose blood and water flowed from his head and his heart, all down the cross is the same One who said things like:
• God sent the Son to save the world, not condemn it
• When you eat this bread, you’ll never be hungry again
• I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly
• If you drink from the waters I bring, you’ll never thirst
• No greater love exists than for someone to lay down life for another.

By grace, we stake our life, and bank our future on the One who took those words not only to heart, but to a heart pierced for us - while we were still losers. Before we even knew we were beggars at the door we are fed, watered, nourished, strengthened, by grace, and because of Jesus and his cross we belong to this loving God.

When we can trust grace, every day ending in “y,” especially toda“y” is a GOOD day!

Costly Recipe for Passionate Intimacies

2007-04-05T15:37:00.000-04:00

Starbuck’s is my least favorite boutique. I’ve always been a Dunkin’ Donuts kind o’ guy. When forced by circumstances, usually a meeting, into Starbuck’s, I can’t seem to resist buying a biscotti, a long, hard, crunchy Italian cookie – best dunked in coffee. My grandmother made those often.

Among my most prized possessions is my grandmother’s biscotti recipe. She gave it to me 17 years ago, a year before she died. Fact is, it’s right here in my wallet. For reasons I can’t fathom, the last time I made biscotti, I stuck the recipe in my wallet instead of putting it back inside a cookbook where we keep other recipes from grandma. That was 5 years ago. The recipe has been in my wallet ever since then, and in the mean time, we’ve had only store bought biscotti.

Most of these are really bad. To keep pace with trends folks tinker with the recipe. They substitute margarine, not 5 sticks of pure butter. They add sesame seeds. Some add almond paste and almond pieces. A few bakeries put in, ahh, chocolate chips!

For all practical purposes, I don’t have grandma’s biscotti recipe. Having the recipe means gathering the ingredients. It requires measuring them out in the exact proportions. Owning the recipe means mixing the quantities together in the right order, using the appropriate utensils. Enjoying the recipe involves following the instructions for preparing and baking the dough. For as long as the recipe has been in my wallet, none of that has happened.

To many of us hold our Christian identity with the same ill regard I hold grandma’s recipe. It’s tucked safely away. We know exactly where it is. It’s tattered and worn not from over-use, but from abuse.

On his last night with his disciples, Jesus gave them an example and a commandment. Better words might be recipe or pattern, and an instruction or a direction.

Jesus always practiced what he preached. He walked his talk. He makes clear in this foot-washing both the high regard and the deep love he has for his disciples. He establishes in this meal the expansive, inclusive reach of his breaking-open and pouring-out love. He instructs us to do likewise.

Choose to love one another with a vulnerable love; love which is prone to be ignored, rejected, denied and even betrayed. It’s what happened with Jesus’ love. It can happen when we love that way, too. Despite that, as Jesus lives out that love, we see and experience a love persisting through to the end.

Both Jesus’ acted out language, and his spoken word, are in the plural. He performs what he does and speaks what he says to the community he’s called together. He knows how difficult it is for individuals, including himself, to love that way – vulnerably and persistently.

That’s why we do what we do here this evening. As those whom the Spirit of God has called together to receive this pattern, to practice this example, to hold this recipe in high regard, we keep these intimate rituals. We wash feet. We share a common meal. Both ground us in God’s own passionate, vulnerable, persistent and present love that gives us life, brings us freedom, blesses us, and makes us a blessing to and for the world.

You’d be hard pressed to call us a boutique church. That hasn’t, and shouldn’t, stop us from being bold enough to tinker with the recipe. Our tinkering, though, must always be relevant, never trendy. Our loving Jesus’ own in the world demands that we continue finding appropriate and truthful ways to keep shairn’ plenty good news!

When we faithfully execute that pattern, follow that example, serve up that recipe, everyone will know Whose disciples we are, because our love for one another, like Jesus’ love for us, stretches beyond our closest reach and extends passed our least costly embrace.

Jesus’ Colorful Passion – On a Stage Near YOU!

2007-04-05T11:20:00.000-04:00

Every time someone gets up to proclaim the scriptures at worship lately, I’m reminded that a burglar ripped off our microphone, two cymbals, and a cymbal stand. I think they’re bad people.

Today I heard that our neighbor was robbed at gunpoint while working, during the middle of the day, in his tax office six blocks from here. I think that must have been a bad actor.

Now for sure, you can help me shift my attitude. In fact, I probably can’t do that without you.

But what I’m talking about now is something different. See, there are no bad people in this story of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, and execution (John 18-19). Everybody inside the story, the naïve, lazy disciples, the betraying Judas, the Temple police, the priests who sent them, even Pilate, all of them were acting with integrity – much like Jesus. The difference is, Jesus acted out of both integrity and humility. He not only moved truthfully, as he understood truth to be; he is grounded – that’s what humble means – he was grounded in God’s truth

These other folks acted true to character, but they were grounded in something other than the unfolding story of God’s way of freeing them from oppression and injustice. They were convinced that they were the authors and directors, rather than actors in the story authored and directed by God.

Everyday, we, like they, have many opportunities to portray our true colors. By what we say and do, how we decide and judge, who we show ourselves to be – we display our true colors. We’re either truthfully acting in the ground of God’s story, or we’re bit players in some other powers’ fantasy.

Jesus, MBA

2007-04-04T11:25:00.000-04:00

There’s money all over the place in Holy Week. It begins with Jesus overturning the money changers’ tables and scattering money all over the floor in the Temple. In the middle is the extravagance of the woman who anoints Jesus, and the cash on the barrel Judas negotiates to hand Jesus over. At the end, those same silver pieces come crashing back onto the Temple floor.

It’s a good thing that God doesn’t manage the wealth of grace the way we manage money. That’s what caught Jesus’ eye about this woman, and sent the onlookers into frenzy. The woman managed her expensive oil in virtually the same way God manages the wealth of God’s grace. She was extravagant with it. She lavished it for no apparent reason.

We don’t run our banks, our savings and checking accounts, our IRA’s, our 401 K’s, our money market funds, our mutual funds, or our stock portfolios that way at all. But that’s not the worst of it.

We’ve turned our time, our attention, our energy, our talents and everything we can manage to count, measure, calculate, tabulate, buy, or sell into a commodity. With the best of intentions, we even talk about children as our most precious resource. We always want to know the return on investment. We’re always looking to weigh the risk against the gain.

God, in Jesus, invites us into another way of reconciling accounts. Simply receive the precious gift of God’s outpouring love with open hands. Don’t hang onto it. Let it splash over those closest to you. They are as deserving and desirous of God’s generosity as you are.

Christ’s Passion: Cliché or Cachet?

2007-04-03T15:33:00.000-04:00

There’s a feature on my writing software that I can’t live without. Depending upon your computer’s age and the software it runs you may have this as well. Inside the spell-check tool is both a grammar checker and a reading analysis. My software does these tasks in two ways. One is clicking on the icon marked, ABC. The other is to set a feature that underlines misspelled words in red, as well as underlining grammatical problems in green, while I’m typing.

The program says the grammatical mistake I make most often is writing passive sentences. Sales and marketing folks, sports writers, fund-raising experts and some English teachers, say that passive sentences are boring. They lack zip. They’re usually lengthier than sentences using active verbs. This more dynamic style engages a different part of the readers’ and hearers’ brains. Sentences with active verbs chemically stimulate more dramatic reactions and responses from readers and hearers.

Writing often this week, for the worship folder, the newsletter and the blog, all this was on my mind while studying Philippians 2:5-11 (held to be an ancient baptismal hymn) and Luke 23:1-49 (a portion of Jesus’ passion). I was struck by different thoughts and feelings when hearing Luke’s story-telling approach to the last days of Jesus, in contrast to the more poetic approach Paul uses when he includes this hymn in his letter. Now that’s no great insight. A storyteller’s style differs, almost by definition, from a poet’s or a song-writer’s method of writing and composing.

The feelings I’m talking about lie deeper than the obvious. Both Luke and Paul’s hymn writer want to provide detail about the same event, the death of Jesus. Luke, though, puts the thoughts and feelings of Jesus in the mouth of Jesus. Once we move past the entry into Jerusalem, where Jesus is clearly in command, we don’t hear much from Jesus himself on Thursday and Friday.

The momentum in Luke’s account, the way he moves the death plot forward, is done by himself as narrator, or by means of his “reporting” the words and feelings of secondary players. Looking at the details, time-lines, and reactions in Luke’s telling makes Jesus seem like a passive character in the grandest adventure of his own story.

The hymn, on the other hand, offers insights that are inferred or surmised from the composer’s thoughts about Jesus in the midst of these events. The composer, then, infuses these reflections onto and into Jesus.

Even though this style has a definite “outside / in” quality, the result is anything but that. Look at how powerful, in control, and decisive the hymn’s Jesus sounds; He:
• did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited
• emptied himself
• took the form of a slave
• humbled himself
• obeyed to the point of death, even death on a cross.
See the difference? The hymn’s Jesus doesn’t look as much like a victim. The hymn’s Jesus is an active agent.

The hymn’s Jesus looks much more like the Good Shepherd Jesus we hear in John 10:14-18: "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They'll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father." (The Message).

The hymn helps us see Jesus amidst this death-plot, not as the victim of the wolf, but as the caretaker, guarantor of the sheep’s well-being. The hymn has something to say to the sheep, as well. At the name of Jesus:
• we should bend our knees
• our tongues should confess Jesus as Lord, to the glory of the Father. (Not should, as in command, should as in what logical alternative is there?)

Why am I telling you all this? Because what Paul wrote, what the Bible says is: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)

Sometimes, when somebody like me tries to break open a text for folks like you, we both wind up confused. Of course, I think I’m doing a good job when I show you the difference between a bible story and a bible hymn. But it can’t end there. If I leave you thinking that once we’ve sliced and diced these pages what we’re about is only literary criticism, I’ve done you a disservice. Like as not, I’ve committed a sin (missed the mark).

See, these aren’t just words and stories, parables and songs, proverbs and folktales about God. These aren’t even simply the trustworthy accounts of long ago folks’ experiences with God. These are a living God’s word spoken to us here and now.

God means for God’s presence in these words to inflame us and to stir up in us a living, active response to what this God is saying to us in this time and place - in, with, and under these words. As your pastor I want this understanding to be on your minds, in your hearts, at your finger tips, always. I want that for you and for us, especially this week, as together we consider how we will respond to what God does for us, and for the world, by means of Jesus and his cross.

It’s time to get that sorry picture Mel Gibson painted off your radar screen. Of course Jesus suffered, suffered greatly. Of course Jesus’ suffering is for us, that is, has a personal and eternal impact, or effect on us.

Don’t you think that if God thought it important for us to have a picture of the depth and level of Jesus’ physical torture, God’s evangelists would have done that painting? The evangelists don’t avoid the pain and suffering. Neither do they dwell on it. As they tell it, as this early composer sang about it, it’s neither necessary nor sufficient to get stuck in that portrait.

From the beginning, God has rejected revenge. Just prior to expelling Adam and Eve from the garden, for disobedience – that is, not listening to God, look at what God did. God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them. (Genesis 3:21, The Message).

It’s not completely right to say we caused that to happen. It’s not accurate to say God needed that to happen to satisfy grievances God had, or has, against us.

What’s truthful to say, and to see, is this. God allowed this to happen. Jesus chose, as in willingly agreed to go along with what God was allowing. God moved this way for us, so we might turn around and begin to live, and move, and have our being inside this same God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness, which sets us free in Jesus.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. That’s the overriding focus of this Holy Week. That’s what we’ll ponder together on Maundy Thursday, as we wash feet then share bread and wine. That’s what we’ll speak to God for, and listen to God say, on Good Friday.

Here’s what that means, not just for two days out of the year, but for everyday that we say we want to walk as disciples in the footsteps of Jesus and the God who loves him.
• What happens when God’s will is the last thing on your mind and seldom penetrates your heart? When your talk is a cliché and your walk has no cachet.
• What goes on in your life when your relationship with God lacks integrity?
• What overwhelms a country when its citizens believe God blesses them to the exclusion of everyone else?
• What occurs in your world when some crowd catches you up and you’re dragged off course?
• What are the everyday consequences when you’re bought off, for some modern equivalent of 30 pieces of silver?
• What goes down when your religion oppresses and condemns other children of God, in the name of God?

The God who loves Jesus, the Jesus who loves God, tell us over and over, how deeply God loves. They show us, over and over, what lengths God goes, willingly, to embrace passionately even the most raggedy characters our biblical pages describe.

Surely, someone in here looks enough like you to move you to respond to this living God with the loving word God desires to hear from each of us this day: Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven! (Luke 19:37-38)

Relish is Good All Over!

2007-03-30T17:14:00.000-04:00

“How can he say that every week, Pastor,” asked a very young woman. She says that each Sunday, after he returns home from church, her boy friend phones. Time after time his elated greeting is, “Theresa, I’m a changed man!”

I resisted the urge to point out that, at their ages, neither she nor he has reached full womanhood, or manhood. That wasn’t a hard task since my sons still ask me what I want to be when I grow up.

“What does he mean going to church makes him a changed man,” she pressed, delight and enchantment radiating from her face. “What do you think he means,” I asked. “Something about hearing God makes him feel good all over.” “Yes,” I said, “All over, and all over again.” The teachable moment evaporated as quickly and unexpectedly as it had arrived. “He’s got a new cell phone too and …”

Both youthful inexperience and over familiarity can do that; lead us to deprive a moment of its rich, hidden, mysterious bounty. Listen to those words: rich; hidden; mysterious; and, bountiful. Those are apt words to describe hearts leaning toward love.

Good words, too, to express hearts drawn on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to lean toward an Easter Christ – rich, hidden, mysterious, bountiful. Especially apt words for hearts made ready by souls who have observed Lent; eagerly longing become a changed person.

It may have happened. We might even discover that it has happened – if we don’t advance beyond the teachable moment too quickly.

Even if our Lenten “sacrifice” was small: giving up chocolate; withdrawing from caffeine; abandoning alcohol; foregoing snack foods; small can be lovely. Lovely, not merely decorative but lovely, as in enticing, exquisite, indescribably new!

Before we advance through Easter, making that day a mere dietary liberation, spend time relishing in the new person God longs to lead you to become.

What is it about hearing, all over again, God’s moving Jesus from that tomb into our beating heart’s room, that makes you, us, feel good all over, all over again, in ways no dietary reprieve can match?

Oil Spills Still Change Boundaries

2007-03-27T15:21:00.000-04:00

Do you remember hearing that 4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest toothpaste? I went to the dentist last Tuesday. Here’s my tube of Colgate. There are at least two sides to every story.

When it comes to the story of a woman anointing Jesus, there are at least four stories. Each of the four Gospels has some version of a woman anointing Jesus, either his feet, or his head.

Scholars see different men purported to own the house where the anointing occurs. They notice that the four gospels identify at least two, perhaps three, different women as the anointer. The moral character of these women is also variously described. Variations as to when the anointing happens within the time-frame of Jesus’ ministry are spotted. They observe that in each account, different persons object to what the woman does, as well as to how she does it. Jesus’ retorts / rebukes to the objectors vary.

It would be interesting to compare and contrast these descriptions, but that’s not a good way to preach. Looking back, some of my preaching sounds more like a bible study than a sermon. When that happens, it’s often because I was unwilling to really wrestle with the text at hand.

The story of Jesus’ anointing in John 12:1-8, by Lazarus’ sister, Mary, offers us an opportunity to do some wrestling. Maybe if we do that together, my reluctance won’t get in the way of our meaning making here. Let’s just go with what John tells us, as though this was the only anointing story we have.

Now we’ve met this family twice before. The first time, Luke (10) tells us Jesus ate supper with these folks. That’s when Mary got on Martha’s last nerve by not helping to serve. The second time we encountered them was in John 11.

There we hear Jesus failed to come when the sisters sent word that Lazarus was ill. It’s also there where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That happens only after both sisters complain that Lazarus would be alive if Jesus had come when they called. Lazarus exits the tomb after Martha professes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, but not until she’s reminded Jesus how much Lazarus’ corpse stinks after four days.

That’s a lot of information, but we’re not ready to wrestle yet. I’m almost finished setting up the arena.

So far, we’ve got a high stakes event. You know how weddings and funerals can stress family and friends. Four years later, my brother still reminds me the police came to his daughter’s wedding reception because of a ruckus my son and his date, along with my daughter and another guest, got caught up in. In all honesty, my wife remembers my involvement in that event much differently than I do. Just last Saturday we calmed a family argument before the guests arrived for a funeral repast in the fellowship hall. There’s more tension to notice in Bethany.

This boundary-breaking anointing is sandwiched between the breath-taking statements in John 11:45-54, and in John 12:9-11. The former asserts that the High Priest determined to find a way to have Jesus eliminated, and makes it clear Jesus’ goes into hiding because he perceives the threat. The latter states that Lazarus is also slated for elimination by the authorities. See, added to the strain of this extended family’s gathering, is the anxiety over the fate of the guest(s) of honor? The air is thick with worry. Everyone in the room is vulnerable to its pressure, we along with them. We’re each part of this extended family.

For us, it’s 7 days until Passover, 10 before Good Friday. It matters a whole lot which face, what heart, whose genuine persona we bring, whose authentic character we show to God, at Jesus’ Calvary. Look see who within the frame of this family’s portrait you “take after.” Ready? Wrestle!

Maybe you’re like Mary. So overwhelmed with gratitude to Jesus for restoring her world, it’s as though she and Jesus are alone in the universe. In that newly enlivened space she acts with complete abandon. She lavishes on Jesus oil priced at a year’s wages. Discarding proper social customs she lets down her hair in public and takes up a servant’s role. Despite the cost to her station and her reputation, she is extravagant with her reverence for Jesus. Will these be the days when, wordlessly, you act out your praise? What would that look like?

Maybe days like these, when God shows up so clearly, brings out the Judas in you. You can never really decide which of, at least, three faces to reveal:
• There’s that part of you who says a whole lot about what everything costs, but can’t talk at all about what anything is really worth
• You’ve also got a face that’s been involved, outwardly, in all sorts of religious enterprises, but you’re only participating for what you can take
• Then, too, there’s the part of you who goes through all the motions with no real feeling, no connection, no attachment.
Will these finally be the days when you receive and relish in the identity, relatedness, and belonging God gives you, for free?

Could be you’re like Martha. Like always, she’s serving. No pot banging at this meal. She’s shown up. She just can’t show out. God’s coming near gets her attention, but not her focus. God’s favor gets her concentration, but not her consideration. Nothing changes Martha. Martha remains Martha. The burdensome work remains hers to do, no matter how much Jesus relieves her of her heavy lifting. Might these, for once, be the days when you meet Jesus hands-free? Maybe now, seeing Jesus doing a new thing, in you and for you, instead of saying, “Much obliged, and let me get right to that,” you’ll sit at his feet, where you’re neither busy nor idle, but simply basking in the love that flows from him, to you.

There are at least two sides to every story. I met a man the other day that, on hearing that I pastor a church, said, “Well, Jesus is my savior.” I said, “That’s cool. I don’t look good on wood.” Four out of five pastors will be glad to tell you what you have to do to be saved. I simply want to remind you, as we wrestle with this text, who we promised to be, and what we pledged to do, whenever it was that God’s Holy Spirit called us together.

We promised to be honest to God. We pledged to join God in creating, saving, and blessing the whole world. We agreed we’d lean on one another. We covenanted to be open to the new things God has in mind for us to be and to do. We said we’d forgive each other. We vowed to welcome the changes, personally and communally, God’s coming in just these ways brings to us and for us.

Let these be the days when our commitments to God and to one another fill the air with the rich fragrance of our servant-pouring.

General Pace's Moral Compass - Missing in Action!

2007-03-23T14:05:00.000-04:00

General Peter Pace, like his commander-in-chief, is leading us toward a slippery slope. Among other misnomers, the General’s assertion that the U.S. military ought not to “say,” by its policies that it “condones” immoral behavior flies in the face of the military’s new recruitment standards. The General’s moral compass seems to lack a “true” North.

MSNBC reports that upwards of 13,000 first-time Army recruits were accepted under waivers for various medical, moral or criminal problems. Thirty-eight percent of the waivers granted were for medical problems.

It’s interesting that General Pace is concerned about unit cohesion and combat readiness issues when it comes to including professed homosexuals in the ranks, but is not concerned to field units which include those arrested for misdemeanors. As a combat veteran, I do not recall feeling threatened by those colleagues who identified themselves as homosexual, even when their identity became clear, seductively. I do remember, though, feeling threatened on more than one occasion by some fellow-combatants whose criminal histories were less than stellar.

Of special concern, here, is the General’s assertion that the beliefs he expressed to the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune were personal, not reflective of U.S. military policy. Rather, his beliefs are informed by his faith in God, as a Roman Catholic.

Brought up in the Roman church, I recall that much of what our civil society calls illegal, that for which one might face arrest and conviction on a misdemeanor charge, is also immoral and, also likely, sinful. Moreover, in some Roman quarters, knowingly placing another in harm’s way, by an unrepentant sinner, is also immoral and, quite likely, sinful.

General Pace’s selective moral enforcement is more than baffling and beyond troubling. It’s scary.

Does the General consult with the Roman U.S. Military Vicariate before recommending promotions of military personnel who are divorced and remarried? Does it matter, for the sake of promotion and command, that divorced and remarried personnel are themselves Roman Catholic or not?

Can a divorced and remarried commander-in-chief, or one convicted of a misdemeanor, according to the General’s moral compass, issue the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs lawful orders. Could a Mormon, someone who clearly affiliates with a non-Christian sect, command General Pace’s decision-making? How are the General’s personal beliefs impacting orders to military commanders and chaplains? These seem, rather, to be all over the map!

I must have missed the General's interpretaiton of the Roman Church's take on the just war theory. Martin Luther had much to say about the possibility of a “soldier’s being saved.” He also taught much about the Two Kingdoms (left and right hand of God). All that’s much too complex for this piece.

The General, like all of us who profess faith in the God of Jesus Christ, are called to bring life and faith together. We live in the world, allegedly, not of the world. We occupy roles. Sometimes the roles shape us. Sometimes we shape the roles.

Living into our baptismal roles, and living out of the promises to us God offers to the baptized, is a tall order. Sometimes our religious affiliations and denominations help us make that happen. Other times they’re not much help at all.

As we approach the time of year when Christians recall God’s most incredible “for us” at Calvary, it’s helpful for all of us, in general, to remember Jesus’ words at that Sermon on the Plain, found in Luke 6: 35-36 "I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind. 37-38 "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity." (The Message)

As a wise Roman priest once asked my fretting Lutheran pastor’s heart, “Do you know anyone for whom the blood of Jesus was not shed?” That moral compass has always guided me true.

Check Out This Chick-Flick

2007-03-20T17:06:00.000-04:00

After a funeral this past Tuesday, I ate lunch with one of the many ministers in attendance. This man has served a large, urban congregation for decades. We were talking shop. I asked him if he’s heard more pastors preaching a so-called Gospel of prosperity, over Jesus’ Gospel of the kingdom of God.

As our conversation continued, we became more passionate. We were sure that we preach Jesus, crucified and raised. We congratulated ourselves for keeping a cross in our worship spaces. We applauded each other for keeping national and denominational flags out of them. We consoled each other for feeling inept at reaching out to 20 and 30 something generations.

Just as I began wondering if we were sounding a little too righteous, my companion shared this. He said a local casino sent letters to all the pastors, offering each a free overnight stay, as well as $1,000 in chips. Then he said, “I will never be seen in casino.”

It wasn’t until much later in the day when I asked myself, “Did he mean he’ll never go and gamble, or did he mean he won’t go gamble at a site where someone who knows him might see him?” Was his statement sincere; “I won’t be seen because I’ll never be in one”? Or is he a hypocrite? I’ll never know; neither will you.

Sometimes, when a story’s ending doesn’t satisfy, we become irritated. Other times, a story’s disappointing ending causes us to discard the story all together. Then, there are those story’s whose inadequate end captures our imaginations as we mull over a variety of preferred, or more desirable, endings.

Jesus’ open, seemingly unfinished ending to the parable we call the prodigal son still catches most hearers up short (See Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32). That often results in some over analysis of both the story’s beginning, and / or a solitary focus on the story’s three main movements, the:
• younger son’s awakening
• watching father’s grace-filled, unconditional embrace
• charged language used by the older brother to his father.

Following an insight I’ve borrowed from Sharon H. Ringe, a Professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C., let’s take a different tack. First, though, it should be noted that scholars who are women frequently offer biblical interpretations which are out of the main – if main is taken as the male-dominated historical-critical methodology that grew out of the German Enlightenment. This is a true blessing to the church.

As an aside, here’s a quick primer on the distinction between male and female scholarship. In her pioneering research, Carol Gilligan contrasted the moral development of females with that of males in her work, In a Different Voice. She observed that boys’ games, e.g., sand-lot baseball, purposed around competition and rule-keeping. Girls’ games, on the other hand, e.g., jacks, seemed to purpose around a way to “pass time” as these females focused on broadening and deepening their emotional relationship. (Sure hope I don’t sound like a candidate for the presidency of Harvard, here!)

Dr. Ringe’s insight – that is the only piece with which I’m familiar – is in re-naming this parable The Parable of the Beloved Brothers. My interpretation of Luke’s parable is based, principally, on that title. Errors in interpretation / understanding, then, are solely my own, and ought not to reflect on Dr. Ringe.

Male dominated scholarship frames the parable of the prodigal son within a win / lose dynamic. The plot line’s thrust is competitive. The story’s conclusion lends itself either to victory / surrender, or to a mano a mano standoff.

Hearing the story as the parable of the beloved brothers gives us a chance to redirect our own meaning-making efforts. At one level, nothing changes. The characters are the same. Their actions are constant and consistent. The conclusion is still abrupt, and, to some, less than satisfying.

At another level, Dr. Ringe’s re-naming changes everything. The sudden, nasty request by the younger son that his father “drops dead” and hand over the inheritance alludes to a prior and perhaps long-standing family strain. The boy’s dissolute living may be his effort to “buy” the affiliation and belonging he had at home, rather than a groin-oriented plot to sow his wild oats. His planned confession may be less belly-focused narcissism and more a parley with himself to restore relationship with his family.

The father’s reaction, “filled with compassion” draws us to realize that the Hebrew equivalent of this word is womb. The father re-wombs the younger son and so has no need to hear the confession, which, then, remains unspoken.

In the parable of the beloved brothers, the feast has all the trappings of a wedding feast, an experience wherein the prior stories of distinct families are entwined in the present and fashion momentum toward a new future. It’s only in the parable of the prodigal son that the feast resembles a “victory lap.”

Onto the scene arrives the elder brother. He’s carrying not only the fatigue of today’s burden, but the long-held resentment of days gone by. His distancing language, “this son of yours,” reveals all the angry baggage of someone who’s played by the rules, but lost the game to a cheater.

For his part, the wombing father speaks the same words, using the same endearing tone which brought new life to his “dead” younger son.

The story’s conclusion poses two theological challenges. That is, two opportunities for us to change our minds about who God is and how God works.

First, the parable of the beloved brothers forces us to admit that our understanding of sin, grace, repentance and forgiveness are really quite shallow.
We like to construct a world that says: God likes to forgive. I like to sin. Therefore, borrowing from Louis Armstrong, we sin, what a wonderful world!

We tend to see sin as rule-breaking, law-breaking. In Greek, the word is “missing the mark.” Not hitting the bull’s eye means something else gets hit. The result of sin is deep and broad breaches. The affects of sin are anguish, brokenness, grief and pain – within our self, among our relationships, and amidst the Godhead.

In our equation, grace becomes what an offender is owed, by a gracious God. Repentance, then, is a quick, “I’m sorry.”

Forgiveness is a reward for an apology, usually doled out with no small measure of wariness. Our forgiveness is often cunningly disguised revenge. It’s frequently dispensed with a shrug that sweeps an offense under the rug of political correctness, or tolerance.

The second challenge / opportunity the parable of the beloved brothers poses, besides exposing the cyclical nature of our life under the first challenge, is to say that with this God, in this God’s Christ, the past does not need to prescribe the future.

Sin is no longer about laws, shoulds / shouldn’ts, it’s about our being who God wants us to be, or who we choose to be when we determine to take God’s place.

Grace is about God’s own yearning and yawning when God experiences our absence. Grace is the movement of God to reconnect with us, before we apologize.

Repentance is our coming-around-to, our turning-toward, our changing from “me is god,” to God is God, as a result of God graceful wombing.

Forgiveness, then, is not about no longer remembering. Forgiveness – since it’s offered before apology or repentance - becomes, we’ll (God and us) move into a new future where we re-member, as in reconnect, reattach.

The “unsatisfying” ending we experience is the only plausible ending for the parable of the beloved brothers. It’s the only conclusion that reveals the open-endedness of the Kingdom of God.

This ending is the only accurate representation of the life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making God (Walter Bureggemann) that accounts for the compassionate / wombing God that Jesus knew. This ending is the only comprehensive portrayal of the costly grace that’s faithful to the breaking-open, pouring-out Jesus’ sacrifice for us.

This ending is the end of my story, your story, and everyone’s story – beyond our wildest dreams. But you already knew that’s how it ends.

Trademark Infringement and March Madness

2007-03-16T09:27:00.000-04:00

So what event do you know that can weave together so many great myths, like: Cinderella; David and Goliath; and, Shootout at the OK Corral? By the way, Dan Rather had it wrong. Myth doesn't mean "baloney," or worse. It's a technical word that defines a story as one which tells a peoples' shared truth in such a compelling way, those people make their meaning by living inside that story.

For many people, the NCAA's March Madness is such a story. Though half-time episode or time-out interlude might be more accurate words, the NCAA believes enough of us choose to live inside their March Madness they've trademarked that name! Many of us recall a time when people shared common language, experiences, customs and traditions. Often these were ethnic, and sometimes religious. Whatever their roots, we were introduced into them by our elders. We wove them together with our own interpretations. Then we passed these "latest and greatest" versions, as the shared stories we lived by, to our children.

Those stories seemed huge: large enough to hold onto the most long ago past; enormous enough to embrace each energizing and enervating present; and, expansive enough to encompass the most enormous dreams for every far distant future. It's truly a smaller, greedier, more selfish world that breeds a three-week myth, involving only sixty-five teams made up of 15 players, each - one winner 64 losers.

There is another March Madness story (which this year we celebrate in early April) that still speaks to our fiercest memories, our deepest fears in the present, our worst nightmares for the future, and our shared anxieties about death. Some folks still claim to live inside this story. Others, exclusive marketers, have trademarked the Gospel's liberating declarations and compelling claims about the meaning of Christ. They pirate the story of Jesus’ breaking-open passion and rename it “possibility.” They curtail the story of Jesus’ pouring-out cross and call it “prosperity.”

Why else would the world drink in stories that don't end our thirst for meaning, and dine on stories that can't nourish the next generation's present or sustain any future?

We'll spend some time of a Sunday, as well as a Thursday and Friday evening, then another Sunday re-membering, re-telling, re-entering and re-living a maddeningly, captivating story, and asking God to reposition us right into the middle of its still unfolding, life-giving plot.

It's the mythic story of one apparent loser who, by God’s grace-filled “for us,” makes winners of us all. That's no baloney. And it won't infringe on any trademark if we share the march toward its inclusive madness with you, too!

Orbiting in Solitude, Solidarity and Solace

2007-03-15T10:59:00.000-04:00

Have you thought lately about what in your life you'd like to be different? Now before you say, "No," think about some conversations you've had recently. Have you told someone you're thinking about buying a new car? Did you hear yourself say you wish you had a new job; a new Easter outfit; better health insurance; a cleaner house; a smaller tax bill? Then we're not disagreeing about the idea, only the details.

The devil's in the details, or so goes an old saying. But what if that's all wrong? What if the details aren't the devil at all? What if the details are the whisperings of God calling you into new places; into new beginnings; new adventures? Could the details be God's beckoning you into a new future?

Uh, Uhh, too soon to argue the point. Tomorrow's a new future. Anyone reading this who doesn't want to see tomorrow? I didn't think so. What if the details are the Spirit of God – the energy of God leading you away from the sources of energy and power your personal planet orbits today, and into a new orbit of energy - the energy of the Risen Christ. Not the Christ who conquered death over 2000 years ago, but the energy of Christ alive and present in our midst.

The theological word for what I'm talking about is transformation. While you may not use that word to describe the experience, you know the experience. And though it can sometimes feel invasive, unwanted and unpredictable, you even relish it! Or at least you once did.

Remember how you relished: growing into teenage or adult years; welcoming someone back from war; giving birth; surviving an illness or serious accident; realizing you'd fallen in love; or felt mysteriously, again, the touch of a loved one you'd buried long ago? That was transformation. And, no doubt, God was involved in those details.

That's why the disciplines of Lent are so important. While we often talk about prayer, fasting and almsgiving - the details – we sometimes under emphasize the purposes behind these activities. Lenten disciplines afford us is solitude, solace, and solidarity. A space without distractions. An encounter with the God who loves and cares especially for us as individual persons. A sense of kinship and belonging with all those who live by God's grace.

We can't make that happen on our own. Maybe that's why we resist it so. This kind of different, this kind of change, this kind of transformation is beyond our control. Unlike deciding about buying a new car; joining a new church; or, taking a different kind of action to promote justice; we simply can't choose, or get to, this kind of meeting with God on our own terms. We can't get to God. Only God can get to us.

That's why God works so hard to make it so! It's not only that we often work so hard to keep this God at arms length. We also persist in defining this God in the same way we describe all those other energy fields we orbit. Oh, sure, we'd like to believe that we've long ago given up the notion that ours is a Scoutmaster God who hands out merit badges. We're sure we no longer understand God as the Santa who knows when we've been bad or good. Details, details.

Not claiming and celebrating the transformations God still gives to us keeps us from being a transforming people. We have three weeks left for a precious period of solitude, solace and solidarity. Can you hear Risen Jesus calling? The one who broke open and poured out in solitude and solidarity on the cross for you? Take solace. That detail's gonna change you!

When Clergy Rah-Rah Is Yadda Yadda Yadda

2007-03-09T16:20:00.000-05:00

Should I sign the letter endorsing a local clergy committee’s (advocacy group) “…inviting business, labor, and political leaders to work together to make this vision [for janitors and all low-wage workers to receive a ‘living wage,’ have access to full health care benefits, and cease being intimidated (when these) workers want to join a union] of a reality for the workers in our city,” or take a pass? The document ensures those who will receive it the undersigned clergy are praying that economic inequality will be overcome and that the undersigned clergy will stand up for the rights of all low-wage workers.

Leaving aside the issue about whether or not it’s right and just for me to make a personal posture – no matter how ethically, morally, and theologically right I find it – public, as in including the name of the congregation I serve, I have some other concerns. Is it right for me to make such a statement, and involve the people I serve, without having meaningful dialogue with them about the consequences of the posture?

Here are a few of the questions that I need to discuss with those I serve by leading before I get out ahead of them: [I have no problem going there after the conversation, regardless of their responses. If we differ, in the end, I’d just make certain that the public part excluded them.]

• Are those who hold jobs with companies who employ directly, or lease space from landlords who subcontract with these low-wage workers, willing to advocate their employers pay increased occupancy costs to meet these additional labor costs?

• Are those who hold stock in the companies whose costs will increase willing to see the companies’ profits, and perhaps their own stock values / dividends, decline to meet these additional labor costs?

• Are church / denominational groups who rent these venues (thus “subcontracting” with these low-wage workers) willing to pay increased prices to hold events at these venues, to meet these additional labor costs?

Clergy who want to rah-rah must come completely clean with those whom we lead by serving, unless we simply want to increase the volume of our already yadda-yadda-yadda!

I’m completely grateful that well over 45 clergy, from across the theological / denominational spectrum, are concerned about more than the Big-Three, so-called values issues: pro-life (generally limited only to gestational time-frames); sanctity of marriage (generally limited only to requiring bride and groom represent opposing genders, despite the duration and frequency of the individual’s prior vow exchanges); and, ensuring that our children abstain from any genital activity prior to marriage. Still, no one has yet asked me to join a group of clergy advocating for:
• increased student achievement
• higher graduation rates
• more enrollments in college by students of color
• reduced hand-gun sales
• stricter usury laws aimed at rent-to-own proprietors of homes, appliances, entertainment equipment, furniture, and previously owned vehicles
• greater access to supermarkets, with fresh vegetables, in inner city neighborhoods
• more banks in the same locales
• scattered site, affordable housing
• etc.

All of us socially active clergy might benefit from a group meditation on the words of Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese layman who wrote:
I read
in a book
That a man called
Christ
Went about doing good.
It is very disconcerting to me
That I am so easily
Satisfied
With just
Going about.

No one, here, is advocating “ready, fire, aim.” Neither am I, as Luther advocated, unwilling to sin boldly.

What I don’t need is another tee-shirt that implies that both me, and my job-title, is: Noisy Gong / Clashing Cymbal. What the people I serve by leading don’t need is a pastor who speaks against “check-book” ministry, but engages in mere signatory advocacy!

The Mystery of the Dueling Towels

2007-03-08T13:01:00.000-05:00

It’s always important to know what you’re not dealing with. We don’t have an unknown subject whose identity we’re trying to determine, or whose criminal mind we’re trying fathom. We’re not dealing with a cold case. Higher math’s statistics and probability won’t bring resolution. Neither the crime scene, nor its physical evidence, is available for our investigative probing.

We do have reasonable testimony concerning key actors in what seems to be a conspiracy to bring about Jesus’ death. We know their names, their social positions, something about their professional responsibilities, even where some are buried. It appears that all the key actors understand each other’s roles in society, and respect – even make use of - the boundaries those roles demand they maintain.

There are rather reliable accounts of their whereabouts, as well as their comings and goings, during those days. It all happens within what seems to be a three to four day window of opportunity during which they hatched, successfully, their plot.

Likewise, there is a virtual laundry list of critical, physical evidence: 30 pieces of silver, a small sword, a briefly severed ear, a tunic left behind, whips, thorns, a purple cloak, a fiery warming pit, primitive dice, nails and hammers, and wood, lots of wood. So what’s with these towels?

They, if there’s more than one, keep showing up! We see the first on Thursday evening, at the last supper (John 13. It’s here early Friday morning in Pilate’s hands (Matthew 27:24-26). There’s a tale about a towel and a woman early Friday afternoon. Had to be there, didn’t it, by late that afternoon, because it, alone, is found entombed, rolled neatly on Sunday morning.

If we had them, or one of them, any of them, what would we do? Would we risk destroying them by checking the miles of fibers? Can you see us soiling them by spraying lumiol or swabbing for DNA, to what end?

I’m sure, if we had them, or one of them, any of them, we’d declare them, at least venerable, if not valuable. Like as not we’d promise to stow them reverently the way we do the:
• ribbons we won at childhood athletic competitions
• letter jackets we earned in high school
• silky wedding dresses we wore down the aisle, no matter the fate of that marriage
• quilts grandma made
• full dress medals presented to us by the commanding officer, despite our not displaying that level of courage in a long time
• blankets our first child dragged through 3rd grade.

We might, but I doubt it. In the end, we’d rightly decide that there really is nothing remarkable about the towels. What’s worth noting is how they were used; how they’re still used.

John tells us Jesus, exposed and vulnerable, laid aside his garments, put on a towel, washed his disciples’ feet and dried them with that same towel. John’s Jesus explains that he’s offering an example: "Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." (John 13:12-17)

Would that we were merely the kind of people who followed only those examples so precisely laid out for us. But, truth be told, we’ll take our cues from most anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Pilate, too, has become exposed and vulnerable, though not by his own choosing. His:
• arrogance and prejudice show through
• willingness to compromise his principles is laid bare
• fear of paying the price for doing the right thing is uncovered
• naked ambition and aggression are transparent
• see-through rationalizations are revealed.

The procurator's posture seems to be: What’s one more leafless tree sprouting a strange fruit on Golgotha? If this circus lynching prompts their pious pastors to hush these uncivilized, ghettoized festival goers, what harm can follow? But let’s get it done without a trace.

Stripped of his dignity he, too, takes on a servant’s task. Except Pilate’s only care is to wash himself, cleanse himself from the dirty little mess he’d let himself get rolled up in. Declaring himself innocent, Pilate doesn’t put on the towel, he throws in the towel. Sounds way too familiar, doesn’t it?

Throwing in the towel, then as now, denies Jesus’ identity, discounts his mission, disrespects his ministry and disregards the verdict his breaking-open, pouring-out servanthood lavishes on us.

Washed and toweled in the blood of this Passover lamb, we don’t need to declare ourselves innocent. We get to call ourselves not guilty. That’s a distinction with a huge difference. The mystery of our Lenten days, as well as our every-days, isn’t who done it. We know how complicit we truly are.

Rather, the mystery is will you remain content to consort and conspire with the usual suspects, or will you keep making your plea with the God whose vulnerable heart’s desire is to give you a share in the master’s life-giving laundry business?

Grow 12 Inches in Two Minutes!

2007-03-02T10:41:00.000-05:00

It's easy to get caught up in the belief that everything is knowable Many folks are sure that it's only a matter of time before philosophers and scientists open every intellectual and emotional door in the universe.

Still, despite what we know, and in spite of our fixation that we can, eventually, know everything we think we need to know, the longest distance on earth remains the 12 inches from the human brain to the human heart. That's where Lent comes in.

Lent isn't just a season in the church calendar. Lent is the time and energy Christians focus on the same questions that bedeviled Jesus in his desert experience: who am I; what am I to do; how can I get that done.

Those questions, and the intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual concerns they raise are issues of the heart. Issues for our hearts because when we take the time to think with our heads: about who we are; who we've let ourselves become; and who we're surely to be if we continue the path we're walking, we still don't know the whole truth about ourselves.

If you want to know something for sure, spend two minutes by yourself, looking in a mirror. The person looking back at you is gonna die someday. And when you can admit that you’re gonna die, you're gonna want to ask yourself, "So, how shall I live?"

Lent's heart time can help you answer that question anew. You could spend some time in prayer - becoming familiar with the person you are who God still loves. You could fast, not to lose weight, or to prove that you can live without chocolate, or alcohol, or nicotine, but to get reacquainted with the experience of hungering, pining, thirsting, yearning for more than what fills your usual bill. You could give alms -not to engage in checkbook mission and ministry, but to ally yourself with those who have no choice about their deprivation, their degradation, or their degeneration into an existence that few of our sated and comfortable ideas of God can console.

If you spend a few minutes staring into your own future - the dustiness that's to become of us – you might be able to not only look passed the fear that imprisons our hearts, but God might lead you to walk into, through, and past those fears cause us to think we can fool ourselves, by foolin' everyone else into believin' that we do pray, we do fast, and we do give alms - so aren't' we special!

If you spend a few minutes staring into your own future, the dustiness that's to become of us – it means you're alive. And when you can admit that you do have a life, you're gonna want to ask yourself, "So, how shall I live?"

You see, if you give yourself a few minutes to notice the naked truth that we're gonna die and we're gonna live - it means that God is bringing you across that 12 inch wasteland between our head and our heart that we spend so much time trying to cover up.

What is the fear that makes the 12 inches between your head and heart an un-crossable chasm? Is it: fear of poverty - of not having enough - that makes you horde all you got; fear of relationships - of having to make room in your heart for another - that makes you wall off your love into so many empty chambers; fear of emptiness – of giving away too much -that makes you gorge yourself with all kinds of stuff, well beyond what anyone needs for wholesome nourishment; fear of aloneness - of not having place, or standing, or status, or legitimacy that makes you crawl over, put down, or shame folks different from you?

Those are big chasms to cross all by yourself. In the cross of Jesus all of our faults are exposed. There can be no more illusion that we're of one mind and one heart. Our schemes to cover the naked truth are exposed. The garments of guile we wear to make people think we have it together are exposed for the rag-tags they are.

Take two minutes today, so you're geared up to grow 12 inches in 40 days. When we do Lent, alone and together, we can remember that there's no chasm we have to cross alone -cuz Jesus already crossed it for us. And now: still able to fool ourselves, we're free; still failing, we're forgiven; still frightened, we're fearless; and, we get to walk along and cross on home.

Sizzlin' in Lent's Seductive Space

2007-02-28T11:38:00.000-05:00

A while back the ELCA asked pastors to name a few members to receive a newsletter called, Seeds in the Parish. Besides their name, address, age range, gender and ethnicity, the pastor was to identify each one’s role in the congregation. Most titles were routine and obvious: leader, teacher, evangelist, etc. My favorite is Mission Interpreter. It sounds so bold and out of the box. I’ve used it only once. Next time I have a chance I’ll use that title, Mission Interpreter, to describe Jamal Caldwell (not his real name).

I say that, in part, because Jamal coaches me to use a blog to connect with younger people who aren’t yet part of this community. The latest lesson came in an email. Jamal encouraged me to put the blog up for review with a high-powered editorial / marketing service. They'll test the blog to see if it meets the standards of high exposure, heavy hitters like CNN, Fox News, USA Today and Reuters News Service.

Overall, applying for the review didn’t take much time, maybe 20 minutes. The greater challenge was responding to the three main questions using the required maximum keystrokes, not words, keystrokes. Imagine me saying anything in 200 keystrokes! What I’ve said before I’m saying this took 1,162 keystrokes.

The next challenge was answering the questions honestly, or rather, fairly – fair to them and fair to us. One item said, “Tell us about yourself and your blog.” Another said, "Summarize the blog," which I took to mean, what’s its focus, why do you write it. You see part of the difficulty here. Is it my blog, or our blog?

Now since I’m trying to persuade them that there’s some sizzle in the blog content, I tried to put some sizzle in these responses. I wanted both me and us to sound like we’re sizzlin’ folks and this is a happenin’ place. Of course, there’s not much point in evading the truth. If they choose to read the entries, they’ll make up their own minds.

Still, I worked to find sizzle, in me, in you and in us. I said I’m a second career, boomer pastor. I said you are a multiracial urban congregation in America’s heartland. (I don’t think of us as you, and me but they need to know that, for now, the pastor is the author.) I borrowed phrases from this piece about finding a church home. [See, "You'll Know a Church Home When You Find It," on this blogsite.] I read it often. It always prompts the same questions. If we’re being this kind of church, do I have the stamina to stay here? If we’re not being this kind of church, do I have the courage to leave here?

The best line said, “We’ve got a blue-state consciousness in a red-state context.” Pretty cool, huh? That might hook ‘em enough to read the blog, but there’s no telling what they’ll think of it.

Trouble is, you see, the last two blog entries are about Lent. How you gonna make Lent, and people who are praying, fasting and almsgiving, sound sizzlin’? How does a place where that happens sound happenin’?

Maybe I should say Lent is a fierce battle against temptation. Perhaps, using less churchy words to describe what temptation is would sound more sizzlin’. Temptation is trying to persuade someone. Temptation is wily pressure or cunning manipulation. Better yet, temptation is seduction. There’s a sizzlin’ word. When you’re seducing someone, you’re alluring, beguiling. Seduction is enticing someone from here to there. It comes from the Latin word, seducere, to lead away. Sounds more like an Oscar party than church, right? Now that’s sizzlin’ in a happen’ place!

Well, how about for the rest of this I just focus my whole heart on the flock God’s entrusted to me and not worry my mind over the flock my inflated ego thinks I should have over at CNN. How about for the rest of this you focus on Luke’s version of Jesus’ desert journey (Luke 4:1-13) as if you never heard it before, cuz it’s been a year since you heard it, and a year is a lifetime in the life of a true disciple.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." 4Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." 8Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' 11and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" 12Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

This Bible story, like every Bible story, is about God before it’s about us. This story tells us that the Jesus we call God’s divine son, is fully human. To be truly human Jesus must have the capacity to be tempted, i.e., allured, beguiled, enticed, influenced, persuaded and yes, seduced. Jesus could not have been some first century Clark Kent, capable of jumping into a phone booth to stop a satanic herd of pigs from goin’ over a cliff. Humans aren’t like that!

Jesus listened to and followed God’s word. He was full of the Holy Spirit. That’s why he was tempted, that is, had to struggle, needed to fight the battle. See, listening to God isn’t a struggle. Following God isn’t a battle. But those who listen to God will attract folks motivated by different words. They struggle for our attention. Those who follow God will be a magnet for folks charmed by other pathways. They battle for our allegiance. When they come around with their alluring terminology, we have to struggle. When they come around with their beguiling alleyways, we have to do battle.

Notice just how precise and persuasive this tempter is. The Greek word Luke uses for devil is diabolos. It means slanderer. That’s someone who, with lies, defames, insults, libels, or maligns.

This Satan, in Hebrew that means adversary, suggests to Jesus that, “If you are the son of God, then you should do these good things.” Do you see that? At root, these aren’t bad acts. God will have Jesus do each of these things in God’s own good time, when it pleases God for Jesus to do them. [Jesus does multiply loaves. Jesus does come to rule the world after defeating, not worhsipping the devil. Jesus is lifted by temple authorities onto a cross and after three days shows that God "protected" him from defeat by death.] It’s also true that the devil’s motivation and timing are not rooted in the word of God.

Pay attention to this sixth verse. The devil says authority over the earth has been given to me. That premise, stated nowhere in the Bible - especially nowhere from God’s mouth -doesn’t tell the truth, but how often have we been persuaded to act as if it were so. The powers are at work out there, but they have no authority out there unless we refuse to struggle, until we fail to do battle.

We carve out 40 days for Lent. But Lent isn’t about time; it’s about space. Lent is the journey we’re invited to take that crosses the space between where we are now and where God wants to lead us.

Inside that space, the distance between the last time we listened to God’s word and this moment, we have an opportunity to distinguish God’s word of life from the tall tales the culture would have us believe about ourselves, about world and about God.

Inside that space, the distance between the last time we walked in the evening shade with God and this moment, we have an opportunity to differentiate God’s high road of selfhood, wholeness and grace from the back alleyways the culture would have us travel toward selfishness, emptiness, and greed.

We make our way in this space, even though that often makes us crossways with the same world, the same flesh, and the same devil that put Jesus crossways, for us, on Calvary. We make our way in this desert space, pressing toward the promised land, so that we, like Jesus, can become more certain about our identity, more clear about our own mission under God’s rule, and more confident about how God wants us to join in what God never tires of doing, creating, saving, and blessing the world out there, including all God’s children.

Here’s how that looks. When you’re out there, where the powers are at work, and someone says, “What a coincidence…” that’s your chance to join the struggle. That’s your opportunity to wrestle with that false terminology and seduce them from over there to over here. “No, it’s not a coincidence. Our running into each other in this unlikely place is a grace from God.” When you’re out there, where the powers are at work, and someone says, “I’m havin’ a string of bad luck…” that’s your chance to do battle. That’s your opportunity to confront that charmed alleyway and seduce them from over there to over here. “No, it’s not bad luck. This awful experience you’re having gives us an opportunity to look for the ways God works all things for good for them that love and trust the Lord. Let me sit with you until that happens, that God makes a way out of no way.”

Sometimes when that happens, and God strengthens you for the struggle, the sizzle will be obvious. Other times the ways that’s happenin’, that God emboldens you for battle will require a Mission Interpreter. There’s none better to do that work than we who hear this God’s voice, eat from the fruit of this God’s table, and walk faithfully along this God’s path - alone and together.

An Ossuary Is Not Shock and Awe

2007-02-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

If you're in doubt about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, the one who was crucified, there is little to nothing I can say in this brief space, or even in other settings, to change your mind! And if that's the case, then both of us, you and I, join a long list of folks who've recognized this reality before. You join the long list of doubters. I join the long list of witnesses who fail miserably.

Even Mark's Gospel reports that the first witnesses, the three women who discovered the empty tomb, had their doubts, "... So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Mark 16:8. Read: shock and awe!

Clearly that wasn't the end of the story. Still, no one follows Jesus today based on knowledge from the past. We keep following Jesus - banking our present and future actions, choices and decisions on his word - by trusting that Jesus lives. Jesus is risen! Read: shock and awe.

See, at one level, it doesn't matter what happened to Jesus' body. And YES, I know that St. Paul wrote that if Christ is not risen from the dead then our faith is in vain. I believe that, too. But the focus of Paul's claim had, and has, more to do with what it means that Jesus lives, and less on habeus corpus, "show the body."

It's much like the saying, "Don't just tell me what you believe as a Christian, show me the difference that believing in a living Jesus Christ makes in you and in your world."

Folks are much more interested in hearing you tell them the last time you heard Jesus call you by name, than they are in finding out whether you think Jesus sits at the right or left of the throne of God!

Folks are much more convinced that Jesus is risen when you tell them the last time Jesus influenced your risk-taking, than they are when you read them the riot act cuz today the whole enterprise is too tough for them to swallow. Read: shock and awe.

Folks are much more interested in hearing how the story of Jesus is the story of your own everyday life, than they are in hearing you or me preach! Part of reclaiming the living Jesus, dead and risen for you, for me and for the whole world, happens when we put ourselves through the solemnity, the terror, the shock and awe, and even the tedium of worship each Sunday, but especially in Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.

Give yourself the gift of hearing the talk and walking the walk, again. Come reclaim the shocking, awesome things this great "coming for us God" has done and keeps on doing with only water, bread, wine, wood, nails, and blood, because Risen Jesus lives. Read: shock and awe!

The State of Our Union Is...

2007-02-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

The President shall report to the Congress on the state of the union, from time to time... , so says the constitution of the United States. And while there's no requirement that people of faith render the same sort of public accounting on the state of their souls, the season of Lent does offer us - alone and together - an opportunity to consider how life and faith are coming together for us.

What difference does it make, for ourselves and for the world that we claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ?

Have there been changes - maturity or "back-sliding" - in our follower-ship?

Maybe you remember those self-assessment tests published in magazines like Reader's Digest which ask us to score our emotional health. These usually involve charting major events in one's life; have we: moved; changed jobs; lost a spouse, or loved one; experienced a major illness; retired; won an award, etc. The "tests" suggest that each of these is the source of either a major stress or a significant delight - and so, affect our sense of well-being either positively or negatively.

While I'm not a big fan of so-called pop psychology, there is value in reflecting on who we are now; how we got here; what this space feels like, physically, emotionally and spiritually; and, whether or not this is really the space God calls us to inhabit. Heaven forbid our personal assessment of, "that's the way it is," were to echo the President's words – let’s ramp up our efforts to do more of the same even, though that hasn’t worked so far!

I'm not much of a fan of pop-religion either. That's why I recommend we take on some disciplines that have served people of faith since very early in the church's post-Easter, post-Pentecost experiences. These are: prayer, fasting, and alms-giving.

Despite the claims made by various civic and cultural leaders that all manner of beliefs, values, practices, and even laws, are rooted in the teachings, of Jesus, really living day-to-day, through Christ in the Holy Spirit, has never been popular or easy.

Jesus seems to have used his 40 desert days to sort through who God was calling him to be (Messiah); how he'd exercise that call (Sharin' Plenty Good News!); and, the means he'd use to make that proclamation come alive in his hearers' hearts (Suffering Servant / breaking open and pouring out).

What made the desert experience "work" for Jesus was something very much still available to us - time spent in dialogue (speaking and listening) to a loving God. Lent invites us to enter into that same union, from time to time.

These suggestions for practicing the traditional Lenten disciplines: prayer; fasting and almsgiving, are offered to help us, alone and together, make room in the middle of all our stuff to let Lent go through us. By such practices, Christians throughout the centuries have arrived at the three sacred days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday better prepared to be seized by the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. May God lead and find you there.

Prayer - We pray. Meaning we get into real communication with God the Spirit, who gathers us here; God the Father, who speaks a word that frees us from all anxiety here; and, God the Son, who has gone on ahead of us, leaving us such a clear example of what it means to live here and now as though the day Lord has indeed come near.

Don’t hold back:
• talk to this God
• write letters to this God
• make notes to this God in a journal
• draw pictures, or doodles to this God
• sing to this God, play music if you can
• cry your eyes out with this God
• scream at this God.

Be quiet with this God. Hear this God's word spoken just to you. Listen to this God's voice as it breaks out for you in special:
• memories
• feelings
• insights, and/or
• images.
More often than not, these aren't distractions; they're God's reward to you.

Fasting - We fast. Meaning we let go of all those dependencies that keep us from living a full life. That means not only giving up something, but moving toward something. God doesn't need a universe in which you don't eat cookies. But God might rejoice in a world where your voting habits change because you have a keener sense of what it means to really be hungry. That would lead to a fast of your heart, not of your belly. Your cutting an attachment from one thing in order to attach to something else, says a lot about where your treasure is. Don't hold back.

The purpose of fasting is to have empathy with (feel the feelings of) a suffering other, not to have sympathy (feel sorry) for another. Compassion wombs another; it creates a related exchange between another and ourselves. That's why we say our God is a compassionate God. Fasting helps us to walk in the other's shoes.

Almsgiving - We give alms. Meaning we adjust the way we spend all our resources: time; energy; attention; and, money, so that we're reminded that in Christ our life is dedicated to living in common with believers and unbelievers alike. Don't hold back.

• Call someone long distance and don't time how long you talk. Just tell them God reminded you how much you love them.

• Send someone a greeting card each day for a week. Just tell them God reminded you what an important part of your everyday life they are.

• Eat lunch with someone you've taken for granted. Just tell them God reminded you that every meal with them is a foretaste of the feast to come.

• Give an extra big offering to a church or to a charity whose mission and ministries you respect. Just tell them God reminded you that mission and ministry happen more smoothly when money isn't a constant worry.

• Attend Sunday school. Just remind yourself that God wants you both to learn more about each other.

A Fetching Time

2007-02-25T13:19:00.000-05:00

She hadn't meant to cause any harm. She especially hadn't meant to upset the villagers, to bring shame to her family, to put distance between herself and her husband, or to bring on so many sleepless nights.

It wasn't supposed to become a distraction, or such an attraction. It was just a tale, not even a whole story. That's why she'd filled in a few of the blanks, stitched a few details into gaps in the time line. Now it had gathered its own steam, taken on a life of its own, and it was smothering her. What to do?

What to make of the looks people gave her as they drew back into narrow doorways to let her pass by as she walked in the square. They felt like daggers as her friends' eyes darted past her. Wanting, it seemed, to probe her face, but not wanting their eyes to meet hers. What to do?

It was only Tuesday. She couldn't wait for the priest to open the confessional on Saturday afternoon. She might even be dead by then. Oh, the weight of it all; pressing down on her neck, shoulders and back. It made her legs wobble. Her color was bad, probably due to taking too many short breaths. She couldn’t breathe right. It seemed that her heart had swelled in her chest, squeezing the places her lungs were supposed to occupy. Her heart was so heavy. It pushed down on her stomach. Now she could barely eat the crusts of bread she soaked in warm water mixed with olive oil and vinegar, just a dash of vinegar. Everything tasted so bitter lately. Even sweet bread had a sour taste. What to do?

She'd simply have to press Padre Giuseppe to hear her confession today, after the noon-time Angelus. He'd understand. He was a good priest.

It's a story my grandmother told about an old woman living in Italy who gossiped about a neighbor. Realizing her sin she confessed to the priest. The confessor said, "For your penance, take a down pillow up into the bell tower, cut it open and shake the feathers onto the town square, then go gather the feathers and return them to the pillow. When you've fetched all the feathers, now scattered as far as your gossip has flown, your sin will be forgiven."

Our religion tells us that this is a story about penance. It's really a story about repentance. Literally, the word repent means to drive back; to drive back to a point in time before you held that thought or did that deed, and then not take up the thought or commit the deed. To repent is to feel such remorse about a past thought or deed, that you change your mind and your ways.

Sometimes we use our religious language so casually and thoughtlessly that it loses its power to give shape and meaning to our lives. Lent is full of religious language: pray; fast; give alms; repent. But if these words don't gather the energies of our hearts and minds, if they roll off our tongues like so many tales of days gone by, then they lose the power of transforming grace deep-seated in God's holy Word.

Forty days. Enough time to recall that religious language, the Word of God, means to shape all our days, not just our Sundays. Forty days. Time enough to remember that the death and resurrection of Jesus is for our everyday. Lent. Time to experience a continuing death of the old and familiar. Time to be reborn again into new hope, new trust, and new love. Lent. Time to say what you mean and to mean what you say. Lent. Time to fetch the feathers.

40 Days in Space is Cross-wise from Here

2007-02-24T12:48:00.000-05:00

Lent. Forty days and nights from Ash Wednesday, February 21st until Passion Sunday, April 1st. But it's not about time. It's about space - the space between where we are with God now and where God wants to lead us - alone and together.

Every time the number 40 occurs in the Hebrew Bible, stuff happens. After 40 days of purging rain, Noah's family and the earth were very different. After Moses spent 40 awesome days on the mountain, oppressed slaves found themselves in a covenanted partnership with the Great God Almighty. After 40 years of wearisome wanderin', a bunch of nomads became a people set apart, a holy nation. After 40 days on a lonesome mountain, Elijah saw God. After 40 days in the mean desert, Jesus knew not only who he really was, but also that God's rule would always reveal itself, cross-wise, through him. After 40 resurrected days, Jesus, the Risen Christ, returned to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit. After 40 days of Lent 2007, the people whom the Spirit calls, gathers, and nourishes at First Trinity, the ones who have put their names and their lives on the line by living into the vision of themselves as folk who keep on Sharin’ Plenty Good News will: __________________. We gotta fill in the blank - alone and together.

I don't know for sure what goes on that line. I do know for sure what doesn't go on that line. The line can't read, "Nothin’s changed." The line can't say, "Everything’s the same."

I don't know for sure what will get written on that line. I do know for sure that both the structure of the sentence and, more importantly, the motivation and attitude that puts the pen to paper, must be future oriented. It can't say, "We adjusted our worship time." It can't say, "We bought new hymnals." Those sentences are past tense. They're also about things external rather than things internal.

First Trinity's future with God lies in verbs that end in 'ing.' First Trinity's future with God has got to be a future of God. That means the only verbs that will do are these: engaging; inviting; welcoming; listening; freeing; praising; nurturing; and, discipling.

First Trinity's future with God lies in attitudes of God. That means the only attitudes that will do are these: forgiving; liberating; healing; and, empowering.

Most of us have been through Lent many times. The question for today is, "How many times has Lent been through us?"

God wants to take us to a new place. That's happened before - alone and together. And we've lived to tell the tale. The details are familiar. Growth and change involve grief and pain. The conclusion is also certain. God leads us out of an oppressive Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Making good on the promise, God leads us into a land flowing with milk and honey. We express our confidence in God and join God's future each time we share Eucharist - thanksgiving. We give thanks for what God has done. We also give thanks, before we decide whether or not cross-wise suits us, for what God will do and where God will lead.

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. We have 40 days to immerse ourselves into both who we are and Whose we are. That's plenty enough time to get into that cross-wise space from here!

American Idols Don't Do Lent

2007-02-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

As "church work" goes, Lent is a bit of a tough sell. What's to celebrate?

It seems a little like asking people to vote themselves off the island, or to vote for your opponent instead of for yourself. Most of us don't need an official notice to begin beating ourselves up! Neither do we need our church home to schedule a six-week season to put ourselves down, emotionally or morally.

The elegant response to those legitimate misgivings goes this way. Lent is part of how we Christians "mark time" differently than the world does. (Wal-Mart is already marketing Easter bunnies and swimming pools.) Lent also ensures that we walk all of Christ's walk, including the cross' defeat, before we fast-forward to resurrection victory. Pilgrims on a journey in faith, we want to make sure that we connect with Jesus' costly grace, not the world's cheap-grace.

But what if the 40 day journey was just that; a walk together through which we join with the God who wants us to come clean with ourselves, and clean with God? A phrase like, honest-to-God comes to mind. Whether we take that frame of mind from scripture: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, or from our catechism: I confess that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself, the idea of coming clean with God, being honest with God, telling the truth – the whole truth, nothing but the truth - puts us in touch with both our deepest desires and our greatest fears. That's why we take this hardest of walks together.

While most of us won't find our pictures on the wall at the Post Office, when we see ourselves as we really are, we see someone who simply can't "do better" on her or his own. This is as good as it gets, and yet we know God wants so much more for us.

That "more for us" is, finally, Lent's focus - the cross of Christ. Here we can see the lengths we humans will go to avoid how much more God has in store for us. Here, too, we get to see the lengths God will travel to love us into seeing ourselves as God sees us -graced to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the sake of God's kingdom vision.

Lent is a time when we can name and claim the freedom God gives us to look deeply at ourselves, not just on the edges where we eat too many desserts, not just on the margins where we hoard our money, not just on the fringes where we use our prayers like so many bargaining chips.

Looking deeply, cross-wise, will change us, honest-to-God. That calls for a celebration!

Jesus: The Only Sap You'll Ever Need

2007-02-11T15:40:00.000-05:00

I’ve seen this cashier about six times in the last three months. Each time I bring my items to her counter we exchange the shallow pleasantries customers and clerks speak to one another. Not in a uniform, she’s always dressed in what we call work-casual. Like most women her age, she tries to look younger than she is. She colors her hair. Her jewelry looks somewhat girlish. She wears make-up more suitable for a cocktail party than for early evening retail. But, hey, it’s a liquor store; so what do I know?

The crew at this 21st Amendment branch doesn’t turn over much. She’s the new kid on the block; the only female. The place is seldom crowded. The employees often converse in ways customers can’t help but overhear as they shop. Sometimes I’ve felt like I was interrupting when one had to drop out of the talk to tell me my purchase’s cost.

Last week, the counter between us, I didn’t think much the woman and a manager absorbed in conversation. Both seemed more intent on completing their thoughts than completing my transaction.

I heard her say, “I just can’t be sad anymore; not ever again. All I want is to be happy. That’s what life’s about.” “No,” said the manager. “Life is about doing your duty and meeting your responsibilities.” “I don’t think so,” she shot back. “I’ve had my share of sadness. From now I’m just going to look for happiness.” Then, in a voice sounding like a plea, she looked at me and asked “Don’t you think life is supposed to be happy?” How would you answer?

Caught me way off guard! It clearly wasn’t the time or the place for where that kind of conversation should go. But since I’m always urging believers to seize the evangelical moment I couldn’t take a pass. “Well, no,” I said, haltingly. “See,” said the manager, looking at me like we were sharing a guy-thing. “No,” I glared at him, sensing this wasn’t the first time men had dissed her insights.

“There’s joy in living,” I said; sounding more like I was speaking in riddles than with wisdom. “Happiness is a by-product, not a goal. Even when sadness hits, or we don’t meet all our responsibilities, we can still walk with a joy that’s deeper than happiness, frustration, or guilt.” “Yeah,” she smiled, “joy; that’s it!” “Nah,” the manager harrumphed, with a laugh, “that’s so sappy.”

Jeremiah’s done more with the oracle God gave him than I was able to do with the opportunity I had to share the whole truth. Jeremiah uses clear, earthy images to describe the awesome grace and blessings God has in mind for all God’s children.

Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse — who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings. (Jeremiah 17:5-10)

Jeremiah wrote these poetic interpretations of the insights God gave him to God’s already divided chosen people. Israel lived in two separate kingdoms. Each had made political alliances with different pagan rulers. Each was failing to live, in heartfelt ways, the duties and responsibilities of God’s covenant. Each mixed its rich ritual economies with the coins of ungodly realms, not as worship and praise, but as transactions to appease consciences already more deeply rooted in the other side; the dark side.

Jeremiah tallies accurately the potential for profit and loss God’s gamble yields. God bet that we creatures, made in God’s image and likeness, would recognize the difference between bogus efforts to go it alone and the genuine joy that could be ours rooted in God’s original grace and blessing.

That’s why God made us little less than the angels. That’s why God gave us all God’s own attributes: freedom, rationality, the ability to make decisions, and the power to receive and give love. That’s why God gave us God’s own garden to tend; God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

As Jeremiah sees it, that’s a bet God keeps on losing, yet it remains a gamble God won’t go back on. The judgment may sound too harsh, without first hearing the charges. Listen to what it is God sees that causes God to deliver this indictment:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you* in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors for ever and ever. (Jeremiah 7:1-7)

Not only does God see the fruits of a people rooted in ideas, deities and personalities other than God’s own, God also grieves over how deeply this people’s roots go. Look at 17:1. The sin of Judah is written with an iron pen; with a diamond point it is engraved on the tablet of their hearts, and on the horns of their altars… I’m thinking Jeremiah is seeing this as a rather permanent, indelible, fixed condition.

Let’s do a quick anatomy lesson. These near eastern folks understood the heart to be the organ that controls the human will, our disposition and intentions. They would not have understood the romance of our Valentine’s Day hearts. Likewise, they located the place in the body controlling emotions, translated here as mind, to be the kidneys. (That has more truth to it than we realize when we remember that the adrenal glands, sitting atop the kidneys, are the source of our chemistry necessary for our fight or flight reflex to kick-in.)

So what does it mean when God says it’s time to search the devious heart? God examines the ways our mind is so sly and slippery as to cause us to trust in ourselves, or others like us, over trusting in God, and God finds that perverse, i.e., incurable. Now everybody here knows you don’t have to be old, or in a pre-Alzheimer condition to have your mind play tricks on you, right? Everybody here can remember a time or two when we thought the smartest thing God might do is to pass that bad-boy, run-the-world baton to us for a time, that would fix everything and make us real happy!

So, too, God examines, as in tests to prove – the way we might test to prove that a gall bladder works or doesn’t work - the seat of our emotions and finds that these, too, drive us to prefer what is alien to our well-being over what is beneficial for our well-being, namely, rootedness in God. Now everybody here knows you don’t have to completely round the bend to have your emotions carry you away, right? Everybody here can remember a time when, without any particular drug ingestion, we were ready, willing and able to carry out on somebody that had done us wrong that swift, sweet vengeance belonging only to God. That, too, would make us happy, right?

What’s a body to do? Even though we know more anatomy than Jeremiah’s generation, our minds and hearts, our wills and our emotions are just as eager to displace God and to take God’s place. What’s a body to do? Neither Jeremiah, nor his God, will give up on the bet. In another place God tells Jeremiah to write this: But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jeremiah 31:33.) These are those days, when we know what a body can do.

In Luke 6:18-19, just after Jesus has chosen the apostles, and just before he teaches the Beatitudes, “on a level plain,” Luke says: Folk from everywhere, all kinds of folk came to listen, to understand, to comprehend, to finally “get it,” to be re-minded – not as in remember what they’d forgotten - but to receive a new mindset. And they came to be made whole of their dis-ease; and those who were disturbed, confused by unclean spirits (pneuma / wind) - thrown about, and off course by gusty, ghastly winds - were “therap-ied,” made whole, again. And all in the crowd were trying to cling to him, to become attached or rooted to him, because power, dynamis in Greek (dynamic / dynamite), went out of him, and they were made whole. That’s what a body can do. Come to hear Jesus. Come be made whole in Jesus.

From him we can receive the new instruction God chooses to write on our hearts. It’s an instruction that, for all the world, looks to turn things upside down. Like the hymn (Magnificat) Jesus’ mother sang, God’s otherwise vision brings woes on those who are full, proud and hoarding wealth. To those who receive the word, who become rooted in the promise, whose routes follow Jesus’ path to the sap-delivering, life-giving, fruit-bearing waters of the living God, God delivers not fleeting happiness, but a new justice, a lasting kinship that bestows blessedness, blessing, new dignity and truly unending joy.

Preacher Jesus Was ALL the Rage

2007-02-06T16:49:00.000-05:00

Hometown sermons are hard to hear and hard to preach. Jesus had to learn that the hard way as well. Things didn’t go to well at his Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:14-30).

I keep trying to get a feel for what it was that Jesus said, or what it was that this synagogue congregation heard, that set them off so. And I’m especially intrigued that once so severely attacked by what he must have thought was a rather friendly, hometown crowd, Jesus’ reacts so calmly.

I’m remembering times when I taught theology, both at a high school and at a junior college. It was the most benign things I said that seemed to set people off so severely. I once previewed a sex-education video tape with parents of juniors, on which the most sterile, matronly healthcare worker used a very clinical plastic, invisible women to explain female anatomy. Whereupon a tenured faculty member at Notre Dame’s law school leaped from his chair and screamed, we had no business showing this tape to a co-ed class. Doing that would simply embarrass the girls and probably excite the boys.

I stood speechless, because I really didn’t know what to say and because I was hoping another parent might jump in and save me. My silence only seemed to set the lawyer into deeper rage and he kept fulminating about the inappropriateness of teaching sex-ed in a theology class; that our job was to teach abstinence as prescribed in the commandments and work harder to instill in the teens the virtues of chastity and purity. Finally, he screamed, the only purpose I had in showing such a thing was to encourage the youngsters to engage in deviate sexual conduct.

Well that did it. I shot back that the clinician’s teaching style was the time-honored Socratic Method - extending people’s knowledge of the unfamiliar by using what was familiar. I suggested that he probably used that same method to teach unfamiliar concepts in his own classroom. Further, I barked, everybody knows where his or her butt is anyway, except maybe you, since you seem to keep tying your necktie around it!

The crowd burst into laughter, and then applause, as he stormed out of the room. And while it looked like I was the victor, bested a lawyer in a verbal sparring match, the fact that we represented, in some sense, a church at war with itself, didn’t bear much fruitful witness to a world we claim is more broken and lost than we are.

Besides not being completely certain about how Jesus held himself together while everyone around him was trying to tear him apart, I’m only somewhat clear as to just what these folks heard that riled them so. I’m thinking that since they’d heard reports of the marvels Jesus had worked in nearby regions, places where there were fewer synagogues, more aliens and foreigners, an increased number of backsliding Jews, and even the heretic-Jews known as Samaritans, these folks were expecting some big payoffs from Jesus.

They were Jesus’ wider social context and faith community. Theirs was the village that had done such a good job supporting Mary and Joseph. These parents had raised such a splendid teacher / preacher with their help. Therefore, were they not due some sort of double portion of all the benefits Jesus seemed to be lavishing on their version of the great unwashed.

What they seem not ready to hear, is that Jesus doesn’t take as his model for mission someone like David, who divided the spoils of war among the Israelites. Jesus isn’t taking as his model for ministry someone like Judas Maccabeus, the son of a priest, who, in the name of Yahweh, led a war to overthrow a foreign king, boot the priests who’d made an alliance with the king, and reclaim the Jerusalem Temple.

Jesus tells these folks that the model of his mission and ministry - who his mission is directed toward and the kind of ministry he’ll exercise to achieve the mission - is more like the people’s own ancestral prophets. Prophets who spoke against insider-arrogance and prophets who demonstrated the inclusive, lavishness of God’s steadfast love, first, to outsiders.

In one sense, Jesus got what every preacher who stands in a pulpit wishes for, a reasonable hearing from those gathered, and a corporate response to the message. The trouble began when Jesus suggested, by choosing the word from Isaiah he had, that this crowd of believers, despite their certainty that they believed all the right things, was still not getting it. Jesus finishes off this blow to their religious egos by saying that, just like Israel’s first generation prophets, he, too, will prefer to show forth God’s unconditional love to those who’ve never experienced it, rather than heap more favor on those who receive it only to hoard it.

The result was another believing community at war with itself. This crowd sets out to hurl him off a hill. Ten weeks from now, we’ll hear about another crowd of enraged believers who succeed at nailing him one.

Unless we take our cue from prophets like Jeremiah and Jesus, Spirit-led and Spirit-fed folks who speak God’s words of truth both with reluctant humility and bold conviction we, too, are just a few bible verses away from the kind of mob rule that can turn us from faithful congregation to a crowd at war with itself. What makes that both possible, and perhaps likely, has more to do with what we forget, than it does with what we remember.

I think it’s wonderful so many of us remember the 10 commandments. How does that make us authorities on who should sleep with who, when, but not how we run our businesses, hold elections, or collect taxes?

I think it’s marvelous that so many of us remember Gen 2:24, Therefore a man shall leave is father and mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. How does that make us authorities on whose union God blesses?

I think it’s great that in this age of so-called biblical illiteracy so many folks recite John 3:16. How does that make so many authorities on who God will keep out of heaven? I don’t think any of that would be happening if we weren’t so forgetful.

Have we forgotten those times when each one of us, like the widow of Zarephath, was:
• starving for the nourishment of belonging
• wracked by grief at our inability to provide for our children
• so poor and sunk so low we looked forward to dying
• parched and dried by our doubting God’s love
only to have a stranger, someone like Elijah, speak a godly word that yielded an abundant harvest of deliverance.

How could we, the people of this Book, become arrogant believers and hoarders of God’s grace, unless we’ve forgotten, that each of us, like Naaman, was:
• despised because of a skin condition - its color
• disregarded because of our gender
• discounted because of how much / little education we have
• held in disdain because of our ethnicity
only to have a stranger, someone like Elisha, speak a godly word that unleashes a torrent of healing and wholeness.

The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus. The Spirit who anointed Jesus was not the sort of Spirit who would let Jesus tame this God or this God’s Book, turning either into a tame pet. The Spirit who sent Jesus was not the sort of Spirit who would permit Jesus to claim the God who makes and keeps this Book’s promises as the possessions of a select few.

As Jesus’ first sermon began, Luke says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Words full of the unearned, unmerited favor, and steadfast love in which God held them.

By sermon’s end, faced with an allegedly believing community at war with itself, Luke says, “Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Jesus knew that the love of God is strong. God doesn’t require our weapons. God isn’t made safer, stronger, or more believable by our violent words or deeds. Humanity’s respect for God isn’t promoted by holy warfare. God’s existence doesn’t depend on us, and God’s will is far larger than our causes of the day. We might unleash our destructive passions in order to feel better, but we should be under no illusion that doing so serves God in any way.

Wherever you worship I hope you, too, hear and are filled with words of unearned, unmerited grace. What you leave there to do, full of the Spirit that empowered Jesus, is to let others know that you: believe what you read; preach what you believe; and, live what you preach.

You’ll know if you’re doing that well enough, because when you do, surely, you’re gracious words will enrage somebody.

Breathing Differently

2007-02-03T11:55:00.000-05:00

This February, temporary occurrences threaten to distract our focus from those monumental events which give true shape to our identity and purpose.

As Americans we want to take some special time to focus on and to celebrate the gifts our society and culture relish in from contributions of African Americans. As Christians we want to begin an annual time of remembering and responding to the gift God gives us in the passion and death of Jesus which we celebrate in Lent.

This year we’re doing that amidst a dream most of us share to live out the rest of 2007 in a Super Bowl city. Too bad that’s not our only distraction.

The legislature is in long session, to build a budget. We’re again beset with value choices which will shape how we live, regardless of our Colts’ achievement of the football field. Decisions about: education, (full-day Kindergarten and modifying ISTEP [again!]); health care (providing access to those unable to afford insurance); criminal justice (to reduce jail overcrowding and decrease “good-time” earned by those incarcerated); gambling (increasing video gaming and “leasing” the state-operated lottery); and, road-building (by private contractors who will “own” these proposed toll roads). Lest we forget, the proposed amendment to the state’s constitution, banning gay marriage, is up for second passage by both houses. This is required for the amendment to be on the general election ballot in 2008, coincidentally, a presidential election year.

Beyond the issues, the legislature must determine the tax strategies required to fund our shifting values. These will effect all of us, without concern for either our ethnicity's or our faith postures.

While we may be the first Hoosiers to breathe Super Bowl, we’re not the first citizens to remember Black History. Neither are we the first Christians to remember the way of the cross.

We celebrate differently because we remember differently. We stand amidst the ancestors whose courage, long-suffering and joy still propel our own becoming. They stood for the freedom of all persons, as imagio dei (image of God). They laid down their lives for equal access and opportunity.

We stand at the cross of Jesus whose blood still sets us all free to be people of God. While our ethnicity's diverge and converge, though our faith postures vary and coalesce, by the Spirit of the risen Jesus poured out upon us, we breathe differently. In that breathing space some of us are interested in thinking critically about God, faith, personhood, world, and our life together in that mix. Others seem more interested in practicing a personal faith. The latter, it seems to me, goes something like this: the Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.

However we breathe, inside the space where the ruach (wind / spirit) of God sustains us, our practices ought not to be about either sucking the oxygen out of the room, or blowing out the life-spirit of any other. Inside this different breathing space neither of those results can be on our conscious agenda, nor can we allow them to stand as the unintended consequences of our cross-remembering, cross-celebrating practices.

When you’re finished celebrating our Colts victory, no doubt a monumental event, please also remember to make your opinions known to our legislators from the depths of your identity-shaping, purpose-making remembering and celebrating in Jesus’ name.

Together, remembering and celebrating, our focus is sure and our future is certain. I look forward to the awesome experiences this February holds out for us as we keep on Sharin’ Plenty Good News!

Two Steps Backward; One Step Forward

2007-02-01T14:11:00.000-05:00

“The shoemaker’s children have no shoes.” That was my Italian grandmother’s politically correct way of suggesting that what she judged to be the aberrant attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors of someone were the result of “bad” parenting, not their own responsibility. Other folks mean much the same thing when they say, “The apple did not fall far from the tree.”

I’m mindful of parents’ effects on their children because my three adult children never cease to amaze me. In many respects their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors look remarkably similar to my own. Would that I was able, or willing, to see more of my wife’s attributes in them. Her character is much more balanced, sensitive and whole than mine.

I’m mindful of this because I spend a whole lot of time with other people’s children, from pre-schoolers to college students. These parents seem quite content to permit me to do a great deal of informing and forming their children’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviors concerning faith and religion. On most days, and in most ways, I do a decent job. Would that I’d paid as much formal attention to help shape and strengthen my own children’s faith formation.

Don’t get me wrong. Mine are great kids. You’d really enjoy their company. No doubt they make great friends. I find, however, their moral decision making, as well as their ethical practices to be customary and usual – within normal limits, as a physician might say about blood chemistry results.

It’s difficult to admit this, but I’m not certain how certain my children are that God wants them, as well as the rest of us, to live inside a story that poses significant differences to our culture’s story. Neither am I aware how much my children are aware that God’s vision for each of us and for our world(s) is “otherwise” to that of our contemporary society’s.

Obviously, much of this might be resolved if I asked each one straight up. That would require more courage than I’ve been able to muster so far.

On occasion I have asked them if they have prayed about some issue, or if they’ve taken a particular problem to God. I seem, always, to stumble through that line of questioning. They, too, seem to stumble through their responses. Those moments seem only to reinforce my own doubts about transmitting the faith: “Did I ever really teach them to pray?”

I’ve heard folks console their own shortcomings in this regard with words like these, “Faith has to be caught before it can be taught.” True, or not, these sentiments don’t comfort me.

Guess I’ll look to spend some quality time with each of them. Maybe holding them hostage over a restaurant dinner is a time and place to broach the topic. More likely, stepping back from my own anxiety and self-centeredness, simply sharing with them the sore tenderness that’s on my heart will touch a healing place within their souls.

That step forward could take us onto the kind of path where God said these words to Moses, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

Listen to Your Heart

2007-01-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

A nurse, teaching our class of military medics how the human heart sounds, said something like this, “You’ve heard your heartbeat inside your ear, as you’re falling asleep, lying on your side.” Until that point I’m not certain I had heard my heartbeat in that fashion. Since then, that bit of information has caused mean awful lot of tossing and turning.

A student once asked, in writing, that I evaluate his required ‘ten page, double-spaced, typewritten paper,’ which he’d penned in three paragraphs on the single sheet he’d turned in that I, “Grade this with your (my) heart, not your (my) head. I penned in return, “My heart is moved. My head is unconvinced. F!”

Both the nurse and the student were on to something. There can be an amazing hypnotic effect on the mind’s voice when we focus on the steady lub-dub rhythm of our heart’s present, future leaning movement. There can be insightful perceptions, beyond the mere mental, when we focus on the heart’s lilting melody; hearing hymnody to the tempo beating, “Now, now, now, still now, now, now…”

Tuning into the heart’s voice requires stilling, not disconnecting, the mind. Becoming attuned to our heart’s poetic knowing requires both stilling and practice. We practice ways to grow quiet. We rehearse ways to absorb and to relish new awareness of our self, as self – a knowing self, a known self, a loving self, a loved self.

When ipods and cell phones, MySpace and YouTube give way to more subtle, interior intrusions real knowing can well up. From such knowing true prayer can arise:
• 5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;…(Jeremiah 1)

• 9Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast. 10On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. (Psalm 22)

• 13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. (Psalm 139).

Of such prayer conversion (turning away from X and turning toward Y) beckons: Be still, and know that I am God! (Psalm 46)

When we know that God is God we also know that we are not God. There is relief in knowing that we are cared for. There is resilience in trusting that we are lifted up and carried over – in slumber, in labor, in fretting, and in freedom. Now, now, and now, still now.

Sucking Wind, Breathing Prayer

2007-01-19T15:10:00.000-05:00

My wife gave me a desk calendar for Christmas. Its theme is, “Our Sacred Community." It features artwork from a variety of cultures, as well as pithy saying by person from races and ethnicities other than my own. It’s published by a religious order of Catholic sisters who make the arts their primary ministry. You can check out all their cool stuff at www.ministryofthearts.org.

One of the planner’s coolest features is a brief message / suggestion for daily meditation or action which follows a monthly focus. January’s focus takes its lead from a word by Chief Seattle; The air is precious to us, for all things share the same breath – the beast, the tree the human… Last Friday’s action / reflection suggestion was, “Breathe consciously.” Today’s nearly took my breath away.

The calendar’s action / reflection suggestion for Friday, January 19th says, “Pray for our President." There you go. I was first struck by the bold face idea of it. Pray for Bush? About what? I should ask God to _____! For him?

Lord knows the man needs prayer. Jesus is his Lord and Savior, but he won’t talk to his enemies – presumably folk “his Jesus” died to save. He issues ultimatums, you’re for us, or you’re against us – presumably folk God might suggest are our brothers and sisters to keep.

Wait. There’s more. The suggestion says, Pray for our President. It implies I have a stake in this man’s holding this office at this time, in this place. How hard I’ve tried to disown myself from his social policies, and to disavow myself from his faith posture.

When I caught my breath I was reminded of another saying of Jesus recorded in Luke’s 7th chapter: “Remove the log from your own eye, so you might see the speck in your neighbor’s more clearly, before you try to remove it.”

To the extent that people of faith choose to live in the world, not of the world; inside Our Sacred Community to which God is still committed to create, to save, and to bless, then we who claim to be alert to the in-breaking of the Kingdom (Rule) of God must hail the heavenly powers to lead, guide and direct all our leaders.

To the extent that people of faith choose to live, as Luther suggests, in a reality where we are all, simultaneously, saints and sinners, then we all have some optical tending to do. I spent some time with Psalm 131:

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.

Wind-Making, Breath-Sharing God, give all of us, myself and my brother, George Bush, who claim a relationship in Christ by baptism, making our water-connection to one another thicker than our blood-connection to our own mother’s, the vision to see our relatedness, rootedness, kinship and belonging is the surest roadmap to true peace, with every breath we take, as each one is yet and still another gift from You. Amen

Dr. King Was ALL WET!

2007-01-15T13:10:00.000-05:00

For the next day or so we’ll all be very much reminded of both the achievements and the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He’s been gone long enough that, among the many lofty remembrances, we're likely to hear more about his clay feet.

We’ll be told that he was:
• reluctant to lead the Montgomery bus boycott
• hesitant about becoming president of the SCLC
• worried his opposing the Viet Nam war would dilute his message at home
• cautious with militant leaders like those in SNCC and the Black Panthers
• uneasy about supporting the sanitation workers in Memphis.
Of course, we may also be reminded of his darker side, as revealed by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance apparatus.

What’s most often left out of the larger-than-life King story, or the diss and trash King tales as well, is a central feature of his personal character. Martin Luther King, Jr., was baptized a Christian. He was ALL wet! His identity, his becoming, his personhood, was shaped by that claim.

I’m not talking about the claim King made, that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior. I’m talking about the claim God made on Dr. King. When the waters rushed over him and King’s pastor spoke the words of that ancient formula, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” that church community claimed with and for the boy King the promise God holds and makes for all of us. Namely, “You are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

From that moment on what propelled Dr. King, despite his very human ambitions, aspirations, goals, doubts, fears, jealousies, worries, hopes, dreams, and sinfulness, was his understanding that before he was anything else, he was a beloved child of God. As such, Dr. King, like us, struggled to lean into the promise that God would never abandon him, and attempted to lean onto the promise that God would always find a way to lead and feed him.

See, God’s leading and God’s feeding called Dr. King, and calls each of us, to grow and to become the person God sees when God looks at us through the baptized Messiah Jesus, on whom the Spirit of God came to rest near the Jordan. I know we don’t usually talk this way about Jesus, about baptism, and about the Holy Spirit. That’s too bad.

See, most of us have been taught to think that what sets Christians, i.e., the baptized, apart from those who are not disciples of Jesus are the doctrines we say we believe. We reinforce that silly notion when we act as though being a Christian is mostly about remembering long ago persons, places, events and details that sound, frankly, rather absurd.

We seem more interested in demonstrating to the world that we can pass a quiz that asks:
• did the sky really open
• was the Spirit appearing as a buzzard, eagle, or dove
• how many were crucified on Golgotha with Jesus
• who found the empty tomb
• is Jesus’ really raised from the dead
• what does it mean to say Jesus is in the bread and wine?
Not only that, we seem to say that our passing the quiz is what God is most interested in. More than that, in our smugness, we encourage the world to think that because we can pass the quiz God will reward us by taking us to heaven when we die.

We don’t live in the time or place of Jesus. We live here and now. This time is after the walking Jesus, alive, dead and raised, is long gone. We live in the time that the Gospel of John tells us Jesus talked about when he said the things he did right before he died:
• I will not leave you orphans
• In a little while you will see me no longer
• Where I am going you cannot follow
• If I do not go the Advocate (Spirit) will not come.

We remember that it was God who sent the Spirit on Jesus, not to make him God, but to equip Jesus for his life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making mission and ministry. Jesus’ baptism was the occasion and the encounter for his turning away from his own interests and turning toward God’s otherwise vision for the whole cosmos. So it was for Dr. King. So it is for us.

Baptism is still the way God makes God’s claim on us – enabling us to be ALL wet. Baptism is still the occasion and the encounter by which God invites us to turn away from our own interests and join God’s otherwise vision for the cosmos – to leave WET footprints in our wake. Baptism is still the way God’s Spirit comes to us and equips us to join God’s saving work, begun in Jesus – empowering us to be ALL wet.

Like as not we’ll walk our discipleship, as Dr. King did, with very human ambitions, aspirations, goals, doubts, fears, jealousies, worries, hopes, dreams, and sinfulness. We also come to our Baptism, like Dr. King and like Jesus, as those whom God chooses to love and accept even before we do anything.

Do you see that? Before Jesus:
• has completely left his old ways
• fights Satan’s temptations in the desert
• preaches, teaches, or works miracles
• dies on the cross
• is raised from the dead
God calls this Spirit-filled Jesus, my beloved; in whom I am well pleased.

Author Ann Lamott says, “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay this way.” Baptism is our immersion into the amniotic fluids, those birth waters, by which God loves us out of staying inside our old ways and loves us into life in, with, and under God’s otherwise ways.

Living this way means we abide with Jesus as a branch abides (lives and brings forth fruit) in the vine. Living this way means we love one another as Jesus loves us (enough to lay down our life for the well being of another). Living this way means the world may not approve of our beliefs, nor applaud what we do because of what we believe If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world — therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18-19).

Jesus is no longer walking tall, and Dr. King is no longer walking at all. The only beloved ones on scene to live the abundant life Jesus came to make available, the only beloved ones still here to do even greater works than Jesus did, and the only ones left to walk ALL WET are us!

The clear and honest record of Dr. King’s and Jesus’ histories tells us that having walked in the Spirit throughout their lives, they each beheld a vision the night before they died. What lifted each of them up and carried them through the horror of the next day’s afternoon was their complete trust in the very talking God who spoke these words to Isaiah:
But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2When 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.
3For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:1-3).

This God, whose voice spoke in ways that the quietly praying Isaiah, Dr. King and Jesus heard, still speaks to us on whom the Spirit of God rests. In the quiet of our own hearts we know what waters God would have us pass through. In the quiet of our souls, gathered together here, we know what fire God needs us to walk through.

We know we’re neither movement leaders like Dr. King nor messiahs like Jesus. Still, Spirit led and Spirit fed, God has laid a claim on the smallness of our beings to grow into the grandeur and the greatness that belongs to all those whose walking ALL WET, by grace through faith, keep on Sharin’ Plenty Good News to all God’s last, lost, least, and little whom God sent Jesus and his disciples to set the captives free!

God's Clearest Signs Point to Another Way

2007-01-12T15:11:00.000-05:00

When God sends you a sign it will make sense to you. Now the Magi understood stars. Magi looked for and understood signs in the sky; a special star, or a super-nova, or a comet, made sense to them.

Matthew's second chapter tells us they came from the East and that they saw the star in the East (or at its rising). The sign came to them where they were. God got their attention in a way that they could understand and in the place they were at. The difference between these strange, gift-giving visitors and those folks in the palace - King Herod, the priests and scribes -wasn't so much the difference between believers and non-believers. The difference was in the attitudes and actions of Herod and his religious courtiers.

The complacent elites distrusted God's interest in doing anything new. So their murderous actions, and inaction, hindered God's work and strengthened the oppressive powers Jesus preached against. The Magi, on the other hand, these strangers to Israel's faith, are mobile. That is, they're not afraid to move out of their settled ways. So God's new creation expands through these folks who - with neither power, nor knowledge of all that God has done with Israel up to this point (see Micah 5:2; 2 Sam 5:2) - witness the dawning of God's new age.

That's what Matthew's been saying from the opening verses of his Gospel. To powerless women like Mary and marginal men like Joseph; now to Gentile star-chasers, God sends messengers, messages, dreams, and visions. And as these folks living on society's margins embrace God's purposes, God is able to do astounding things.

After their visit, and warned in a dream, the wise men "left for their own country by another road" (Matt 2:12). The Greek word hodos is often translated as, road. That's its primary meaning. But its secondary meaning is, course of conduct, or a way of thinking, feeling, deciding. It’s that secondary meaning is clearer in the King James Version which translates this verse, "they left for their own country by another way" (KJV).

Like as not Matthew is trying to convey a double-meaning here. It does mean that the Magi went home by another route and avoided seeing Herod again. But I also think Matthew wants us to understand that the Magi went home "another way." In the Book of Acts, Luke records that Jesus' earliest followers were called people of the Way (9:2; 18:23, 26; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14). After being with baby Jesus, the Magi were changed. They no longer acted the “way” they had before. They went home "another way."

Part of the new way they discovered is how God would be King, not through their previous understandings or assumptions - which had taken them to the palace in Jerusalem. They discovered the new King through God's revelations to them - both through the star and through scriptures (as proclaimed by the religious leaders loyal to Herod).

See, knowing the scripture isn’t enough. Those settled folks in the palace could, without doubt, beat anybody in town, especially these foreigners, at Bible Trivial Pursuit. But, as Matthew tells the story, it's only these foreign unbelievers who take the scripture to heart. And it changes their heart, gives them a new heart – repentant / turning hearts. They turn away from their old ways, embrace the new thing God is doing - travel home "another way."

What about you? Each week First Trinity becomes a Bethlehem - a House of Bread. That's what the Hebrew word Bethlehem means. Each week, in Holy Communion, we take in the very body and blood of the newborn King. We commune because Christ commanded as much. And we trust communing strengthens us to change the way we go home.

We hope communing will make us more mobile in our thinking, acting and deciding. It's a sign of God's love we understand because we taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

No, God doesn't need us to commune. We need it! We need frequent signs from God that speak of nourishment, growth, and providence - like the manna in the desert. Just as that everyday food freed Israel to go a new way, we already see and feel ourselves traveling by God's other way. There's plenty of God’s journey food to go around. Are you ready for "another way?" We'd love to share it with you, too!

Having and Making a Happy New Year

2007-01-11T17:50:00.000-05:00

Hollywood, along with Madison Avenue advertisers, intends to go to the bank in the New Year based on a single belief - consumers are creatures of habit. More than a dozen "new" movies set for release in 2007 are sequels. We're expected to pony up big dollars to watch the 23rd adventure of James Bond. Look, too, for more Shrek, Sponge Bob and Spiderman. While a few newly minted products will come available, most will be knock-off's, like fruity soft drinks, and "new and improved" versions of old stand-bys.

Is there a way your New Year could be less of the same? How might the year 2007 be more than a single, new digit we note on bank drafts?

Epiphany's Wise Men offer a process. These folks didn't bump into the manger scene. They were led there. And they were able to be led because they were seeking, expecting and watching for something new. They were certainly grounded in their own time and place, but they weren't stuck there. Their minds were open; their eyes were on the horizon and beyond; and, their hearts were longing for adventure.

They followed, as I see it, a four-step process. First, they wanted something different and stated it clearly. Second, they knew exactly what they were willing to "give up" in order to get what they wanted. Third, they had a sense of timing, that is, they knew it was "now or never." Fourth, from the beginning, they held onto a vision for how they would recognize when they got what they were after.

It's a process we might employ - as persons and as a faith community - to ensure that 2007 is more than a sequel, better than a new label on an old product.

What do you want to be different: at home, in prayer, where you work, in the congregation, among your neighbors, as you stand before God, the ways you spend free time, within the confines of your neighborhood, and in your relationships?

What are you willing to "give up," "put in," or, "do differently" to live in the vision?

Why is NOW a good time, not necessarily the best time, to move toward this new reality? How will you know when you've got what you're after? That is, how will you, your relationships, and your world look when you've "arrived?"

Notice, please, that there were THREE wise ones. They didn't travel independently. They found trusted others to walk with. No doubt they offered one another encouragement, support, and held one another accountable for staying on course. Seeing, walking, and traveling together is a big part of how we, by grace through faith, keep on Sharin' Plenty God News!

If you haven't looked, lately, to see the star God is shining on you and for you, you run the risk of spending the New Year the way Bill Murray spent Ground Hog's Day. It's much more grace-filled, godly, and joyful to celebrate than it is to hibernate!

Have, and MAKE, a Happy New Year.

New Year's Monuments and Movements

2006-12-31T12:50:00.000-05:00

You can’t have gotten to this point in your life or to this point in 2006, without having felt this at one time or another. Sometimes doctrine leaves more doubt than certainty. Other times teachings simply taunt and tease rather than tutor us. When that happens, it’s best to own up to what we’ve got, rather than to deny the depths to which we’ve sunk.

There, we’re often left with not much more than memories of promises that propelled our ancestors in faith. There, professing the promises’ power to deliver, we can look, honestly, at where we’ve been. We can see who and where we are. We can begin to fathom that future God holds out to us as the promises continue to beckon us forward.

The end of the year is a good time to do all that. This place, with this people, is a safe space to begin making that happen.

William Faulkner wrote, “(some things) are not monuments, but footprints. A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,’ while a footprint says, ‘This is where I was when I moved again.’“ You can build a monument to 2006, or move again in 2007.

Ending the old year, beginning the New Year, inside the story of the dawn of God’s promise for us, God’s taking on our own flesh and blood, coming amidst us in the birth of Jesus, can be an awesome experience. N.T. Wright, biblical historian and Anglican bishop, says, “By the time the first two chapters (of Luke’s Gospel) are finished, almost all his readers will have found someone in the story with whom they can identify.”

I encourage you to give yourself the gift of time with Luke. Receive time, either on this last day of the old year, or tomorrow, on the first day of the New Year, inside these two chapters.

Be aware from the beginning. Luke writes to Theophilus, in Greek, “friend of God.” Has that ever been you? Could you be God’s friend again?

We meet an elderly, married couple, faithful to God, but without children. Disappointment doesn’t diminish their trust in either God’s goodness, or God’s power to make good on the promises. What do you do to cope with disappointment?

Zechariah, pious priest, moves ritually. Certainly, he’s been lifted at times by what he’s given to do. No doubt, he’s sometimes faked it till he could make it again. How does your time worn piety fuel your faith and, likewise, on occasion, dull your desire for God?

An angel, literally, “a messenger from God,” visits Zechariah. Who’s been your envoy for the loving God who walks with you? Zechariah responds to God’s unpredictable ways, “You and your wife will bear a son,” by demanding proof, rather than offering a gifted heart’s praise. What do you say when God shows up unexpectedly in your life?

Luke brings us into a teenager’s room; remember those days? She’s favored by God and so asked to do God not merely an adult-sized, but a God-sized favor. In faith, she seeks understanding, not proof. She asks, “How;” then responds with one word, “Amen.” How many words will you offer next time God expresses more confidence in you than you hold for yourself?

Before you rush to the story’s highpoint, listen to the lyrics Mary and Zechariah sing. They recall God’s long-ago promises and reclaim both their power and presence inside the unfolding of their personal stories. They don’t live inside a series of disjointed episodes over which they have no control. Rather, they harmonize the unfolding of their lives within the dynamic rhythm of God’s coming near. How do you, on your path, resonate with God?

Luke’s main characters, an engaged couple, have their lives disrupted by what looks to be personal scandal. The complexities of their confounded relationship are compounded by a cast of coercive, corrupt civil leaders, hell bent on a course of corrosive cruelty, domination and oppression. As social outcasts, Mary and Joseph are forced to migrate toward margins few of us can imagine. What sort of government do you contribute to? How do you perceive those beset by scandal? When do you consider that those who live on the margins of our worlds are folk no different from us, children of God?

Next Luke brings us to out of the way workplaces, staffed by low wage, ill regarded laborers. They’ve taken jobs no one else wants. To such as them, in places like that, God sends angels. What border fence could keep these envoys from announcing Emmanuel, God-with-Us? What homeland security can these heavenly choirs not penetrate to herald their refrain, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among all people.” Will you join God’s once again near and present movement for peace? What might that look like, different than ever before? Can it include Arab immigrants, Mexican migrants, African, Cuban and Haitian illegals, teenaged, even convicted social outcasts?

These shepherds showed up, Luke says. They outran their fear as they rushed to find the Song’s source. When they arrived, found it to be as they were told, they showed out the news they’d heard. It was incredible. The Most High God, whom prophets and priests shielded their faces from, here as Prince of Peace, shone irresistibly, vulnerably, looking for all the world, no more than a baby, a peasant baby.

It caused, Luke writes, wonder. Not scratch your head wonder, but a lift your head, dry your eyes, thank you, Jesus wonder. Mary kept pondering, leaning into what she couldn’t fully grasp, and leaning onto what she could vaguely remember. Maybe you, too, reminded inside the story, will be able once again to outrun your fear, rush toward the God who calls you, weep with joy and sigh in wonder.

Mary and Joseph did what faith people do. They took their mixed bag of emotions to church. Faithful to their tradition’s promises, as well as the responsibilities those promises called forth from them, they went to the Temple. There they offered all they could afford, did for the boy as God did to Abraham, and named him Jesus, which meant, and still means, God saves. See, this spot, amidst this people, is always the best place for your mixed feelings about God’s will and God’s ways!

Inside that place Mary and Joseph met elders. Neither Simeon nor Anna had much left on their “to do” lists than wait to die. They lived those days, as they always had, trusting God, and watchful for signs that God, in power, was delivering on those promises. The age of their bodies did not shrink their spirits. Their faith remained vital and vigorous; their voices bold and strong.

Seeing the child, they gave thanks to God, recognizing that the favor granted them signaled blessing for Israel and redemption for humankind. What will you keep vigorous enough to wait patiently for the day when God’s spirit moves you to name and to claim God’s in-breaking, that life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making presence when all that seems well past your prime? How will you testify to the favor God’s shown you in ways that convince others God’s got their backs, too?

Luke closes out his two-chapter prelude to John’s and Jesus’ adult ministries with his account of a 12-year-old Jesus lost in the Temple. That’s the name we give the story. To hear it from Luke, though, it sounds more like Jesus at home in the Temple.

It’s not the place Jesus calls home. Jesus is at home with the relationships God nurtures there. Jesus is at home with those whose lives are steeped in God’s promises remembered there. Jesus is at home with folks’ anxieties, their doubts, their questions, and with their seeking. For his part, he amazed them; his answers and his understanding. He still makes his home amidst us. He’s still comfortable with us. He can still amaze us; his answers and his understanding! Will you take Jesus up on his offer to be at home with you, to understand you?

Finally, to make sure we grasp how truly human this God-in-flesh has become and intends to remain, Luke presents a typical family standoff. We see terrified parents whose son is missing, now wounded by a pre-teen facing off fiercely against authority. What could be more real, more human, more wonder-full?

These parents, as did ours, wanted only good for their child. Instead, they got greatness. Great teaching, great insight, great compassion, great upheaval, and great suffering, all rooted in the wonderful, ponderous promises of God with us, God for us.

As Luke’s foreword concludes, Jesus returns to Nazareth to complete his preparation for moving forward to Galilee. There he grew in age, wisdom, favor with God, and from those who came to know him. He did that by obeying, literally, listening, receiving the fruits of Joseph’s wonder and Mary’s pondering. And he learned from them his own way to wonder at God, ponder in God.

As 2006 ends, on the brink of 2007, to what place, amidst what people, is God calling you to return? Whose wonder and whose pondering is God asking you to obey, to hear and listen?

For us, now as then, greatness lies ahead. It’s a priceless greatness, purchased at great cost. Who will this Jesus be for you, a monument to observe, or a footprint to follow?

May I Have a Word, Please

2006-12-30T18:08:00.000-05:00

We made a word-change in the Christmas Eve bulletin. I'm not sure anyone noticed it but me, since I changed the copy before the bulletin was printed.

In the midst of the beautiful candle-lighting ceremony that concludes this grand worship, right after proclaiming the opening poem that begins the Gospel of John, a dialogue occurs between the minister and the assembled congregation. The technical name for this exchange of scriptural declaration is: Christmas versicles.

I'm not completely certain about the difference between verses and versicles. Neither am I certain that those who see the word only once each year would be able to distinguish versicles from ventricles, icicles, or even popsicles. What's more interesting to me is the word put in its place.

The word I chose to use instead was "testimony." Not only does that word seem more user-friendly - and only somewhat churchy, the word also more accurately captures the feeling and the action the dialogue intends to get across.

The dialogue’s phrases go like this: The minister says, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The people respond, The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

You can see why these words are more than just the dialogue in a church-sponsored stage play! The language, the setting it’s spoken in, as well as the exchange of emotion between the minister and gathered people, are meant to invigorate the hearts and minds of all within ear-shot.

Speaking boldly, this dialogue intends to commit in those same minds, promise from those same hearts that we will BE and we will DO what we have just said to one another! Maybe, if we say what we mean, and mean what we say (even if you weren't in the room that night to participate actively) we'll never have to fret again over how we might keep Christ in Christmas.

The dialogue’s second phrases speak this: The minister says, Those who dwell in the land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. The people respond, We have beheld Christ's glory, glory as the only Son from the Father. Having promised how we'll walk in our journey together, we now commit to each other where we'll walk.

We say we'll accompany one another into any place. There's no place too lonely, too off-putting, or too frightening which can make us abandon one another because, together, we carry both memory and promise of Emmanuel, God With Us. That's truly Sharin' Plenty Good News!

Where Somebody Knows Your Name

2006-12-29T15:50:00.000-05:00

It happened to me again this past Tuesday. It's happened before, and sometimes I think it's happening more and more often. I was strolling leisurely in Macy’s when it happened. All of a sudden I heard a voice say, "Hi, Jeff. How are you? Nice to see you! What's happening?"

I looked at the face, saw eyes open wide and welcoming, and took in the loveliest grin I'd seen in a long time. For the life of me I couldn't remember who this person was! "Oh. I'm doing great," I said. "How have you been? It's so good to see you." The whole time I prayed two thoughts: please let her say something that helps me remember who she is; and, please, God, don't let my wife come near so that I have to make an introduction that betrays my unknowing.

Well one of those prayers was answered. My wife never came close. I was able to quickly slip away by saying I was in a rush to get through all the stores and see about the sales. Three days later I remembered Terry's name. Several years ago we worked together in state government.

I found the whole experience so embarrassing and so frustrating that I actually put some time into trying to figure out how this happens to me. At first I thought of something organic. Maybe there are some synapses in my brain that don't connect right. Or maybe the connections are OK, but the synapses don't fire right. I can't tell you how many times I walk into a room and forget what I went in there for. More often than not, the only way I can remember what I'm looking for is to go all the way back to where I started and retrace my steps.

Well the thought that I have a brain disorder was too scary, so I took another route. I decided that no matter how closely Terry and I had worked together, I had just never reserved much brain space in which to remember this colleague. Neither had I carved a spot in my heart to welcome and sustain this co-worker. Whatever sort of relationship we had was obviously task oriented, time-limited and quite impersonal. And in fairness to my fuzzy brain and resistant heart, what Terry and I had was not a relationship at all. At best, it was an association. Something with: minimal personal involvement; little emotional investment; and, very limited influence over the journey of my own becoming. In short, there was nothing memorable about what we had shared.

If my retelling this experience has touched a chord with you, we might all sometimes wonder if we can really ever know any other person. And sometimes, we might even wonder if we ever really know God.

This God is not something we can define, like memory. This God is not an object we can possess, like Christmas presents. We come to know God through one man, grown from a baby born in an obscure village. It may seem scandalous to make such a claim. But this is the core of our Christian faith.

When we say, "I believe...;" we're not merely observing an association. Our word of trust declares a personal relationship. It’s a relationship with: maximum personal involvement; intense emotional investment; and, a healing influence over the journey of our own becoming. And like all memorable, unconditional relationships, this one is pure gift: ours without deserving; ours without earning; ours for remembering; and, ours for life.

The glory of who we are in that relationship shines through every dark recess of our brains and enlightens every dark corner or our hearts. For through this Son, the desire of the One who ordered the planets and stars, the One so mighty, yet still so intimate, that every landing of each sparrow matters; the love of that One, is made known to us.

Our remembering Who it is Who seeks relationship with us in this birth of the Word made flesh comes down to simple but earth-shaking words: death no longer rules. We have been redeemed from hands too strong for us, by someone who’s been remembering our name since before we were born.

As your journey in faith moves from 2006 and into 2007, I hope you are part of a vibrant community, surrounded by other believers whose hearts, whose way of walking and whose ways remembering never let you forget that.

Star Travel

2006-12-26T14:03:00.000-05:00

Every time we have our first snowfall I remember the words my grandmother said when we telephoned to let her know we were setting off on our annual Christmas trek to Chicago, "Jeffrey, drive safe. Go with God." I always wondered if she were really saying that if I didn't make the trip safely, then God hadn't afforded me the protection she wanted for me. One winter's day I drummed up the courage to ask, "Grandma, if I get into an accident, does that mean God wasn't watching over me?" "No." she said. "Then you'll go with God to the hospital!" Grandma was always wiser than her smart alecky, firstborn grandson.

Grandma knew something about going along life's highways and byways. Like the Wise Men who traveled to see the Christ Child, Grandma knew the difference between traveling and journeying. Traveling gets you from here to there. You can go fast or slow. You can take time to smell the roses, or let the scenery whiz by without a glance. You can find yourself herding along with others, or sauntering in solitaire - doesn't matter. The goal of traveling is to keep movin' on so ya get where you're goin'!

Journeying, on the other hand is always an adventure. The trip is always just as important as the destination. Time isn't measured by distance traveled, but by how much you discover along the way. There's no sense of herding, or being herded. People who grace your path along the way and step in stride with you, briefly or for a longer haul, are always companions - folks to break bread with, share stories with, laugh with, dream dreams with, and make memories with. The goal of journeying is to be aware, all the while, God is takin' ya to where God is gettin' ya!

Travelers have long memories. They work painstakingly to cultivate deep memories of long ago stuff. That, partly, accounts for their lack of real experience along the way. No road looks good when you're travelin' in a rut! But that's OK, cuz travelers are well on their way painfully on their way to gettin' where they're goin'. "Been there done that."

Journey folks remember stuff, too. But mostly they recall gettin' caught up in the wonder of it all. The details kinda blur, but they relish the Wonder -alone and together. "God led us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; to a land flowing with milk and honey!"

Travelers ask questions in order to maintain control. Folks on a journey ask questions because there's so much room to grow. Travelers follow directions, religiously. Folks on a journey follow God, even in defiance of religion!

Travelers' faith comes right out of the Good Book, "Hey, if God gave me a sign big as a bright shining star I'd know what to do different." Journey faith comes out of the Good Book, too, "Look at all those stars. Some are bright, some twinkle. I better stay alert as I get on with it. Surely God made at least one of 'em just for me!'

Traveler's pray only when they get caught off guard. They're prayer sounds like a monologue - somebody tellin' God what ought to happen, "Tell me. Show me. Gimme my Star!" Then the traveler sulks cuz God hasn't taken up the challenge, won't play the 'I dare ya to dazzle me out o’ my funky disbelief game.'

Those on journey pray whenever they get caught up in the Wonder - the mercy and love of God - which happens often. Their prayer is definitely a dialogue - a conversation with a Companion - a bread sharer, "Wow! Look at that! Can ya believe that? Whadda ya make o' that? Which of those Stars is for me to share today?" Then those on journey stop kickin' dust. They pause to see if the Star is God's gift of a new direction, a new light, a new insight, a new Epiphany of God active in the world, for the world, cunningly disguised like the Christ Child, new hope, a new mission, new life!

Travelers move stealthily. Seems so anyway. They're hard to see, travelin' in the rut like they do. Those on journey nearly miss 'em, until the travelers shriek their blast from the past, "Look out! Don't go there! We've never done it that way before!"

You can spot those on journey. They wonder as they wander, glancin' at the next curve. Can't wait to see what God's doin' up ahead. Their bumps in the road are springboards by which to see more Wonder. They laugh often, especially at themselves. When they cry, even through their tears you can see they got Stars in their eyes. Wisely, they go with God, like grandmas and Wise Men - alone and together.

Christmas Abrasions

2006-12-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, driving home in the evening, I tune the radio to a religious talk show. I know, I need to get a bit more of a life. Maybe I’ll subscribe to Cirrius radio so I have more options. What I like about the show is that it’s one of those call-in varieties.

Judging either the quality of the questions or the motives of those asking them is not on my agenda. I’m impressed that there are people still seeking understanding, to deepen their faith.

I don’t judge the questions, but I can be very critical of the answers. It’s not so much that I disagree with this or that interpretation of scripture, or find myself disappointed by one or another explanation of doctrine. What saddens me is that the so-called experts offering the answers keep their responses way too shallow. They reply with quick and easy comebacks. Maybe they’re more interested in taking lots of calls than they are in launching deeper thinking.

Here’s an example. A young man called to say he’d been stumped by a charge made by a non-believing friend. The friend said he didn’t believe in God because if there were a God who cared enough about us to send his own son to live and become among us, in flesh and blood, this God would have sent that son at a more appropriate time in history. Why, the friend went on, would a powerful God, show up to such backward people, so long ago? Wouldn’t an intelligent God come at a time like ours, when bright people like us would recognize and appreciate God’s effort more than those unsophisticated folks back when? In sum, he asked, how could he argue his unbelieving friend’s premise?

Not bad. I’ve heard simpler questions. Here’s the answer the caller received. “It’s not our place to question the wisdom of God. If you believe God is for us, then you must also trust that God thought all that through, and we’ll just have to live with God’s good intentions.” It’s answers like that which prompt a friend of mine to pray, sometimes, this way, “Hey, God, why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?”

Let me offer a different answer, an answer we can see as clearly as a picture. You’ve seen Christmas cards displaying a nativity scene, right. There’s often a cave, or maybe a barn at the edge of town. Perhaps even a close-up of too many animals camped too near, too many guests, huddled around a couple, usually Caucasian, peering at a very chipper, pink, healthy-looking newborn lying in a feedbox. You get it.

We know in our heads and in our hearts that we’re not looking at a real-time snapshot. What we’re invited to see is a portrait that invites us inside, beckons us to find a place for ourselves within not only the frame, but also to experience ourselves, and each other, as included in this birth’s immense meaning.

But I want to offer even more than that. Think about what Luke says in chapter 1:2-14. There was a moment in time when a large, self-aggrandizing country, led by a self-absorbed leader. He capitalized on this people’s arrogance about their culture, their values, and their religion, the set a big, powerful army to most places in the known world, to subjugate the peoples in those other lands.
Moreover, these foreign invaders kept their death-dealing machine operating by enlisting the support of local goons, who got along by going along, and assisted in the ongoing, deepening oppression of their own brothers and sisters. They described the result as pax (peace).

Know who, and when, I’m talking about? Oh no you don’t. I could be talking about the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Great Britain, China, Germany, Japan, certainly can’t forget ancient Rome, the region of Darfur, or the good ol’ USA.

In every time and place, people of every tribe and nation have found a way to deny, frustrate and denigrate God’s good design for creation and God’s loving-kindness for all God’s beloved creatures. And at one time, long ago, in a place not much different than our own here and now, God spoke to refute that evil by sounding a word so loud, so clear, it took flesh in Jesus, Emmanuel.

As, theologian Walter Brueggemann reminds us, God’s word is always a word abrasive to culture. So this word, Emmanuel, God-with-Us, speaks God’s ultimate language of our belonging and our becoming in the person of Jesus, messiah:
• Baby King in the face of killer Kings
• Wonderful Counselor against warrior combatants
• Mighty God in opposition to maniacal goons
• Everlasting Father as rival to evildoers
• Prince of Peace in contrast to every prince of darkness.
God for us all; born at the margins so as to leave none of us at the margins. God saving us all, before we make ourselves right, and prior to the time when we might, finally, make the world fair to all.

God’s life-giving, freedom bringing, home-making, word, to each of us, to all of us, is love. Love spoke then, love is speaking now, and love keeps echoing in our ears and reverberating in the beats of every heart, for all time, for every person, in every tribe and nation.

The picture Luke paints, the one artists never tire of redrawing and God’s people never weary of sending round the world, is nothing less than our own timeless, family portrait. Even when we’re too tired to claim it, too weary to see ourselves within its frame, God saves for each of us, in this new borning Jesus, both a worthy place in the picture, and an honored place in God’s own heart.

Blessed, blessed, Christmas!

The Darkness Endures But the Light Prevails

2006-12-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow morning somewhere, a single mother of three will be awakened by squealing children celebrating Christmas. With only a few gifts under the tree and a pot of beans for lunch, that family will share a moment of faith. Darkness endures but light prevails.

At Methodist hospital tomorrow morning, an elderly woman I used to work with will gather her children around her comatose husband, their father, to celebrate one last Christmas together. Laughter will be heard. Tears will flow. Darkness endures but the light prevails.

An old man will get out of bed tomorrow morning - there's no one to share breakfast with him. He'll read from Scripture about the Savior born in Bethlehem. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

A couple I know will struggle to keep peace with each other tomorrow. Counseling is going well but it is difficult. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

Here on this blessed night, a group of folks with bills to pay, health problems and job difficulties gathers together to hear a story, to light candles, to break bread, to share a cup, to lift hearts and voices in praise of our Savior. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

We're not called to pretend we see what we do not see. We have been given the gift of light, an illuminating light, a light by which we see and make our way - alone and together. We who the Spirit of God has gathered here this night are called to retell the memories other people cannot remember. We are called to renew our trust in the promises other people cannot dream true. We are called to reclaim an identity and a vocation others do not know about or take seriously. This is the invitation this story, this history of God for us and God with us, extends to us this holy night. The story of this God is our story.

When we introduce ourselves to someone new, when we describe to someone what we do, when we recount how we've lived, when we share with someone our dreams and hopes for the future, that telling is incomplete unless it also relates how we have experienced this God with us and for us. Why do we find sharing that piece of our own self’s being and becoming so daunting a task? The reality is we do it all the time, especially at this season.

If I said to you, close your eyes and put yourself inside this story. “'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…” – you could do it in a flash. But it's not so easy to write ourselves into the history of ancient people from a time long ago.

Ours is a culture that sees and hears and follows only what we can prove. To do anything else requires a new kind of light. A light that offers not just a new insight, but a kind of vitality that enables a believing community to recognize possibility and promise, to receive newness and healing where other folks only measure and count and analyze.

To claim this history, with all its possibility and promise, does not require us to blind ourselves to our reality. This is not the best of all possible worlds. We can admit that because it's consistent with the history of those who have known God with them and for them down through the ages.

Those histories, those memories, are not dull and closed. They are not some boring rendition from days long gone. Passed on from generation to generation, they press into our present with power to shape and inform what we see, how we feel, and what we do.

From the vantage point of his present day, the evangelist we call John looks back on three thousand years of his people's memories and stories. Borrowing the poetic style and images of those who passed to him their experience of this God, he pushes back his own timeline to when he orients the story’s start: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1: 1-5.

The darkness may endure, but it is light that prevails.

The light prevails because this is such a different sort of God. Despite every generation's efforts to mold this God into the shape of the gods of the nations, despite our own efforts to:
• bargain with this God
• berate this God
• belittle this God
• betray this God
• even to bury this God
the light reveals a God who is with us and a God who is for us.

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 a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. Genesis 1: 1-4.

God made it so we could see what God sees, from that time and forevermore: The Lord said, to Moses, I have observed the misery of my people... I have heard their cry...Indeed, I know their sufferings...I have come down to deliver them...to bring them up. Exodus 3: 7-8.

This is where God's story becomes our story. This is where the fullness of God's revelation begins. The fourfold statement builds. The first two suggest only that God sees their trouble. The third assures that God takes it seriously. But the fourth is decisive. God is actively engaged for the slaves, coming into the crisis on behalf of the helpless ones. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

When Pharaoh's heart hardened eight times, God sent a ninth plague - darkness throughout the land of Egypt, but there was light in the places where the Israelites lived. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

God began, back then, to dwell with the chosen ones, to travel with them – a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night so that they might have light. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

Sometime before the Spirit prompted John to write, the author of the Book of Hebrews said it this way: Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1: 1-3

The darkness endures but the light prevails.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1:10-13

The Word became flesh. God with us. God for us. Emmanuel. Jesus Christ. Giving us the power to live as we were made, in God's image and likeness - to observe the people's misery, to hear their cries, to know their sufferings, to come down to them and to deliver them, to be with them and to be for them. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

How will the people who walk in the darkness of this day see a great light? To all who received him, who believed in his name, Emmanuel, he gave the power to become children of God, heirs to the light: You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew I 5:14-16

In the story of the borning Christ, in our story, we can enlighten the memories of the people who cannot remember. In the story of the borning Christ, in our story, we can illuminate trust in the promises other people cannot dream true. In the story of the borning Christ, in our story, we can enflesh an identity and a vocation others do not know about or take seriously. The darkness endures, but the light prevails. God with us. God for us.

In that light we see ourselves:
• freed from the denial of who we are
• sprung loose from distrust about whose we are
• liberated from the deceit that we must make our own meaning
• released from the dread that we are alone
• delivered from the defeat that concludes every other story.
Saved from the slavery and helplessness of our sin we bask in the light of a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.

As the light of the tiniest candle powerfully dispels the darkness, so our trust, renewed this night in a tiny, dependent baby sends us forth to live the rest of our borning days in the power of the promise the grown baby, named Emmanuel, last spoke, All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples, baptizing, and teaching. And remember, I am with you, always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28: 19-20.

The people - we people - who walked in darkness have seen a great light: those who lived in a land of deep darkness – we who've lived in a land of deep darkness, on them - on us - light has shined. Emmanuel. God with us. Jesus Christ. God for us.

It's a strange name for a baby, an even stranger name for a God. It's a promise for a time to come. It's our assurance for now. Until he comes again, the darkness will endure, and the light will prevail.

Sing God's Liberating Lyrics

2006-12-23T17:27:00.000-05:00

I discovered I’ve been fighting, and losing, a battle I didn’t realize I had joined. I’ve long believed that John Gray's idea that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, is lame. What little I’ve heard sounds like a theory with psychobabble, cute folktales, bits of eastern wisdom, and traces of Greek philosophy. My belief that he makes millions off a lot of nonsense had me thinking that I never give his notion any energy at all, much less am I fighting actively against it, until the other day.

We’re slowly rolling out Christmas traditions at our house. There have been quite a few changes since we’re in that semi-empty-nest position with our last child in college. Our daugher is here on break. Is our daughter home, or are we hosting a guest?

We went to a nursery to cut down our Christmas tree. This year only one son and our daughter joined in the work. I love that tradition. My excitement, however, doesn’t carry over to decorating the tree. Oh, there are ornaments I like to set thoughtfully because of the memories they hold. Once those 10 are up, I just want to get the job done. My wife and daughter, on the other hand, see hanging ornaments as the beginning of a mission.

Each room in the house becomes a shrine for particular decorations. Fortunately, they don’t mind my quitting the operation early. This year, with the crew short-handed, I stayed at the tree longer than usual. I did a great job filling in gaps, balancing shiny round things with hand-made relics from the kids’ preschool and kindergarten days. We got that baby decked out in record time. I went to bed while Rachel and Anna garlanded from room to room.

Next morning, reaching for a coffee cup, I found an ornament on each cupboard door handle. There was nothing new about that. What was odd was my certain memory that I’d hung all those on the tree. Obviously, this man had hung those ornaments in the wrong place. Moreover, my doing so disturbed the festival balance of nature the women I make home with treasure. Kindly, they restored order without wounding my ego. Women, it seems, often see, nurture, and express visions richer than men can ever imagine.

Luke knew that long before John Gray and I came late to the awareness. Luke boldly asserts Mary and Elizabeth front and center within the drama of the new thing God intends to do with John and through Jesus. (See Luke 1:39-55.)

We too easily miss their significance for many reasons. Our Christmas pageants don’t include the reality that both Zechariah and Joseph are late to come onboard. Both these men require an extra effort on God’s part before they are ready to join in.

We too quickly focus on the pageant’s larger than life characters. We’re awed by the adoring angels. We sympathize with the scared shepherds. We’re horrified by Herod’s charade. We warble a song for the three traveling wise men. Truth is, compared to Elizabeth and Mary all these male folk are just bit-players. Luke depicts these women as much more than passive incubators.

Luke gives them each a place more prominent than that of the women behind every good man. Their personas don’t merely propel the Christmas plot to Bethlehem. Their souls’ authenticity and genuineness are critical to the change God craves for the cosmos. They come to that place in their alertness for God’s presence and by their preference to let God’s ways be their ways. Through all that, they remain wholly themselves.

We marvel at, and so distance ourselves from, what we call miracles. They take pleasure in each other’s pregnancy. We pooh-pooh, and so retreat from, their pious ignorance of procreation. They ponder what power God is exercising. We draw doctrinal pronouncements from their meeting. They sing God’s praises. We see two poor, powerless women. They prepare for the problems and perils of everyday parenthood. We set them on remote pedestals. They proclaim the profound promise divine partnership with their ordinary womanhood will work in and for the real world.

Listen, first, because that’s what Mary does, to Elizabeth. Her hearing Mary’s greeting sets off her feeling a movement within. She expects that moment, like every moment, to be pregnant with the possibility of extraordinary meaning. In that expectant moment the Spirit fills her so full, she lets out a shout God still wants us to hear. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Two realities; first, Mary is neither a superwoman, nor is she a conquered woman. Elizabeth’s praise toward Mary is recognition that Mary has received what God desires for all God’s children, namely, that we all hear and respond to God’s call that we each give birth to God’s holy will inside our own ordinariness. Second, Elizabeth thanks God for her ability to name and claim the always presence of God both within her and around her.

Mary’s response to all of this is both equally other-centered and likewise God focused. She rightly, and humbly – as in well grounded – or rooted in the favor God has shown her, acknowledges the gift she’s been given. She then immediately testifies that God’s favor toward her is already rushing toward and for the favor of the whole world.

God is, she sings, bringing about the fulfillment of the promises made to creation and creatures from the beginning of time. With strength and power, God is undertaking the merciful, compassionate rewombing this world requires in order to be reborn into God’s good news for all.

I hope you’re seeing and hearing the depth and breadth of these promises. God wouldn’t need all the strength and power described here if God were only interested in ratcheting up our piety. The world wouldn’t need a Mighty One if all that were at stake was which holy book congressional representatives swear their oaths of offices on.

God’s oath, sworn in word and in flesh, from the moment God created us in God’s own image and likeness, means that God has little interest in tinkering at the edges. God’s vision for us sees an honorable society. God’s rule over us requires a more gracious government. God’s extravagance to us demands a more equitable economy.

From the time of Abraham God has been writing, in one form or another, lyrics that make holy melodies just like that. Women, neither from Venus nor Mars, but of this good earth, seem to hear them easiest and to sing them loudest.

Today, God wants those lyrics to make their way, as they did for Elizabeth and Mary, from our ears, to our hearts, and deep within our souls. Then we, like they, can boldly, through the ordinary pain and messiness of life together on this good earth, give birth tomorrow and join forever, the only Messiah who means what he says to us and does what he means for us.

I Wonder as I Wander

2006-12-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

Been there! Done that! This year I decided not to waste any mental or emotional energy railing against the commercialism of Christmas. I'm so proud of myself; even walked through Sam's Club just before Halloween and barely flinched at row after row of blinking Santa’s and chirping, robotic carolers.

I don't care what Newt Gingrich said, you do remember Newt don't you? Our American culture stopped adhering to the principles of the Gospel long ago. And it wasn't some anonymous "they" who did it to us. We allowed ourselves to be co-opted. Long before the time of William Penn, who claimed that Philadelphia would be the promised "city on the hill," faith language had been misappropriated. We have to ask ourselves, not have we been misled, but have we been misleading?

We Christians claim to live our lives inside a very particular story. Part of the way we keep faith with that story, we say, is by living inside of an alternative calendar. Since that story is to become, in some sense, our own biography, the way we move about our days and the things we do along the way ought to at least appear to be counter-cultural. We say, that makes us different AND makes a difference. Really?

Liturgical time, the seasons of the church year, can serve as memory guides - not nostalgic musings, but time-pieces and road maps. Liturgical seasons can only work to: prick our memories; shape our attitudes; stir our emotions; influence our behaviors; and, touch our souls if we ask the right questions. So Advent is a time to ask ourselves two questions: What time is it, and Where are we?

The Gospel readings we'll hear at worship this Advent come from Luke. This evangelist's sense of time and place is keen. We'd do well to listen hard. The clear and simple fact is we already know everything we need to know.

What time is it? The time for God's coming is now. Hence the name Emmanuel - God is with us. What difference does that make? Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am. Whatever you do to the least of these, that you do unto me. I am with you always, unto the end of time. Really? No wonder Americans dream of white Christmases, roast chestnuts and shout Bah Humbug!

Where are we? We're awake. We're getting ready. We're expecting. We're taking the ax to the root of things to ensure good fruit. What difference does that make? We're the enterprise that helps the blind to see, the lame to walk, the lepers to be clean, the deaf to hear. We bring good news to the poor. AND, we're not afraid! Really? No wonder Americans can be convinced by the culture's preachers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid, or suit up for a ride on a space ship trailing a comet's wake.

Their time-pieces and road maps are all out of sync. How will they ever know? Who'll help them to wonder as they wander? Our keeping Advent can help to reset their time-pieces and reorient their maps.

When we invite people to come home to themselves in our presence, because our love and regard helps to bring out the best in them, we incarnate Emmanuel.

When people dislike our absence because they find promise in our nearness, we incarnate Emmanuel.

When our biography declares no greater love than the laying down of our lives, we incarnate Emmanuel.

As Jesus borns anew this year, let us proclaim and share what we remember and experience, '"Been there! Done that!"

Time for a Reality Check

2006-12-19T17:37:00.000-05:00

Be alert! Keep awake! Cry out! Prepare!

Don't the words we hear from Scripture during Advent, from Isaiah, John the Baptist and Jesus, sound incredibly familiar? Maybe it's because lamentations such as these have been in the news so often lately. The vivid warnings of veiled threats issued by George Bush, federal and state homeland security officials, and police agencies at every level are alarming.

Holiday travelers might want to take a refresher course in the threat level color-code that charts the levels of danger. The dreadful words sound similar but the posture is very different. Those seeking to enlist our participation in preserving home-land security are on a different trajectory than our ancestors in faith. Characters in officialdom bid us to look over our shoulders to uncover plotters; scan the horizon for threats; shrink world to what we can see, hear, feel, and touch; so as to control the future. Not so our ancestors in faith.

The ancestors' words are loud, but that doesn't make them desperate. The ancestors' words are shrill, but that doesn't make them frantic.

Advent Scriptures invite us to recall the past we've experienced under God's loving rule; to stand firmly in the present where God comes close in amazingly fleshy and sometimes even messy ways; and, to entrust the future to a powerful God who's very much in control. The words reflect a clear grasp of who we are and Whose we are from a trajectory of hope - that's trust, not wish - that we're God-created, Christ-saved, and Spirit-anointed. There's even a color-code to remind us that God makes and keeps promises.

We surround our worship space in blue -not because we're down in the dumps, but because its hues recall promising skies and life-giving waters – reminders of what's really real. We need that in a season when civil(ized?) culture bids us to spend like there's no tomorrow and to distrust those whom our fear inclines us to identify as not blue-blooded!

Advent's journey is the gift of time to wait for and to relish in what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will keep on doing whether we are alert to God near and present, or shrink from that reality into the terror of tinsel and fantasy. The reality is, since we're not yet home, the only security abroad in the land is Emmanuel - God with us - yet and still.

God's Fired-Up Farmhand

2006-12-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

When I was 16 years old, I worked at McDonald’s. To speed service, the manager often sent someone outside to take and tally people’s orders. Back then, our inside uniforms were white shirts, dark pants, a tie, a white hat, and a butcher’s apron. When we served customers outside, we wore a blue blazer.

As I was sent outside one day, the manager remembered that the blue blazers were at the dry cleaners. He said I should wear his red manager’s blazer instead. Heading for the door I heard him shout to me, “Wait, you can’t wear that white hat. Here, put on this red manager’s hat. That way, if any corporate inspectors see you, we won’t get dunned.” No problem; off I went.

Things were going well. With me taking folks’ orders, the lunch crowd moved quickly. Then a woman asked me, “How old do you have to be to work here?” “16,” I said. She asked, “Are you hiring? My son is 16 and he needs a job.” “Well, we always take applications. Have your son come by at 2:30 and ask to see the manager.” “But, you are the manager,” she insisted. Then I realized I had on the red jacket, as well as a red hat with the word ‘manager’ blazed on both sides. Without skipping a beat I said, “Yes I am. I’ll take your son’s application any time after 2:30.”

Quick thinking avoided a corporate embarrassment. What my thinking didn’t do was change reality. Costumed as a manager, I expanded the masquerade by talking like a supervisor. But the internal reality, my identity, remained unchanged. I was, and continued to be, a line-worker.

John’s shout to the crowds in Luke 3:7-18, an extension of his preaching from last week’s text, focuses on just that, changing identity. Both John and those who take his preaching to heart are concerned with the difference between walking the walk and talking the talk.

Now I know many of our Advent scriptures sound harsh. Some even frighten us. John’s language is stark and scary. His effort is to speak clearly. He’s seeking to convince his hearers to use his confrontational style as an opportunity to take an honest stock of themselves.

If we hear John that way, the cloud of fear that shadows his preaching might thin. Then, we, too, may see and hear something new about ourselves, our God, and our relationships with others. I’m not interested in softening John’s words. I am interested in having his preaching achieve God’s intended results for our identities.

We may not enjoy John’s calling us a brood of vipers. Still, there’s no denying we know how low we can go! We also know how quickly and eagerly we can slither away from both challenges and threats to our selfish security. We even know how capable we are of shedding one kind of socially acceptable skin, to masquerade inside another, when it suits our interests. Are there any viperous somebody’s out there not getting this? Raise your hand. I can get more specific because this viperous somebody gets it good.

We can hear this bold talk because John’s speaking in the plural. Yeah, it’s personal all right. See, John’s accusation is an equal opportunity indictment. He’s not picking on us merely as individuals. He’s challenging the way we commonly define the identity we have and share as children of God. John says clearly, to provoke a confrontation intended to change us, that, as we are, at our deepest roots, we are living neither into the personhood nor up to the people-hood God has in mind for us. And John brings that judgment in the name of God.

When God invites us to turn around, i.e., repent, and reenter that personhood, that people-hood, we will, John says, “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” Now this is a good time of year to have that phrase wrap around us.

Come Christmas day most of us intend to bear some gifts. We often measure the worth of the gift we’ll bear against the worth of the relationship we have with the one to whom we’re considering bearing a gift. Maybe you’re in a work-related or casual friend secret Santa group that’s set a price limit on the gifts to be exchanged. No one really expects a gift worthy of royalty.

John doesn’t use the words “bear” and “worthy” in quite those ways. The fruit tree image reminds us trees don’t choose the fruit they bear. Pear trees can’t decide to bear apples. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” means the quality of the fruit you bear will equal the radius of your turn. If your turning from old ways is only half-hearted, then the fruit you bear cannot help but be half-hearted. That’s not a threat. It’s a fact. The image leads to John’s next tirade, meant to make a deeper challenge.

John says, “Don’t even think of playing the name game.” If he were a college admissions officer he’d be saying, “We don’t do legacy admissions. Your daddy graduated here, and that should mean what.” Just being black doesn’t get you into this historically black college. The question isn’t who are you related to, or who spawned you. John’s saying, rather, the way you live, your motives and actions, reveal your harmony with your heritage. If folks can’t see any relationship between your thin ways and thickness of your bloodline, it doesn’t matter. It’s simply not there.

If I must, I can say this in church language. It doesn’t matter if you claimed Christ at an early age. What matters is, by what you say and do, would Christ claim you today? It doesn’t matter when, how, where, or how often you’re baptized. What matters is whether your walk leaves wet footprints in your tracks. Doesn’t matter how long you been a church member. What matters is how your membership here makes a Christ-like difference out there.

It’s almost time to ask, with the crowds, the tax collectors and the soldiers, “What should we do.” We need to hear a few more things before we do that.

First, there’s a shift in John’s focus. He’s no longer shouting at a crowd. He’s in direct dialogue with particular people. That means, I think, the dialogue begins after these folks responded to his message. They heard it as good news, and received the baptism he offered. Second, because Greek has no word for ‘should,’ we translate the future tense of the verb “to bear,” using the word should. A more accurate translation is, “What shall we do;” as in, Now that we’ve been baptized, what’s next?” Last, the word ‘do,’ as in, “Now that we’ve been baptized, what shall we ‘do’ next;” is the same word translated as “bear” in v 8.

We ought to hear all this as, “Now that we’ve repented, turned around, got our old ways washed out of us, what are we bearing now and from now on.” I’m hoping that relieves us of overanxious measuring. You may have heard pastor of our Mission Partner congregation say it this way: since we have this new identity, what do we get to do and get to keep on doing. These questions don’t spring from our old identity’s gotcha, getcha, have-to, and should reality. Rather, they spring from our new identity that leans onto our true personhood and leans into our true people-hood as children of God.

I really do hope your hearing this as good news. There’s still more. Look at what John describes, or rather, doesn’t prescribe. John doesn’t tell any of them to run to the synagogue, high tail their sinful butts to the temple, or read the bible three times a day.

Instead, John tells them they will bear are the fruits of authenticity, genuineness, integrity. He says they will bear the fruits of identity, relationship, kinship and belonging. He assures them they will live in the world and not of the world.

The judgment John has pressed them to face and the judgment they’ve accepted makes them ready to receive and to join the message of the One coming after him. Namely, the tyrannical principalities of state-sponsored oppression, the submissive powers of cowardly religious systems, and the devices of self-induced delusion that entrap, enslave and deal death, will all be undone by the coming, Spirit-fired Messiah.

The fire of John’s message begins to shine a light by which we can see some new things. It matters to God that the society we sow still selects for the rich and sorts against the poor. God is concerned that the culture we cultivate still raises too many homophobes, racists and sexists. God is disturbed that the economies we establish exploit and enlarge an underclass. God cares that the ways we tend to the least among us leave too many folk out in the cold. God expects an "otherwise," fruitful harvest because God’s empowered us to keep Sharin’ Plenty Good News by equipping us for inviting, welcoming, discipling, nurturing, healing and rejoicing. God and all the hosts of heaven still sing with joy over one repentant sinner. God hungers for our holiness, as God is holy.

We can also see, when we receive the grace to look with courage, a new thing about both our true selves and God’s deepest desire for us. What God seeks is to separate us from the chaff we cleave to, so we can be gathered into the granary of God’s ever-growing heart.

What’s not to rejoice in and love about a God who loves us enough to speak all that truth to us?

Keeping Jesus Real is More than a Game

2006-12-15T14:43:00.000-05:00

I’ve stayed out of all the Left Behind hoo-hah, until now. I’ve steered clear for three reasons: never read the stuff; though it’s taken me awhile to learn this, getting into pissing-matches over whose ear God’s Spirit-dove is cooing is a slippery slope to nowhere; and, I’m pretty OK with Jesus’ counsel that no one knows the day or the hour! The latter makes me inclined to believe that, on this side of the grass, if we’re not going to get the “when” right, certainty about the “who” will also elude us.

What’s got my feathers ruffled is a story in this past Wednesday’s The Indianapolis Star. Seems someone’s invented a computer game called, “Left Behind: Eternal Forces,” based on the “literature.” Notice, Bible Fans, this is just in time for Christmas. You do remember Christmas – celebrating the arrival of, among other titles: Savior of the world (cosmos in Greek); Prince of Peace; Wonderful Counselor; Emmanuel (God-With-Us); and Jesus (in Hebrew, YHWH Saves). I digress; Isaiah and Luke have those bases already covered.

The game is rated T, for teens. It offers, according to a web site quoted in the Star, “Our game includes violence, but excludes blood, decapitation, killing of police officers.” Well, so far so good. Must mean the gamers will have to wait for the prequel Calvary edition. Can you tell I’m not a gamer?

Regardless of this kind of eschatology’s (end-times) accuracy, veracity, and tenacity, apocalyptic (revelation) end-time stories rival Holy Spirit stories so far as pissing matches go. The game’s theology is thin, and the piety it promotes should be poured back into the horse.

Now, I hear, games are great fun; often wholly amusing, entertaining and sometimes educational. Some of my best friends are gamers! I confess to staying away since Miss Pac Man led me down too many blind alleys and into too many death traps. Ok, I had a brief fling with Mario but he kept robbing my purse.

Part of what saddens me is this. My dinosaur dictionary defines “virtual” as, existing or resulting in essence or effect, though not in actual fact, form or name. That’s all well and good for a computer game. It’s hardly a theology, a piety, or a spirituality, to say nothing of an attempt to portray a Deity.

You want reality? Try this. Located on the same Star edition’s editorial page are details about a Christian grandmother scheduled for trial on January 29th. She’s charged with trespassing on the grounds of the U.S. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation, formerly the School of the America’s, at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. It’s here where the U.S. Army trains foreign soldiers, primarily from Latin America. Some alumni are from places with names like Panama, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Now folks down there could tell us all some details about end-times warriors.

Me thinks the woman wasn’t playing games, nor was she expressing a virtual theology, piety, or spirituality. Neither, it seems, is she discipling after a virtual-deity.

No matter her politics, this woman’s faith is for real, not virtual. That’s what this decorated Viet Nam veteran admires. She may have even heard of John the Baptist’s preaching in Luke 3: 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
10 And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" 11 In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" 13 He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14 Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

John, in the mode of Jesus, always keeps it real. The Good News, according to Jesus, was always expressed in concrete, relevant terms. For example, he did not offer to enroll the grieving widow in a support group; he raised her son’s corpse to new life – for real!

Jesus was such an inept picker-upper of John’s vitriol (winnowing fork, fire, etc.) that John himself, from prison, sent agents to be certain he and Jesus were on the same page (Luke 7). Jesus’ response: 22And he answered them, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. 23And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Pretty real, huh?

In the manner of Jesus, we, too, are called to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out. This is neither a virtual privilege, nor a virtual responsibility. It’s recognizing that the grace which is ours, was, is, and always will be a costly grace. Walking the walk, even when we stumble or sin (miss-the-mark in Greek), is always preferred to, virtually, talking-the-talk.

Despite all the differences between me, Troy Lyndon, and his Left Behind Games, we do share one thing in common. The company is offering a free technical upgrade on December 24th. So are we. His is virtual. Ours is real, life-changing. It's rated E, for everyone.

We’ll be here at 7:00 P.M., to celebrate the Incarnation of our God, for real, as we gather for Candlelight Worship with Holy Communion. Losers from all over this city will be in attendance to remember and to relive the birth of the One Whose victory we share because of his willingness to spill his own, no one else’s, blood. If you're in the neighborhood, we'd be honored to have you give thanks here, too.

Therein resides, for real, all the wonder working power we need, in the precious blood of the Lamb.

Timing Is Everything

2006-12-13T14:35:00.000-05:00

You’d think with the early deep freeze we had here in Indianapolis last week, plant life would know what time it is. Despite those bitter days, this week’s sunny weather, with temperatures in the mid-50’s, several hyacinths have begun poking through the grounds of this church’s courtyard garden. I’m frantic. It’s the wrong time. What will become of these early risers come Spring? If only there was some way to guard them from the error of their ways. They’re peeking too soon and peaking too soon!

The coming of Christmas can create timing issues for God’s human creatures, too. Many of us are very rushed. We’ve got parties to attend, “mandatory” gift exchanges (talk about a phrase full of paradox), cards to mail, work projects to complete before a holiday hiatus, safaris to make sale purchases during too late and too early hours of the day / night, as well as keeping some semblance of Christmas’ true spirit stoked within. Like those early rising hyacinths we run the risk of peeking and peaking too early.

The mid-point of an already shortened Advent season calls us to rejoice. In his Letter to the Philippians Paul puts it this way: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (4:4-7). Last time I heard a preacher address this issue, the punch-line was, “Well, I’m not always very delighted to be here.”

There’s the rub. Much of our inability to experience rejoicing comes from our desire to be somewhere else. Have you ever stood in a small group at a party and found yourself wondering how you could extricate from here and become embedded over there? Are you already planning an early exit from one entrapped holiday family gathering, only to find your mind projecting yourself ensnared in the grips of another one?

Try taking a cure from Paul. Sure, I know, saints are supposed to talk that way, and order their followers around in just that way. So what? Well, Paul wrote those verses from his prison cell – no doubt a place in which he, too, was not delighted to be. Besides that – and I haven’t taken time to check out the Greek – my guess, whether or not Paul is writing in the imperative (commanding voice) he’s feeling what he’s saying in the indicative (simply declaring) voice. “I’m rejoicing – not in where I am – but in Who I am with while I’m here, and wherever I am for that matter. You can too!”

The light that shines in Advents darkness isn’t meant to lead us to peak too soon, but it is there for us to peek all the time. What we get to see in remembering and experiencing again God’s gift to us at Christmas is this. From then / now on, our God is Emmanuel, God-With-Us.

God’s coming changes God’s timing and our timing, forevermore. Forever, the time to rejoice is now. Forever all ground is holy ground. There’s no holier ground over there. There’s no more sacred space than right here, right now. The key to rejoicing, holy gladness, is in the present moment, made wholly new, because we share it with Emmanuel.

Forever, even in places where we’re not delighted and with people who disappoint we can rejoice that the traps and snares cannot, do not, will not define us. Paul, in these verses, does not encourage us to be delighted by places, enthralled with persons or to ignore sadness and suffering.

He simply says that when we are present in gladness with Emmanuel, Jesus guards our heart and our mind. We can, and should, make our distresses and dis-eases known to this Jesus, thankful that the timing is always right to speak without worry to the one who can gift us with peace, the Prince of Peace.

Advent is an especially right time to spend some time wondering through these things. You might use the gift of time you’re given in long check-out lines, extended turn lanes and conversation places to breathe through those moments crowds keep you from breezing through.

You may not always understand, but gentle Emmanuel will lead you to peak at just the right time. That will, likely, lead to some heavenly delight.

Earth Movers Still Reshape the World

2006-12-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

If you were eager for the Iraq Study Group to weigh in on the handling of the war in Iraq, you’ve been rewarded. For many folks, simply putting such a big problem into the hands of aging, formerly powerful, wealthy wise men – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the only female member – offered real comfort.

This eminent group offered the president 78 recommendations to change not only the course of the war, but to reshape the world in which the war is being fought. They did that very publicly.

If Mr. Bush intended these “fresh eyes” to focus narrowly and quietly on his old problem, he got this week a completely new problem. Turns out it wasn’t just the president, or congress, or the military, or only average Americans who were waiting expectantly.

Inside Iraq Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds expressed displeasure. Within the gulf region Jordan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Israel registered complaints. Countries across Europe and Asia, as well as Africa’s Egypt listed criticisms. In all these places, editorial writers and ordinary citizens joined their government’s dissatisfaction with the ISG’s process, specific proposals, or both.

High profile communication has a way of getting beyond its intended audience. Luke’s Gospel is a bit like that. Look at Luke’s first four verses.
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.

This rather private sounding document is now in our hands. Moreover, John’s recommendations, intended primarily for faithful Jews, are now Gentile Christianity’s ritual center!

Good writers know their message and appreciate their audience. It shouldn’t surprise us to see Luke adopting a formal style to keep a cultured dignitary like Theophilus reading.

However, Luke is more than a clever author. He’s a theologian, a Jewish theologian. Luke adopts what Theophilus already knows from his own social, political and religious experiences. He then builds a bridge from his very Jewish message, across the cultural divide in order to connect with Theophilus’ Greco-Roman world-view. It’s a tall order.

So we see Luke adding explanations about Jewish ideas, laws, customs, and places to the similar message we read in Mark. We also see Luke determined to keep his message faithful to his very un-gentile proclamation. He’s not merely trying to expand Theophilus’ knowledge about an interesting local squabble.

Luke’s is a message designed not only to change Theophilus’ life-course, but also to reshape his world for all time. So he identifies Jesus as the Jews’ promised messiah. Luke also aims to show, persuasively and convincingly, that Jesus, not Caesar, is Savior of the whole world. That’s a huge undertaking. (He makes clear that’s his claim in 3:23 by extending Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Adam. Matthew, writing primarily for Jews, ends Jesus’ family tree at Abraham.)

Luke is masterful. Luke says, in essence, that the era of the Pax Romana is in jeopardy, as the era of God’s Pax in Terra (God’s shalom) is breaking-in. (I suspect both Luke and God would make similar claims against the Pax Americana.)

Look at this list of dignitaries leading up to the call of John in 3:1-2.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

For Luke, the list serves several purposes. It sets Luke’s story in a particular time and place. John’s call to prophetic office is anchored in Jewish tradition. Look quickly at Isaiah 1:1
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Also, Jeremiah 1:1-3
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

You see the similarities.

The call is set in the wilderness. That’s the place where Israel has often met God. Think about Moses at the burning bush, or the giving of the law at Sinai. John’s ministry is located in the region of the Jordan. That river place is where Israel was transformed from a horde of slaves to the free nation of God’s chosen people. Last, and most importantly, Luke makes plain that before his story is about any human endeavors, these events he’s recorded show forth the intention and the activity of God. “…the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”

3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
I said Luke is a master writer and theologian. We also believe his mastery is the inspiration of God. At one level, Luke’s use of these standard writing forms is a gigantic set-up. We get to the story of the Baptizer with the lyrics of liberation sung by two nobodies, Zechariah (Luke 1:67-79) and Mary (Luke 1:46-55), still echoing in our ears and stirring our hearts.

Authoring the story in this way, Luke sets the aims of Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiaphas – powerful, high-profile, though unauthorized some-bodies - in direct conflict with the God-authorized voice of nobody-John and God’s soon-to-arrive authorized new word in nobody-Jesus. Each of these leaders is, in their own way, a messianic pretender. They - with their ambitions, aberrations, and accommodations - have altered God’s shalom. Now God accuses them of high crimes and misdemeanors, the annihilation of God’s beloved, as described in the testimony God delivered through Malachi 3:5

5Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

This course, Luke tells Theophilus, is now changed. Listen, then, to God’s deep desire to transform all people and to reshape world, as seen through John’s fresh eyes.

It sounds so simple. John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. God must have known how people like us, religionists, would neuter those deeply dynamic ideas and those potent, way-shaping, symbolic actions. That’s why John explains himself with Isaiah’s prophesying. Hear the power!

Prepare the way; make straight the paths; fill the valleys; lower the hills and mountains; straighten the crooked; smoothen the rough ways! This isn’t a call to tinker at the edges of our ethical decisions. This isn’t a cry for minor adjustments to our moral choices. The energy required to do this work come from tools heartier than doctrinal sandpaper and ritual nail files.

Some while back it took two years and $180 million to modify a short stretch of Interstate 70 West near the Indianapolis airport. That quite straight, nearly flat stretch was not quite level enough to move water off the roadway. Standing water, particularly in winter, caused numerous accidents, with injuries and fatalities.

John announces now as the time to reconfigure the landscape of our minds, and describes the processes necessary to reengineer the bedrock in which our hearts are grounded. The truth is we’re not sure we want to change our minds. The truth is we can’t change our hearts. Talk about set in stone! I think I’m fine. Don’t you think you’re fine too? I’m on course. Aren’t you on course? Look around. Are there any really bad folks on your Christmas card list?

What separates us from those on Luke’s list of unauthorized some-bodies are time, place, and opportunity. Our motivations, our desires, and our egos are no more legitimate than theirs were. We, too, want just a little more than our share. Like them, we’re willing to do almost anything to get that, and nearly as eager to do just about whatever is necessary to keep it. Staying the course isn’t working; is it? We need some fresh eyes; agreed?

Lost in the gloom of our own darkness we can still hear God crying through a voice seeing what we cannot. The voice has seen God on the move; moving toward us with an extraordinary invitation to be refined, purified, changed.

The voice says, “Repent,” meaning, return, turn back, change course. The voice says, “Be Baptized,” not our effort to reach high for God. Rather, move toward the Jordan to receive rebirth and renewal by a promising word from a coming down God, attached to the most basic element of God’s creation, water. In that turning, by that washing, God offers us forgiveness, in Greek aphesis, release from bondage to sin, that old course on which we keep “missing the mark,” and remain stuck in a world that prefers death to life.

On a new course, within God’s shalom we’re free to see with new eyes, to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Inside the shalom of God’s reshaped world we’re bold to trust the promise given long-ago to low-born, low profile, un-wealthy, not particularly wise women and men. Refined, they received the stamina to do the heavy lifting. Liberated, they were guided to walk the promise’s straight paths.

Knowing that their freedom gave them not merely new eyes, but also new responsibilities, they courageously took the message public. They kept challenging the ruling oppressors by comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable. They, then, entrusted the promise to us, that all flesh, especially we who are not worthy, shall see the salvation of God.

We sing, still, as we move to greet the God on the move toward us a chorus that marks us as movers and shapers, inheritors of the living faith of the dead: Rejoice, Rejoice, O Israel - chosen people of God - shall come to you Emmanuel.

Y'all Whistle While Y'all Work

2006-12-08T14:11:00.000-05:00

We’re in this together. This way of seeing, hearing, following and, yes, teaching and witnessing to what God desires to keep doing for us, for world.

Theologian Marva Dawn recommends that whenever we English readers come across the word, “you,” in the bible, we pronounce it with a southern accent, as in, “y’all.” She claims that, more often than not, understanding that pronoun to be ‘second-person plural,’ rather than ‘second-personal singular’ we’ll be linguistically correct. I recall that she advised this strategy even before the publication of Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone.

That’s an important corrective in our era when so many spiritual sojourners describe themselves as on a solitary pilgrimage, rather than a shared journey. These wanderers give themselves away with words like, “I’m spiritual but I avoid organized religion.”

Now, to be sure, most of us who are part of organized religion have more than our share of Will Rogers’s moments. When asked about his political affiliation Rogers responded, I’m not part of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

Still, from its advent, the Christian movement has been much more about God’s for us, than it’s ever been about God and “me, myself, and I.” Just look at the politically charged freedom-songs - lifted high and far - by Zechariah, father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:68-79), and Mary, mother of Jesus (Luke 1:46-55).

That’s the other important piece solitary sojourners risk missing. The Christian movement’s earliest liberation songs struck powerful chords against the political status quo. They were, if at all, only secondarily about reforms required or anticipated within organized religion – even when we take into account the emperor-worship that redounded to the Romans. The personal liberation these songs pronounced were sung in the context of political oppressors (plural) whose undoing would lift up the lowly and give salvation to the Most High’s people (both refrains plural).

In short, in this Christian movement’s ethos, I’m not free, when you and y’all aren’t free!

That, too, is a piece of the movement’s (really the Mover’s) first premise. What’s been gifted to one has been given for the sake of all. Solitary sojourners deprive the rest of us travelers the benefit of both their knowledge and insight. Without their God-given best nearby and available to critique or worst, from within, what keeps their hoarded gifts from being squandered?

There are outcroppings of gathered believers (the Greek, ekkesia, translated as ‘church’ means, literally, ‘called-out ones’) who’ve given up worship wars, who are done dueling over dogmatism and take the words of Paul to all members of the church at Philippi seriously.

9And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11).

Together we are alert for knowledge to help us assess the things that differ to our advantage, vis-à-vis, the powers and principalities that work to their exclusive advantage. Together we express our insights to one another so that we avoid self-rationalization and consequent arrogance.

Sharing our journey’s missteps we take seriously the promise that purity and blamelessness are realities we’ll experience in the day of Christ, by God’s remembering our failings through the lens of Christ’s faithfulness and works, not our own. Sharing our journey’s miscues we harvest good at all only when, by grace through faith, we produce in our own day, with our own voices, those long-ago lyrics of liberation - work songs, if you will - which are personal, powerful, profound, profuse, and plural.

Christmas is Un-American

2006-12-06T15:28:00.000-05:00

The time of Advent offers us both an invitation and a challenge. As Christians, we're invited to recognize and to celebrate that God wants to make our hearts one of the places in which God will find a welcome. And our faith challenges us to live as though we believe that when Christ comes again - either in our celebration of Christmas or at the end of days - he is not coming to a place from which he has been absent.

Most of us are eager to accept this invitation. Many of us will look for time and opportunities to ready ourselves to greet this welcome Guest. As we do, we might begin to see that if we are invited, the Guest's list can't be too exclusive!

And accepting the invitation means taking up the challenge. The Christian life is marked by love in action. This is a delicate balance between time alone in prayer with God that leads us to act, and action that calls us back to deeper talking and listening to God in prayer.

It's become fashionable to criticize the current culture as one which does not support our growing in faith. But if the truth be told, it was never meant to be that way. The call of Christ was not to create a Christian culture, but to create a counter-culture.

In the culture of the new kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed, it wasn't membership in a particular religion or nation that brought about salvation. Rather, it was a heart transformed and renewed by a right relationship. A gift God extends to everyone.

If anything, our experience of modem culture should serve as a reminder of our true identity. As Christians, we know that one day set aside to offer thanks simply will not do. Ours is to be a heart full of gratitude, marked by a lifetime of sharing and giving

We also know that the signs of Christ's coming are not counted by how many shopping days are left until Christmas. Ours is to be a life which shows forth the welcoming and saving grace of a God who comes among us as a non-threatening and helpless infant.

This sort of God needs our hands to reach those whose paths don't set foot near a manger. This sort of God needs our arms to extend welcome to those who have been hurt by self-righteous church-goers. This sort of God needs our hearts to express loving acceptance to those whom society has rejected or thrown away. This sort of God needs our voices to issue the words of forgiveness to those whose fear and failure has caused them to hate and to harm. This sort of God needs our votes to structure a politics of fairness, justice and equity.

Throughout this Advent season we'll hear the words of the prophets from the Hebrew Bible. Each of these texts declares a special word of hope - not a wish - but a confidence in the righteousness of God's way of being and doing. That faith, that way of being and doing, must mark our own Advent journey.

There is no good news except that which we declare in our loving action - action that flows from prayer and action that leads back to prayer. Our clear and compelling declaration of the good news - Christ is a 'borning - can never be heard or seen or felt, unless we make it flesh as invitation and challenge. Come. Lord Jesus.

It Runs in the Family

2006-12-05T13:09:00.000-05:00

Mario Cuomo -there was an Italian politician to admire - always seemed more excited about the accomplishments of his second son than he was by the lack of achievement of his first-born son. When asked to explain the difference between his boys' success, Governor Cuomo is reported to have said, "Sons are like pancakes. Sometimes the second one turns out better than the first."

My guess is that the extended families of both Jesus and John the Baptist might have shared the same assessment. Both these "first-born" boys had lots going for them. Zechariah, John's father, had a rather cushy job at the Jerusalem Temple. Joseph, charged with the upbringing of Jesus, is said to have been a skilled craftsman. No doubt both "dads" had high expectations for what was to come. And, as far as we know, there were no second pancakes on either one's horizon.

We read about both of these boys-to-men during the season of Advent. John gave a pass on the Temple gig. Jesus' own wander-lust moved him well beyond the confines of Joseph's retail operation. As for what became of their "hoped for" futures, it depends upon who you ask. A noted theologian and story-teller, John Shea, has this to say about the teachings both John and Jesus passed on to any and all listeners:

What they said about sharing goods, services and money was economically naive. Their ideas about nurturing relationships between family members, friends, strangers and even the government, was culturally inappropriate. The ways they stood before the God of their ancestors appeared to be religiously insufficient.

My guess is much of the world, even the so-called Christian world, might make the same judgment. "If someone asks for your coat, give him your shirt as well." "Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me." "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven."

The Advent good news here is that we get to be the second pancakes! Jesus said that if we believed in him we would do even greater works than he did. I simply can't wait to see what this loving ONE dreams up for the family of God next.

Finding God's Song in Christmas Songs

2006-12-04T17:11:00.000-05:00

You may have heard that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers released, this week, its list of most popular Christmas songs. Who wants to guess the number one song? It’s the secular, “The Christmas Song: Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” The only so-called sacred song on the list, coming in at #8, is “The Little Drummer Boy.”

When I heard that, I started to go on one of my clergy rants, but I held back. What first gave me pause was my remembering that the composer was Mel Torme. He’s from Chicago and we share the same birthday. They call him the “velvet fog.” The song was originally recorded by another favorite of mine, Nat King Cole. Having a rational minute to think, it dawned on me that even though “Drummer Boy,” isn’t biblically based, it’s not fair to say it’s a so-called sacred song.

That song’s lyrics, about a young child, a kind of marginalized non-person, who recognizes the meaning of the newborn he sees, and searches inside himself to respond to the baby’s advent with a gift, represents an important reworking of the biblical tradition. Now by reworking the tradition I don’t mean altering it. Rather, reworking tradition means, “mining” it again; exploring “veins” that looked to be fully exhausted, but may still contain rich ore, or lead to new, unexplored riches. In this case, the songwriter reworks the traditional story as a way to take on the story’s meaning for himself, as well as his listeners.

Of course, readers of the traditional story, found only in Matthew and Luke, are aware that those authors use the shepherds as stand-ins for marginalized non-persons. And in their own way they, too, offer a gift, as they leave praising God for what they’d seen. Still, the drummer-boy does seem to allow present-day children - in any era - a place for themselves inside the story, which a more literal biblical telling does not.

This reworking is a task people of faith do all the time. We do it every time we hear the lawyer ask Jesus, “Who is my neighbor.” It’s happening as we then listen to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. It goes on at the end with Jesus asking the lawyer the same question, “which one was neighbor.” It continues as we realize that both those questions demand answers from us, for us, today. More often than we realize, we’re reworking the biblical tradition to enlarge our access to its God and God’s promises.

Now this reworking is more than simply applying a piece of ancient wisdom from the past into a present day situation. It’s more than taking a proverb from The Old Farmer’s Almanac, or quoting something your grandmother always said. Reworking is our faith’s way of trusting that God is still speaking. It’s or way of standing in, with, and under God’s living voice, speaking, again, a new word for God’s people.
See, the Bible, especially when it speaks of God’s promises to God’s people, is always doing two things. First, it’s telling us more about what God’s doing and why God is doing it. (The Bible seldom discloses exactly how God will get that done.) Secondly, the Bible is usually telling us about God’s fulfilling God’s promises in the future. That promised future has an impact in the present. That promised future stirs up a response from us now, even before that future fulfillment.

This season we call Advent, a four-week time frame before we celebrate Christmas, is all about reworking. It’s not a time during which we muddle ourselves into thinking that Jesus is born, again, as a baby. Neither is it merely a religious reminder to avoid our culture’s commercial Christmas rush.

Advent is a time of waiting, but not simply hanging loose in some sort of otherworldly holding pattern. Advent is a time of expectant waiting. It’s a way of preparing our minds and hearts to receive God’s coming again.

In much the same way as pregnancy’s waiting and getting ready transforms a couple and the home they shape to receive their newborn, Advent’s waiting intends to transform our church, our world, and us. Advent is a time to enlarge our access to God’s promises. Within a faith community that remembers, no matter the status of our souls, and as part of a world that exists, no matter the mess we’ve made of it, we live in, with, and under a God who became human, took on life like ours, and lived in flesh like ours.

God’s word, spoken so long ago by the prophet Jeremiah is a fine gateway into Advent. It’s a small piece of a four-chapter section from his 52-chapter volume that scholars call, The Book of Consolation. We’ll consider just a few verses here, 33:14-16:
14The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: "The LORD is our righteousness."

Jeremiah is speaking from inside a prison cell to a remnant of God’s Chosen People, the kingdom of Judah. They’re all that’s left of once proud nation, divided a century earlier from the northern kingdom of Israel. Now, this kingdom, home to the Jerusalem Temple, is about to be conquered. They are in desperate need of a word they can trust, a word to carry them from desolation into hope. They’re waiting for a word from the living voice of their God, whose promises had brought them this far along the way.

So God reworks a long-ago promise made to David, grafts a new word, for a new future onto a present day disaster. It begins, “In those days,” a special phrase meaning, “When I (God) make full and complete all that I purpose.” Then, God says, you will see a mere shoot emerging from what for all appearances looks to be a hulking dead stump. It signals, from what looks to be the dead end, a new beginning. This is how you’ll recognize its new rule, its new reign.

The one who I send will not only rule in my name, he’ll rule by my will. You will see in his leading my mis-pawt, my justice, that is, my way of judging, my way of deciding in favor of a social, political and economic order in which all those made in my image can flourish. You will see in his guiding my tsed-aw-kaw, my righteousness, that is, my way of fashioning world, which both redresses the disadvantages inflicted on the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed, and cancels forever those systems which corrupt and deal death.

Are you beginning to see why there’s no way to keep politics out of the pulpit. We can keep putting band-aids on problems through our charitable works. Or, we can join the prophetic cry and engage the polis and its culture in a way that works toward God’s otherwise.

Now, no one in Jeremiah’s day would have imagined that God’s living word foretold the coming of Jesus. No good believer in Jeremiah’s prophesy, and there weren’t too many of them, would be on the alert for a baby born in a manger, but they did carry that promise into and through a second exile. And they did greet their return to Jerusalem, generations later, as, truly, the day of the Lord.

It was the inspired evangelists and the inspired church that first reworked and extended Jeremiah’s prophesy onto the new grafted word God speaks, still, in Jesus. His coming, his way of declaring justice, his way of proclaiming righteousness is God’s living voice for our promised future.

That promised future has an impact in the present. That promised future stirs up a response from us now, even before that future fulfillment, in this, our time of expectant waiting.

That’s why this congregation’s vision: Sharin’ Plenty Good News, as well as our core values: Inviting; Welcoming; Discipling; Nurturing; Healing; and Rejoicing, are all “ing” words. These reflect our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors in the past which impact the present and take us on a trajectory toward God’s promised future.
That’s what Jesus means when he says, in Luke 21:28, “Now when you see these things (signs) begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Because we rely on the promises made in the past and have no worry about our future - we who are free in the present can wait with expectancy - and join God in doing the work of God’s justice and righteousness. We don’t have to ask, “What would Jesus do.” We are disciples. We’ve learned what Jesus did. We are apostles. We’ve been sent to do what Jesus did and keeps on doing – saving world, not condemning it, by breaking self open and pouring self out.

If we don’t exercise the power of the promises, other powers will fill the gap. We’ve elected a good, well-meaning mayor. He intends to serve and protect. So he’s installed video cameras on the corner of 38th and Emerson. Now you can shop at CVS without fear. But if I were you I’d stay away from the Walgreen’s at 38th and Sherman, cuz there’s no cameras there!

See, people want to live in a better village. But if we who live in God’s promising power don’t use that power to act more like villagers, then the mayor is gonna do what the mayor’s gonna do, and noble as he is, that’s not God’s justice and righteousness.

George Bush, same thing. Wants to preserve and protect. Well, when you go so deeply into Afghanistan and Iraq, you leave Lebanon, North Korea and Iran without “crime cameras.” Surprise! If we want a more peaceable world, a beloved community, we who are free in the present, waiting in expectancy, need to take up the work of beloved citizens.

Same thing in our households, if we want more humane settings, we’ll live more humanely. If we want stronger families, we’ll orient our own lives with the strength of God’s justice and righteousness. If we want richer marriages, we’ll become more engaged, holier spouses.

All the deeply spiritual people of our own day, especially those who’ve found the depth of spirituality within their traditional religious communities, say it similarly. Howard Thurman reminds us that deep in the ordinary experiences of our everyday contexts, God breaks through. Sister Thea Bowman asks, “Do you know anybody who’s got enough Good News?” Eugene Peterson writes, “If you want more God you have to have more world.”

As we move through Advent the Scriptures keep inviting us to march to the beat of a different drum. When we do, we’ll be surrounded by a sacred song the world has yet to dream about!

The End is NOT Near!

2006-12-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

What ends your world:
• a work project's missed deadline
• wondering if mom needs a nursing home
• hearing no answer to prayer
• plans gone awry
• tears over a breaking relationship
• fear of a bounced check
• terror about our country at war
• too few shopping days left until Christmas?

What creates your world:
• joy at a family's mending over a holiday meal
• certainty that your burdens are shared
• hope in God making a way out of no way
• hands and hearts joined at a communion table
• trusting forgiveness big enough to forgive yourself
• looking for, and finding, a prayer's answer
• believing that you're beloved of God
• reliance on an Emmanuel (God with us)?

Advent signals the church calendar's New Year. In much the same way our culture's New Year begins, our Advent new year begins with reflections, regrets, reminiscences, ruminations, and especially, reveling over what God has seen us through. Advent is a time when we remember God's coming, not necessarily a time of either our own easy arriving or our own blissful feelings. As time, Advent is a season - a season of expectant waiting, of expecting, and yes, of anticipating God's arriving in our midst. God's arriving amidst our pain; our loss; our fears; our shattered dreams. And God's arriving amidst our desires, our longings, our dreams and our hopes - not for more of the same, but for more of the new. More new life, new hope, new faith!

Advent isn't a make or break time, because our God is not an all or nothing God. If that were the way of God, the end of the garden story would have been The End of the God story, at least as we've come to live and thrive in it!

That's not at all how God chose to end the story. In fact, God's end of the story is just the beginning of the story... "I will put enmity between you (the serpent) and the woman, between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, and you will strike at his heel" (Genesis 3:14-15). And in God's own time - the fullness of time, as we pray it - in God's own way, we've come this far by faith.

Part of what Advent hopes to remind us, as God cradles and cherishes us in this time, is that though we've come this far by faith, we have a ways further to go. And we'll get to the "whatever" and to the "wherever" that farther is, the way we got this far - by faith.

That's why when we're with this God, in this Advent time and in any time, cradling and cherishing are parts of the journey, not part of a "holding pattern." One of the best English translations of the first verse in the Hebrew Bible puts it this way, "At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth..."

Understood this way, creation isn't done yet. More importantly, God isn't done yet either, which means, of course, we're not done. Never done, even when it looks like we're un-done and feels like we're done in! That means the only question we know the answer to is this one, "Are we there yet?" Well, that's not quite accurate. There is another question we can answer - in sure and certain hope - "Where is your God?"

God has not abandoned us. God will not leave us orphaned. God IS near. So clearly does God want us to re-member that, re-live that, that our God came among us in a way that surely invites us deep in our god-image roots and down in our god-likeness core, to cradle and to cherish a babe in a manger. Come, Lord Jesus! Let the church and the world say "Amen!"

A Circle in Time

2006-12-01T12:27:00.000-05:00

The last three repair jobs I've paid for, the car, the washing machine and the garage door, each required a second effort by the same company. Worse, each second job required me to pay an additional charge. Didn't it used to be that things were repaired right the first time? Didn't it used to be that repairs were warranted and revisiting the same "fix-it" was a cost borne by the "fixer-upper?" Is it really the case that nobody seems to get it right the first time anymore? Have I just run into a string of bad luck, or is my imagination in over-drive? Whatever, it seems to be a hopeless, vicious circle!

Some days hopeless, vicious circles appear to be everywhere. During the very week we commemorate Rosa Parks' act of courage on a bus 51 years ago in Montgomery, Alabama, people in Elkhart, Indiana, bury a black teenager gunned down in still another act of cowardice, born of racial hatred.

As church, we mark the days of this season with a different circle; a circle of light we call the advent wreath. So little light amidst so much darkness.

As we light the candles of this circle that marks our time of preparation for Christmas, we pray that the Spirit of God would kindle within our hearts both the desire and the ability to become signs of God's near and present light. We've prayed that prayer before. Still, we know in our hearts it's time to circle back and pray it again, alone and together. Such a little prayer, amidst so much death-dealing.

Haven't we been here before? Does this seem like yet another repair job on the same old machinery – the machinery of our broken hearts, our sinking spirits, and dashed hopes? Shouldn't the sincere efforts of our past have brought us to a more delightful and enlightened present? Is it really the case that nobody, not even people of faith, seem to get it right the first time anymore?

Looking to our past, or clinging to the present, as a way toward our hoped for future is a blind alley. Our best hope, our only hope, our sure and certain hope is in the God whose light and life has already born, and borne, among us.

Jesus, Emmanuel, has both come among us and gone on ahead of us. From that time and place with God, Jesus beckons us into the dawn place of kingdom light. A light that's brightest amidst our own, and the world's, darkest moments.

In that light, we can see the darkness for what it really is. Not a circle of viciousness and hopelessness, but shadows amidst those "not yet" places of our own hearts, and all of creation, which await the new birth, the rebirth, of Jesus, God Emmanuel.

It was a wise spiritual director of our own day who said, "All those who claim to be born again know for certain that to be born again really means to be born again, and born again, and born again."

In faith, we people of faith come full circle, again. Trusting the God whom we know and who knows us, to encircle us again, alone and together, out of darkness and viciousness into kinship and belonging, into relatedness and rootedness.

The original repair job is indeed warranted. Moreover, it really was done right the first time. And it costs us nothing. The cost has been paid.

It is by our hearts broken open for others that Christ is born. It is with our spirits poured out to one another that God is Emmanuel. It is through dashing the false hopes offered by this world's viciousness that the Light of Christ conquers all darkness.

God, in Jesus, got it right the first time. And God, in Jesus, gives us the time, and the way, to stand in that rightness. It's not imaginations in over-drive. Neither is it luck. "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

Niche Followers

2006-11-30T16:06:00.001-05:00

My children call it, quietly, “Dad’s obsession.” My dream is that they mean that fondly and are not suggesting that I suffer either from an organic disease, like early Alzheimer’s, or have an emotional disorder.

What stresses them is my habit of straining to see a “God-thing” in the most ordinary of circumstances. For instance, I enjoy thinking that the gifts bestowed by the Wizard of Oz on the scarecrow, the lion, and the tin man, are not brain, courage and heart, but rather, represent the gifts of faith, hope and love. Likewise, I claim that Superman is our culture’s effort to deal with the complexities of Jesus’ having both a human and a divine nature. I see The Lord of the Flies as a tale of good and evil that rivals Genesis, and ET as a resurrection story. You get the picture.

My kids avoid me like the plague during the season of Advent! Weary of my theological lenses, my now adult children have long tired of playing the game. “So, Dad, what are visions of sugar plums dancing in children’s heads really all about?” “Hey, Dad, when folks camp out all night on Thanksgiving to be the first inside a box store on ‘Black Friday,’ what sort of biblical wilderness event is that, Exodus, or Jesus in the desert?”

The season of Advent seems to be a good time to give those lenses a rest. Our culture doesn’t offer too many pre-Christmas experiences that make a pair of “God-thing” lenses useful. It’s a tough time to “sell” practices like waiting and preparing when everywhere we turn we’re seduced to make right-now purchases of ready-to-wrap products whose prices have been reduced.

There is, though, a fun quiz-show on National Public Radio. Its host asks questions of famous people to “fill-in the-blank” with names of significant persons, places, and events that average readers of newspapers and watchers of TV news could have, should have, noticed. The contestant with the most correct answers wins bragging rights. The show’s name is, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!”

While the show isn’t as famous as Desperate Housewives, it does have a niche market. That’s where those lenses may yet come in handy. Advent, too, has a niche following.

We still know believers eager to wait and prepare for the once again coming of Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Even the average among them refuse to play games, don’t need to win and reject bragging. Culture doesn’t easily seduce them. Without straining, they see a God-thing most everywhere. This time of year you’ll usually find them at ___________? Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!

The End is The Beginning

2006-11-29T10:34:00.000-05:00

It's an odd way to begin a new year. (So-called liturgical churches follow a calendar that ends with the last Sunday in November and begins a New Year with the season of Advent on the first Sunday of December.) Rather than hearing songs of auld lang sine; or toasting with champagne, the church has us hear another version of Jesus' last will and testament. Like Matthew's parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25), Mark's Jesus speaks about what we've come to call, erroneously, the second coming. If Matthew's version of Jesus’ last words challenges his followers with the image of judgment, Luke's version (Luke 21:25-36 is a call to watch for signs of the end.

Speeches about the end of history often use the language of apocalyptic. Apocalypse means revelation and apocalyptic has been widely used to speak of the end of time and events leading up to it in colorful, sometimes coded, imagery. Old Testament images, such as those drawn from Isaiah 13, in Jesus' words about a darkened sun and dimmed moon, and falling stars, are very common. In the Book of Revelation we have elaborate descriptions of the end times. In Luke, Jesus is more restrained, sweetening the revelation with the parable of the fig tree.

Here Jesus is the focus, describing himself with apocalyptic imagery from Daniel, chapter 7, about a "son of man" receiving authority to rule after centuries of "animals," who symbolize foreign political powers. It's Jesus who subverted the powers which destroy people, as we heard Mark tell us in his account of Jesus ministry, throughout this past year. As we heard and saw that ministry unfold, we came to recognize that it's Jesus and his rule which will outlast all such oppressors.

The folks to whom Mark was writing were very familiar with that sort of oppression. In earlier verses of this chapter Mark refers to the horrendous consequences of the Jewish revolt in the years 66-70, which ended with the Romans starving out Jerusalem before breaking through the walls and destroying the Temple. With this horror fresh in their memory, Mark's first hearers would have been able to relate to warnings about false messiah's and false prophets. They were in a good position to read the signs of the times. In Mark's view their times must be the last times.

It's very hard for most of us to walk in those shoes, whether the cobbler is early-Mark or later-Luke. What does it mean to feel that things are so bad the only hope is a quick end to the world? The poetry of pain and despair, the fantasies of escape and resolution, challenge us to silence, to listening.

What do people in such a situation need to hear from their God? What would a faithful and loving God say to people in such despair?

Like those early church communities, we're living beyond what was for so many, the real and final end of days. Like Luke's community of faith, we, too, have some time to gather together and to hear. And in that hearing we need to listen to the clear and convincing word of Jesus that, energy spent trying to guess at the end, or chart the details of the final plot, is irrational. Jesus says, "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

The word from Jesus, the word which God's struggling people need to hear; the word from our faithful and loving God is this, "Beware, keep alert..." This isn't a mandate to focus on predicting the future in a kind of "I know something you don't know" game, where me and my group engage our powers of prediction or claims to privileged revelation, and get a religious buzz out of applying biblical prophecy and believing we know - like those folks who put a sticker on their bumper that says, "In case of rapture this car will become unoccupied."

The Word from our faithful and loving God, the Word we need to hear, and the Word God speaks in Jesus says, "Stand up; Raise your heads, Live! Live in the authority by which you can trust. Trust that the Lord is our Father, we are the clay, the Lord is the potter, and we are all the work of God's hands."

That's what we know. That's the bold claim on which it is our privilege to stand. We to whom God has given the time and the space to see, and to reflect on, and to speak against what's going on in the oppression of folks whose suffering makes it impossible to speak for themselves, have a crucial role for change in the world. "Be alert!"

Watchful living has less to do with speculation about the end of the world and more to do with carrying on in our trust. And carrying on, as Jesus tells it, makes the date of the end irrelevant. Readiness has as much to do with being ready for living as it has to do with being ready for its ending.

In every age, folks get misdirected here. When a brother working in the fields along side St. Francis asked what he'd do if he knew the end of the world was coming, Francis is alleged to have said, "Well, I'd really like to finish hoeing this row." When, one autumn afternoon, Luther was asked what he'd do if he knew that the end of the world was coming next Spring Luther is said to have replied, "I think I'd still like to plant a little fruit tree."

You see, we don't have to fear the end because we've already been through the end. In every new moment, the world as we know it has come to an end. And by that end, a new beginning has dawned; a beginning wherein God is still God - we the clay, God the potter.

Every day we live in and for that time when God will tear open the heavens and come down. Advent isn't a season of waiting; it's a lifetime of waiting. Watching for what we've already lived through to occur again. God tore open the heavens and came down:
• at creation
• to stay Abraham's hand and spare Isaac's life
• to tell Pharaoh, ten times, "Let my people go!"
• in a manger
• to unseal the tomb
• to fill the disciples' hearts with fire on Pentecost day.

In Luke's day, to watch was to live the life of a disciple, with an eye to what was happening in the world. Living as disciples of Jesus, in our day, means nothing less.

I wish 2000 years of failed predictions made us more sober. But, too often, we've given in to the fear and withdrawn from the world. Too often we've chosen not to speak against the cries of pain we hear all around us. Too often, we've narrowed our focus, watching only the private footsteps of our own moral goodness. It's an attractive religion that lulls us to sleep easy. It's a harmless religion that teaches us to live stress free. But that kind of religion doesn't have much to do with the kind of engaged alertness Jesus speaks about; the alertness by which we recognize new leaves, and take up the work given to us until the Master returns.

December 1st, marks the 51st anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Rosa Parks was tired. At the end of her long day at work as a seamstress, no one would have faulted her for movin' back. Was God indifferent to her oppression? Was God absent? Was God no longer at work for those who were waiting?

Somehow Miss Rosa came awake. Somehow she knew that the work needin' done had been entrusted to slaves until the master's return. So she sat, and the world she'd known so well, came to an end. This secretary to the NAACP was arrested and sat in a squad car. This woman who'd been denied voter registration sat in court and was convicted. This Sunday school teacher sat in jail. And for all of us, on the day that Rosa Parks sat, God had the last word, the world as we knew it ended, and a new world dawned.

Jesus' last words become our first words in the Church's New Year: a call to be awake to what's happening in our world and to be looking for and in tune with the One who comes, whether for the final time - as in traditional expectations about the Second Advent - or for any time, for now.

Now. Can we make the prayer of Isaiah our own? What would it feel like if God tore open the heavens and came down? Can we trust that we've already been through the end with this God? Can we yield, again, to the power of this God who has, with the gift of every new moment, ended the world as we know it?

We:
• leave home, and the world as we know it ends
• get married, and the world as we know it ends
• receive a diagnosis, and the world as we know it ends
• lose a parent, and the world as we know it ends
• divorce, and the world as we know it ends
• go to sleep at night and the world as we know it ends.

In such situations what do we need to hear from God? What would a faithful and loving God say to us? Can we trust that we've already been through the end with this God? This is what we mean when we make our Advent prayer: Come, Lord Jesus!

When Jesus comes into our hearts, he brings along all the needy of the world. To whom else would the God who works for those who wait for God bring those lost and least but to we whom God has called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ?

We who know so well this lesson, that some days God does seem indifferent and absent, cry out in our distress and in our longing, full of trust that Christ holds the future for ourselves and the world. We keep awake, not for the birth of an unknown babe whose life has yet to unfold, but for the return of the one who knows us and is known by us; for the One whose presence we feel and hear and touch, in Word and Sacrament, whenever the world as we know it ends and a new world dawns. We keep watch for the teller of parables, the banquet host, and the friend of sinners. We are waiting for the crucified and risen Lord, in whom we both know the sleep of heavenly peace, and the resurrection waking.

Not only don't we know the day or the hour, we also don't know whether or not God will ask us to stand up or sit down! Until we hear a clearer message from our faithful and loving God, Beware, as we hoe one more row against injustice. Keep alert, as we plant another fruit tree for the springtime of freedom. You see, the end, again, is the beginning, again!

King Jesus' Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

2006-11-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

In a few weeks Mayor Peterson’s anti-violence task force will issue its report. At the three community meetings I’ve been part of, the emphasis has been on identifying concrete strategies, proven to reduce or to prevent violence.

Faith community’s face at least two challenges to join this focus. First, most of our programs don’t stress either crime prevention, or criminal justice activities. When we offer VBS, weekly bible study, Jabari Malevi, or think about launching 4-H, neither our vision - Sharin’ Plenty Good News - nor our core values - inviting, welcoming, discipling, nurturing, healing and rejoicing – keys in on reducing crime, or punishing and rehabilitating wrongdoers. Second, the outcomes we do aim for are, for the most part, either not measured easily, or identify effectiveness differently than those measuring reductions in crime.

Here’s an example. Let’s say one of our Jabari Malevi girls becomes a model school bus rider. She stops arguing with seatmates, chooses to ignore name-calling, and never again joins in fist-fights. Let’s also say that her change has come through contact with us. Trusting her identity as a child or God, she feels differently about herself and her future. She also recognizes her sister-hood with other girls, even those not yet on the same page as she is. In this new awareness, she is able to ignore other riders’ petty, disruptive behavior.

Three questions: (a) would we ever know she made that change, (b) if we did know, could we claim credit for her new behavior, and, (c) what world would we be living in such that we’d see that as a crime prevention outcome? As people of faith aren’t we more likely claim her new way of thinking and behaving as a sign of God’s life-changing presence?

Now I’ve been in this debate before. You’re aware of it too. At one level, it’s the old argument between so-called hard and soft sciences. It goes like this. Question: what’s the best way to cure alcoholism? Answer: (a) give the addict a different drug, Anabuse, which makes the body react violently to alcohol; or, (b) encourage participation in AA.

If we give the drug, we measure, biologically and objectively, its effects on the disease. If we push AA, the measures are subjective, what the addict tells us. Want to really cloud the bases for judgment? Substitute, or add into the mix, religious practices like anointing and laying on hands. What accounts for the change?

Most faith-filled folks take with a grain of salt research into the value of prayer as a treatment for illness. We look suspiciously at surveys claiming regular church-goers live longer than those who spend Sunday mornings at Starbucks, or at home.

We’re also wary of government and religion becoming too closely linked. That’s especially true in our country, where separation between church and state is both a core cultural value and a legal obligation.

I think it’s helpful, every Sunday, to have ideas like that play in our minds and tugging for the loyalty claims of our hearts. What we’re about here, in this assembly and in this larger community, as disciples of this Jesus, is to bring life and faith together. Part of the way we do that is to gather together to offer worship and praise to the God Jesus came to reveal to us. We give God thanks for all that’s happened to each of us, alone and together, in the week past. We also give God thanks - in advance - for all that will happen in the week ahead.

It’s especially helpful, I think, to have these conflicting thoughts and confounding feelings swirling in and around us as we celebrate the Kingship of Jesus. What on earth does that mean? I mean that, literally. What on earth does that mean?

Before we get there, here are a few other contradictory thoughts and confusing feelings. We’re Christians, citizens of a country governed by a constitutional democracy. This particular duly elected government, which campaigned against so-called nation-building, is committed to spreading democracy in other countries, steeped in very different cultures. Our president, also a Christian, is doing that by means of a war that’s never been declared formally by those representatives we elected to preserve, protect and defend that constitution.

This is the world in which we’re trying to bring life and faith together, celebrating the Kingship of Jesus. What on earth does that mean?

Part of what I hope you’ll see and hear here, as well as wrestle with for a while, is that while we may value and desire a constitutional separation between church and state, for disciples of Jesus, there can be no separation between life and faith!

Looking only at this one scene in John’s rather long drama of Jesus’ passion and death (John 18:33-37), we can learn some profound realities about both God and ourselves.

See all this shuttling back and forth Pilate does between the law-abiding Jewish leaders and the accused Jesus? That shows a piece of an unholy alliance between religion and government. The religious leaders are trying to get the government to execute someone whose “crime” violates a biblical, not a civil, law. The official religious charge is blasphemy (19:7).

To reach their goal, these religious leaders declare their civic allegiance to Pilate’s Roman Caesar. They then charge that his failure to see Jesus’ claim to be ushering in God’s new rule as treason against Caesar, makes Pilate a traitor.

The real verdict here is that whenever power is used to get something over on someone, power deals death. Pilate murdered his principles of Roman justice and fairness. The religious leaders slaughtered their claims to biblical integrity. Jesus was executed.

Listening closely to Pilate’s interrogation and Jesus’ answers, we learn something deeper. In reply to Pilate’s asking what Jesus has done to earn the chief priests’ disfavor, Jesus says, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over…But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Understanding, or misunderstanding, Jesus’ meaning has a huge impact on how we Christians bring life and faith together. Misunderstanding Jesus is the reason so many Christians live as the “frozen chosen.” It’s why so many of us are so heavenly minded we do no earthly good.

Way too many Christians imagine that Jesus means his kingdom is up in some far off heaven. It’s as though we imagine some angelic general holding back battalions of angels ready, willing and able to descend from the sky to smite those bad acting Romans, and to slay those bad believing Jews. Hooey!

Jesus isn’t some first century realtor shrieking, “Location; location; location!” He’s not talking about place; he’s talking about orientation, point of reference, direction, and course. My vision, the vision of the Father in whose:
- name I have come to speak
- rule I have come to bring in
- way I have come to reveal to you
- word I have come to make known for you
- truth I testify as witness for you
- life I have come to offer you,
is “otherwise” to your selfish claims and your death-dealing clamor. He says, everyone who brings life and faith together in this God’s vision for life and world keeps on listening to my voice.

Whose vision moves us to bring life and faith together? If it’s Jesus’ vision for world in which we live and move and have our being, if it’s Jesus’ truth about life that gives shape and meaning to who we are, if it’s Jesus voice to whom we keep listening; that’s got to mean something here and now, before it can possibly mean anything in any other there and then!

Jesus went to his death trusting that vision - not jumping on a heavenly hand-grenade so we’d escape God’s fury. He went to the cross to free us for a new way of seeing, hearing and relishing in what God’s desire for all God’s people has been all along. John told us as much in the prologue of his Gospel.

9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:9-13).

It’s a tall order: to identify concrete, proven strategies to reduce violence, then marshal the power over others to get the job done. The Caesars’ Pax Romana couldn’t do it. Herod was unable to pull it off. Pilate failed and the chief priests were unsuccessful. George Bush hasn’t fared much better and, like as not, Mayor Peterson and his task force will fall short, as well. See, it’s not the Christian thing to do.

The Christian thing to do, in a here and now world where life and faith come together, is to exercise our real power as children of God.

We keep gathering in Jesus’ name, openly and inclusively, in defiance of those who set race, gender, status, age and income standards for belonging.

We put all our trust in his good promises, avoiding fear, guilt and shame as means to speak to or hear from God.

We listen to his voice, to be certain our claims neither ambush the weak nor assault the suffering, because of unholy alliances we’re tempted to make.

We share his good news, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable, in ways that focus our anger on negative results not responsible people.

We keep pouring water in here, so people are free enough to “walk wet” out there.

We keep welcoming sinners, outcasts and misfits to this table so each of us who fits those categories is brave enough to break ourselves open and to pour ourselves out, in the way Jesus went to the cross, knowing the grace that’s ours is costly.

You probably won’t see anything like this on the pages of The Indianapolis Star when the task force releases its report. But these are the concrete, proven strategies that bring about the godly neighborliness that reduces violence, because they make new world, where Jesus is Lord, and our loyalty to God’s vision for beloved community, as well as our high regard for all its holy citizens and its gracious King, speaks from and walks in that truth.

A Dining Hall's Windows and Mirrors

2006-11-22T18:41:00.000-05:00

I've been helping a pastor at another church by officiating at some of the many non-member weddings scheduled there. Now, more often than not it feels as though I'm part of the complete rental package than someone who's been called to lead a community of believers to witness the couples' betrothal. In fact, between the day of rehearsal and the wedding day, some brides spend more time with the make-up artist and the hairdresser than they do with me in four pre-marital sessions. And it's not unusual at all for the bridal party to spend four times longer taking photos than we spent in the liturgical rite of marriage.

It wasn't the same with the last two couples. Somehow I made a different sort of connection with both Geoff & Monica, and Rian & Jennifer. Our pre-marital talks seemed more authentic and genuine. While we didn't spend a whole lot more time than usual with each other, we explored issues more genuinely and deeply. I was invited to both rehearsal dinners and to both wedding receptions. I enjoyed meeting their friends and family members. It was fun to hear different people reminisce about parts of the lives they'd shared with each of them, before they'd met the one whom they were to marry. The rehearsal dinners were casual and relaxed.

I can't say the same for the wedding receptions. Both couples chose to celebrate their marriages at the Columbia Club. I've been there twice before. A friend took me to lunch there. The same friend and his wife invited my wife and me to supper there. On both occasions the food was excellent, the service impeccable, the decor elegant, and the cocktails exquisite. But I've never been more uncomfortable.

Maybe I'm uncomfortable because you can't just walk in off the street and be served. The place is just what the name says it is. It's a Club. You can only go there if you're a member, or as a member's guest. When you go as a guest, the menu you're handed doesn't list the prices of the food. Frankly, I haven't wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what it is that makes me uncomfortable. Whatever the reason, I don't feel like myself there. I can't be myself there. It's just not my kind of place. So I've never been back. Not even to attend the wedding receptions of people I'd begun to fall in love with.

I doubt that I would have been invited to Herod's banquet (See Mark 6:14-29). Don't get me wrong. I have moments when I fancy myself as not only capable, but also deserving of hobnobbing with a tonier crowd. And I can't say I've never groveled to hold a place among the rich and famous. I remember feeling really hoy poloy at a luncheon Governor Bayh hosted for President Clinton - even though I was only asked to fill an empty seat. I don’t believe I’d do that again, not at the cost of not being able to be myself.

That's why I like being among the people at First Trinity. This isn't an exclusive club. You can come in here off the street. You don't need a host in order to feel welcome here. In fact, this is one of the few places I know where members don't have more privileges, they have more responsibilities. It's the members here who claim to be Sharin' Plenty Good News! It's the members here who pledge to be: inviting; welcoming; nurturing; discipling; healing; and, rejoicing.

That's really pretty cool. In a culture where we're so scared of each other we're puttin' electronic chips under our pets' skin in case they're stolen and where we're finger-printin' our kids in case they're kidnapped, we got this place organized differently. As nearly completely opposite of any: club; fraternity / sorority; league; union; or, association you can think of.

We're committed to lettin' folks be themselves here, because we're all the same here. The church is the assembly of those who have been dead and are alive. It is the company of those who were:
• banished and are restored
• in bondage to sin and are now forgiven
• unable to free themselves and are now empowered to liberate all God's children.

We hear this story of John's beheading on the heels of Jesus' sending the disciples off two by two, giving them power and authority over unclean spirits. Those whom Jesus had discipled, he now makes apostolos, sent ones.

That's what Herod had heard, that there were some folks out there who were goin' about his kingdom speakin' a different word. In a world organized for death, where folks were divided up as:
• men versus women
• masters versus slaves
• them that have versus them that have not,
those whom God had gathered as disciples were now sent as apostles with a different word, some new news, some Good News: God wants everyone to have life and have it more abundantly.

And nobody who runs a kingdom organized for death:
• not one person who benefits from systems organized for not Herod 2,000 years ago
• not Lester Maddox 52 years ago
• not the school textbook publishers who continue minimizing the contributions of African American inventors, artists and scientists
• not one person who benefits from systems organized for death
is interested in seeing a church like ours, a company of "the-dead-made-alive" - and entrusted with both a call from God and power from God to engage in life-giving, resurrection ministry - succeed.

That's what makes the story of Herod a window story and a mirror story. As a window story it lets us see what happens to us as individuals, to whole classes and races and countries of people when systems organize for death over life. As a mirror, the story of Herod makes us ask not only, when have I been victimized, but also:
• when has my failure to use power cost my kin his or her head
• when have I allowed myself to be sent not by life-giving Jesus, but by some death-wielding Herod
• when have I used my power to demand my enemy's head on a platter?

That's what makes what we do here week after week so cool. It's just so in your face. You see, we keep meetin' in dining halls that are open to everyone - where membership doesn't mean privilege it means responsibility. We keep tellin' the stories about who makes and keeps the promises the stories relate. We keep meetin' to have a banquet where everybody gets to eat and drink. We keep meetin' to keep on eatin' and drinkin' that which feeds us and nourishes us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out!

That's what makes this not only a different place – it makes us a different kind of folk. For us it's not just that we know about Jesus. For us it's not just that we heard the sayings and think they'd make our classrooms run better. For us it's not only that we're still pondering the clever things he did with sick folks. For us, it's finding ourselves in relationship with God in Jesus. For us it's not just knowing about Jesus - it's about knowing Jesus.

And when we know Jesus, we gotta know that a Gospel-life; a Sharin' Plenty Good News life, isn't primarily about life beyond death the way the world understands it. Neither is it about some private, or individualistic revelation that lets us walk la-di-da no matter how many banquet halls we get dis-invited to or how many times our enemies scream for our heads.

When we know Jesus and when Jesus knows us, we know that a Sharin' Plenty Good News life is about the restoration to full dignity and complete worth of the here and now community. Of course, this resurrection, this new life is personal. As individuals we're made new, made whole. That's very clear throughout Jesus' ministry. But the resurrection, the gift of life is also public because it concerns the restoration and transformation of public institutions for the sake of human well-being.

If the world still ain't gettin' it; if all those folks who stand by as silent witnesses to the stupid, self-serving, death-dealing, promise-breaking rulers like Herod, if whole bunches of folk still applaud when the dessert table serves up a prophet's silenced head, maybe it's cuz we're too busy holed up in the safety of our club-rooms, maybe it's cuz we're hoardin' our own banquet food.

If we really know Jesus and if Jesus really knows us; if we really believe we are the dead-made-alive; if we really are raised and empowered and sent:
• wouldn't the world see through the windows and mirrors of our lives a fresh picture of the self they, too, could become in Jesus
• wouldn't the world value, as we do, all sisters and brothers in new ways
• wouldn't the world join our faith-based efforts, to address public issues of justice and fairness boldly?

That's the gift we have. That's the gift we've been given to share. If you were to begin building' a church today; if you were to begin helping' to rebuild a church today; it could only be because God has brought you back from death to life. That's what the Bible says. The whole Bible is full of stories about people who have been out of covenant relationship with God being invited and included back into that same, intense, life-changing covenant. And you got to look pretty hard to find a story that isn't about the most unqualified, by either Herod's or the Columbia Club's standards, being especially sought after and welcomed!

This is God's own gift of grace. Both the church and the world need to see and experience that there is another way. Both the church and the world need to see and experience that God has always meant to - and God always will mean to - gather up all things in Jesus, things in heaven and things on earth. Not everybody will get that message from palaces like the Columbia Club - so if we who are quick to claim we're God's own heirs won't let 'em see through those mirrors and windows, who will?

Embracing Terror

2006-11-20T15:20:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me to stop by her house Friday to check out an electrical problem. I should say it was a simple electrical problem. In about three minutes I was only able to verify what she already knew, then give her the name of an electrician I know.

As I made my way toward the door, she asked me to look at a broken drawer in the kitchen. Next, she wanted me to see a problem with a towel rack in the bathroom. After that, it was the non-starting vacuum cleaner. Finally, as I headed again for the door, for sure this time, she blocked my way and began sobbing.

She needs to spend two weeks in the hospital, but doesn’t know where to send her children. Her uncle is being discharged from a nursing home but has nowhere to live. It was obvious the woman is overcome with dread. She’s terrified.

The dictionary’s definition of terror is “an overwhelming fear.” It’s a noun, not a verb.

I’m not sure how you’d launch and sustain a war on terror. For that matter, I have no idea how one would launch and sustain a war drugs or a war on poverty – much less with those wars. I also don’t understand how greed seems to drive contestants on the TV show, “Fear Factor,” strengthens them to do what they do. What I do know is the two most common responses to overwhelming fear, among humans and even in the lowest forms of animal life, are fight or flight.

Brain research shows that those instincts reside in the most primitive part of the human brain. Located just above the part of our brain that keeps us breathing, this unsophisticated body part is called the reptilian brain. It requires neither thinking nor decision-making (higher brain functions) for the reptilian brain to become engaged and initiate the fight or flight response.

We also know that, using our higher brain, the cerebral cortex, humans are one of the few species that can bring fear onto ourselves. All we have to do is remember something or someone that frightened us yesterday, or imagine someone or something threatening us tomorrow, and boo; we’re scared.

More than that, we use still higher levels of brainpower to bring on what I’ll call conceptual fear to ourselves. Maybe you’re afraid of becoming senile. Maybe you fear a diagnosis of cancer. Perhaps you’re frightened you’ll lose your job, be mugged, walk into your house during a burglary, lose a child, become addicted to drugs or alcohol, be divorced, never find the right mate, or be abused by your mate. If any of that has already happened to you, you might still be carrying that fear with you in the present, as well as throwing that terror ahead of you, into your future.

Some of us are not only afraid of dying; we fear being dead. Others of us fear that the world will, or may, end. Many are also afraid both of being here when that happens, and/ or what will, or may, happen to them after that happens, even if they get their wish and are dead when that happens.

I want to suggest that much of this latter fear, the terror we associate with the so-called end of the world, is as manufactured as are our silly superstitions. A mix of both our higher and lower brains invents these practices. It’s a cross between our intellectual desire to control environments and events, as well as our feeling-fueled, magical thinking that some incantation or charm can stop forces we believe to be beyond our control. Like our superstitions, the fears we have and cultivate about the end of the world, or the end-times, are something we acquire by bad teaching.

Maybe we can God’s word to us in Psalm 16 and Mark 13:1-13 to experience what God’s word always intends, namely, grace.

Now, there’s a lot more than fear and superstition going on in this conversation between Jesus and his four most trusted disciples. There’s even more going on in the statement Jesus makes about the Temple, “…not one stone will be left on another.” To be sure, what Jesus said caused no small measure of terror in those who heard it then as well as those who’ve read it since. However, a good measure of that terror, as well as the fight or flight responses the terror has set off, is misplaced.

Right off the bat Jesus is saying, the world is not a secure place and, you ought not to bet the farm on those in charge of running it. He says this sitting opposite the Temple – not just across from the Temple, but also in opposition to the Temple.

Both the government officials, as well as the religious officials, have set up shady systems on what was already shifting sands. That reality wasn’t new news then, and it isn’t new news now. Still, it shook these disciples to their core. If the most significant sign of their identity as God’s chosen people was destroyed, could they continue to name and claim that identity.

Jesus continues to explain himself, implying that even within what would become the community of his followers, they, too, could construct the same shady systems. That, too, could hardly be new news to folks who’d experienced the kind of arguing and jockeying for position that these four had been part of. It’s not new news to us either, is it?

Jesus says when the insecurities of world are most apparent, when the shady systems are most oppressive, that’s not the end. Now, “end,” here doesn’t mean finale, it means full purpose or complete accomplishment. Jesus never says, “I know something you don’t know, it’s all gonna crash and burn.” He does say, this will all pass, through pain that’s as excruciating as maternal labor, and new birth will result – God’s full purpose, God’s complete accomplishment. You may not like the travel, but you’re gonna be thrilled with the destination.

For all that, the fear can be overwhelming, a terrible terror. In that emotional space, people of faith, those who’ve stood with Jesus opposite all manner of powers and principalities, have done much more than tear and tremble.

They have, like the psalmist, or like John in Revelation, used poetry, lyric, even fantasy, (that doesn’t mean bull-loney, it means imagination and allusion and metaphor) to enter into the terror. It’s neither fight, nor flight. It doesn’t come from sheer intellect. Neither does it rise from brute force. It wells up from deep within, sometimes we call it soul – that place where God speaks to us, each, a special name; holds us close in God’s own holy palms; and, lifts us up and calms us down with God’s own soothing breath.

Look at the godly, life-giving power of this ordinary language the Psalmist composes in Psalm 16.
Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2I say to the LORD, "You are my LORD;
I have no good apart from you."
3As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,
in whom is all my delight.
4Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names upon my lips.
5The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.
7I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
10For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
11You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

That’s all I could do for the dread-filled woman on Friday. I held her close. Leaned my cheek against hers, and whispered in her ear, over and over, “Breathe, Sister. God will get us through. You don’t have to go alone. We’re here with you.”

I never said I would, or we would, make it better. I didn’t even say that God would fix it. I did only what we do here, as followers of Jesus, trying to avoid constructing a shady system, seeking always to avoid banking on the insecurity of this world’s shifting sands.

I drew that from what a worshipping assembly gave me last Sunday, what I know they’ll have for me each time we gather and celebrate together the Lord’s Supper. See, we do here what Jesus’ followers have been doing since their world ended on Good Friday, and their terror drove them to a locked room on Saturday.

Each week, on the same day of the week that they met the risen Jesus, the one who said, “Peace be with you,” we stand in opposition to shady systems, and testify that our security does not come from this world. We face each other, one by one, reaching out to one another in the name of the source of our courage, standing firmly on the promise of the one who transforms world.

Newcomers might think our practice is chaotic. Even some of us may see it as a kind of commercial break, a chance to catch up. But it’s much more than that.

See, each of us has occasions to stand with someone out there who’s overwhelmed by fear, terrified. I also know that people treat religious officials like good luck charms, always ready to deliver a magical incantation to make everything all right. You know different, because you’ve done what I did last Friday.

It’s not the verse you quote that stands in opposition to terror, it’s the vigor of your voice that testifies to God’s otherwise. It’s not the melody of the song you sing that faces fear down; it’s your confidence in the lyric-maker helps you endure to the end, to God’s accomplishing desire. Where does that come from?

From your tender touch, in the graceful gaze of your eyes, with your breath-filled confident claim and blessing called down, “The peace of Christ be with you,” we draw strength and courage to face terror head on, and walk right into it.

Last Friday, everyday we rely on that Holy Spirit, there was no fight. There was no flight. No charm, not a single incantation, just breath, a simple claim, a powerful blessing: “It’s OK. God will see us through.” Nothing was changed and everything is new.

Jesus' Compassion Wears on You

2006-11-17T18:27:00.000-05:00

Not long ago I had lunch with a woman I’ve known for awhile. Since then I’ve not been able to get the conversation we had out of my mind.

She told me that she deeply feels the concerns and pain others experience. It bothers her to see, on TV, refugees living in camps in Darfur. She doesn’t like reading stories in the newspaper about youngsters dropping out of high school.

Often she feels compelled to act. She’ll send money to relief agencies, or write a letter to her congressional representative. If she hears that a foundation was established to support the family of the Carmel schools police officer who was killed Thursday night, she’ll make a donation. Frequently she’ll call a friend or family member, and, with tears in her eyes and voice choked with sadness, ask them to do the same.

Now it gets a little heartbreaking. Several people she knows, including her children, have told her it’s abnormal to feel so deeply. When she had a similar conversation with her doctor, he said she might be depressed and offered her some Prozac. She asked me if I thought she was crazy and should see a therapist.

I suggested the more accurate description of her feeling is, likely, empathy. That means to feel WITH someone, rather than to feel FOR someone. Feeling for someone is usually described as sympathy or pity. Feeling WITH someone (empathy) has sits roots in compassion.

Compassion is an extraordinary, godly gift. Think of the number of times this trait is described as characterizing Jesus’ mood and response – four times in Matthew alone (9:36; 14:14; 15:32; and, 20:34). Like this text from Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, the evangelists usually say Jesus was “moved” with compassion.

That’s a good clue for coming to recognize the difference between compassion and sympathy. More often than not, feelings of sympathy lead to clucking the tongue, or shaking the head, in pity. Compassion, as a rule, causes the person who feels with someone else to act, immediately, in that person’s behalf.

It gets better! Compassion, according to a theologian whom I admire tremendously, is a radical form of social criticism. Compassion that’s moved to act on someone else’s behalf says, immediately and publicly, “This pain, or oppression, or injustice is a hurt that must be taken seriously.” The hurt can’t be dismissed as acceptable, normal and natural. Rather, this hurt is abnormal and unacceptable if humanity is to flourish.

Most societies establish laws and norms to keep the “empire / emperor” going, not to keep the people going. In these sorts of systems, the most looked-down upon quality is compassion. Having compassion makes it impossible to blame the victim, or encourage them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. But emperors and empires will not tolerate any solution that requires them to level the playing field by changing systems and structures so that opportunities and advantages are available to everyone, equally. Remember these presidential pronouncements:
• there’s no free lunch
• we have more will than wallet
• government is not the answer
• big government is the problem, not the solution.
These methods for maintaining the status quo are designed to keep hurt and pain hidden, and when that’s not possible, to show that those who experience them deserve them. Empires require the lack of compassion in order to maintain that neither the empire nor the emperor is part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Compassion refuses to let them get away with that. Compassion calls ‘em like it feels ‘em. Compassion says, for example, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles and swims like a duck, it’s not jumpstarting the economy, it’s a tax cut for the wealthy.

Showing the best traits of a biblical prophet – to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable – Jesus’ compassion, his feeling with and immediately taking action for those who were oppressed by sin, sickness and death, was a public announcement that God has reached his last nerve, and has come down to deliver all God’s people.

Jesus’ compassion is a public critique that the pain caused by oppression and injustice can no longer be hidden when the Kingdom (rule) of God begins, with Jesus’ his presence, to break in. Jesus’ presence, what he taught, the actions he took, were each a public critique against the way world is organized.

Emperors and empires structure world to deceive world-followers that God wants certain ones to suffer, and certain others to live in the lap of luxury. Emperors and empires are glad when loyal citizens keep up that illusion by saying that compassionate people aren’t normal, or ought to just get over it, or perhaps have their senses dulled by drugs.

Jesus is ushering in a new era so Jesus is acting in the fashion Jeremiah prescribed. Remember how this whole incident started? We heard it two weeks ago when Jesus sent the 12 out two-by-two. He sent them to deliver the very teaching he did, “Hey, turn around, don’t go that way anymore; come this way, the Kingdom of God is breaking in.” He empowered them to perform the same deeds he did; heal the sick, free the possessed.

Look at Psalm 23. Isn’t this what Mark is telling us Jesus is doing for these crowds who rush around the shore-line to greet him as he steps off the boat, spoiling the debriefing, celebration and time of reflection Jesus had planned for the disciples just returned from mission?

He immediately responds to their aimlessness like a shepherd toward his sheep. He makes them lie down in a fertile, life-giving place. He offers them the refreshment that comes from belonging. From within his own identity with his Father-God, he leads them in the direction of relationship and rootedness. They’re fearless in his company because he has a rod in one hand to fend off the wolves, and he’s got a staff in the other to coax straying sheep back into the flock. So they’re comfortable when he nourishes them, in a place where both Herod’s henchmen and the priests’ and Pharisees’ spies can see compassion’s critique on their system. He anoints them with healing and makes their cups overflow.

Now most of you know this is more than just tall-tales from long-ago. You’ve experienced this. You’ve been filled with worry, anxiety, and complete restlessness, then the Shepherd quieted your spirit. You’ve traveled down dead-end roads but the Shepherd met you there to bring you back to right paths. You’ve lived in parched places without loving and trustworthy companions, governed by enemies, and the Shepherd set up a table for you in a new home place. You’ve crossed into death-dealing territories and lived to tell the story because the Shepherd guarded your way, guiding you out of there. You know what it feels like to be anointed by the Shepherd so that your dis-ease is transformed.

That’s why we do most everything we do here. Remember what we did last summer during Vacation Bible School? For four nights we had over 50 children in here for a Fiesta – a Psalm 23 Fiesta. Now it’s time to debrief, rest up, and give thanks to God. But be sure of this, the crowds are still pressing in, like sheep without a shepherd. Out there, they’ll find cold shoulders and, once in a while, a pity party. In here, folks moved with compassion will surround them.

What would that look like today? Do you think it might look like this? We have all the influence and authority we need to:
• Heal a child from the afflictions that result from not being able to read (I’ll tell you his name and arrange a time for you to start tutoring him.)
• Liberate a man from the subjugation that results from unemployment (We’ll meet with him as soon as you’re available to put his resume together and you can introduce him to your network.)
• Free a mom from the oppression that results from not having adequate housing for her children (She needs a mentor to teach her to manage a household and prepare for home-ownership.)

That’s costly, tiresome work, all right. But it ain’t crazy; it’s Jesus, right here, right now. And his compassion looks mighty good on you!

God's Anger Management Plan

2006-11-14T17:59:00.000-05:00

My seminary professors suggested I find a model, using a character from the Bible, to give form and shape to my Christian identity. It's a good idea. Through prayer; by inventorying your talents; discovering your passions; and in conversation with friends; it's possible for all of us to find a biblical character or role to imitate. You might be drawn to:
• Jesus the teacher or Jesus the healer
• Esther, the real power behind the throne
• Mary, the meditative pray-er
• Zaccheus, the repentant crook
• Joseph, (either Genesis or Luke) the crisis manager
• Martha, the never say no over-achiever.

The strategy is a sound way to experience what we call sanctification - a deepening relationship with God. As Saint Paul says, we can experience progress and joy in faith because we live lives worthy of the Gospel.

Growing up in the sixties, seeing racial injustice and the horrors of war in Viet Nam, I found a model that works for me. I've always felt drawn to the motives and actions of biblical prophets. Their motivation was to remind people of: God's faithfulness to us; God's love and care for us; God's desire for a just future for all people; and, God's reign of shalom over the universe.

The prophets seem to have achieved this by: comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable. There's also the idea that the roles Jesus used to declare and make present his vision of the reign of God was to act as priest, prophet and king. Some people recognize that all those baptized into the mission and ministry of Jesus must come to understand our identity and our roles that way.

Not only does the prophetic model suit my talents and my temperament, a way of seeing and acting that I'm drawn to and good at, it also seems to be a role that others call on me to perform. In most jobs, I've been a builder and a fixer. As a pastor I must analyze how our community of faith is organized; what's really getting done as opposed to what's supposed to be getting done. It's made me learn to pay attention to how each of us is functioning. Are we thriving as persons? Do we feel honored and cherished? As a group are we cooperating, supporting one another, challenging each other? Is this a congregation in which it's OK to take risks? If a person fails or a project misfires can we move on? Or do we sow doubt; practice distrust; count things against one another; carry tales; hold grudges? What holds us together? Are we operating from a clear consensus about strategies to achieve God's mission, or do we promote personal anxiety and corporate discontent when the compromises we reach create winners and losers?

Well, no matter how skilled and clever we are inside of our ministry model, we are, as Luther frequently points out, simul justus et peccatur, at once saints and sinners. And because of that, achieving the balance between the role shaping us, and our shaping the role can be tough.

That's a lesson we can't be sure Jonah ever learned (read especially 3:10-4:11). And we can use the fact that we're not sure he learned it to assess just how well we've learned it. Maybe I'm not the only one who could use a refresher course.

Prophets are often described as angry. We see that in our own day when advocates for justice demand that the United States send troops to stop ethnic cleansing. They use blistering words to goad our leaders out of paralysis by analysis and into decisive action. There is such a thing as righteous indignation and holy anger.

In a similar way the anger of Jeremiah or Amos was rooted in a love for God and love for the very people who were the object of their wrath. Their aim wasn't personal vindication but the vindication of God's truth and justice, by Israel's conversion to the same sort of faithfulness God had extended to the chosen people. If the prophets saw more clearly than other folks that Israel's real choice was life or death, their hope and prayer was that the people would choose life. And so their words -sometimes spoken angrily - at other times in heartbroken sobs - were directed to that end. Their witness wasn't motivated by anger, but by love.

But then there is a prophet like Jonah. He found his mission so unpleasant that when the word of God came to him to bear witness against Nineveh, he fled in the other direction. Now we all remember the unusual taxi ride by which Jonah got heaved up on the beach, but we don't always remember the lone sermon he delivered to the Ninevites. In all the woe sayings; the oracles; the judgments; we hear from the prophets, Jonah's stands as the most lame. It goes like this, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

Amos called Israel's women "cows of Babylon." Ezekiel called Israel "unfaithful harlots." Hosea called Israel a "temple prostitute." So Jonah's words lack the passion, not to mention the sincerity, necessary to get a whole country to change course. But Jonah's words have such an impact that the king and the nobles order even the animals to repent with fasting. So effective is Jonah's sermon that the people are thoroughly converted and receive God's forgiveness.

Is Jonah relieved? Uh-uhh. He's furious. And here we see the true source of Jonah's anger. Jonah is angry over God's mercy. That's why he got into the boat in the first place. He was afraid that his prophecy might work. He didn't want anything to do with a God who would let Nineveh escape what Jonah had determined was its just desserts. What kind of God is that? You can't predict what that kind o’ God is gonna do. You can't control a God like that. So God responds to Jonah's rage with a compassionate, almost parental question: "Do you do well to be angry?"

Like a two-year old child, Jonah storms off, putting distance between himself and God, once again. He goes outside the city, and builds an isolation booth, an outhouse, still hoping to see God's wrath blaze against Nineveh. But the only thing blazing is the scorching wind - in Hebrew - ruach. The same word used to describe God's breathing life, light and hope into every isolating booth, especially the one-person-tent we know as the unloving, unforgiving human heart - an outhouse of our own making.

Now we're not used to it, preachers don't help us see this often. But God does have a sense of humor. God's response to Jonah's tantrum, which has him all tangled up in knots; - has his bowels in an uproar - is to raise up a castor oil plant, at the threshold of this outhouse! It's as if God says,
"Get over it Jonah. Take a physic! This, too, shall pass!"

Like everything else, Jonah gets it wrong. He thinks the plant has more to do with his outsides than his insides. The only thing Jonah let's pass is another chance to see God's mercy and love. When the plant dies Jonah spins out of control. And God asks, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" Jonah replies on cue, "Angry enough to die." Jonah still can't stomach a merciful God. This is one angry prophet!

God tries to give Jonah some perspective. "OK, if you're willing to die for a castor oil plant, shouldn't I care for a whole city?" Do you see the contrast between Jonah's impotent, death-dealing rage and God's compassion - God's wombing the men, women and children back into life-giving relationship? God says, "Should I not pity Nineveh, a great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who don't know there right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

What's going on here isn't a story about Nineveh at all. It's a story of Jonah's own call to conversion. It's not enough to be an agent of God's anger. True prophets are called to be agents of God's love.

"Do you do well to be angry?" It's not whether Jonah's anger is justified. We all have cause to be angry sometimes, but does our anger do well? Does anger do anything but feed our sense of being absolutely right and our enemies absolutely wrong? Feeling that way, don't we get a kind of high by going off into some fantasy-land where we see ourselves heroically showing the whole world just how right we are? But do fantasies bring conversion, prompt reconciliation, or add an ounce of justice to the world?

We would rather vent our anger than convert enemies into friends. Often our words and actions suggest that the very last thing we want is for our enemies to admit they're wrong and change their ways. Convinced that we are agents of God's justice, we eagerly deliver a word of judgment. We're quick to pronounce the death sentence. We're not so eager to deliver the merciful words of clemency and relationship.

The story of Jonah's call to conversion reminds us of the many ways we prefer our ways over God's ways. We:
• flee to the east when God would have us go west
• run outside the city gates
• build us a one-person-tent to isolate our angry heart.

Jonah's call to conversion reminds us it's not enough to be an agent of God's anger. Anger may be necessary to point out a problem, but anger is never sufficient to birth a solution. There are many causes for anger in this world. But God's mercy isn't one of them.

What are we afraid of? What part of God's care for us and for this world do we think we have to predict? Do we think we should control God's care and love and mercy? What fears do we have of God that make us angry with God?

That's what the story of Jonah is all about. Do we do well to be angry? It doesn't matter. The good news is that, angry as we are, God's mercy extends to us as well:
• that might mean gettin' thrown overboard
• that might feel like bein' swallowed up by a monster
• it could come to gettin' coughed up onto a beach
• we may even look washed up and rung out.

It doesn't matter. This God is always for us. This God creates us in love, redeems us in Christ and sends the Spirit to call and gather us, alone and together, to join in telling others that same, simple Good News: "Look, I got myself all scared and angry and bound up, then this God sent me a castor oil plant and I got over it. God will help you get over it too!"