Getting in Line

First Presbyterian Church Memphis, TN

September 20, 2015

Psalm 1

Mark 9:30-37 

We’ve had long periods without much rain this summer and fall. So I’ve had to water a group of hostas in my front yard to keep them alive. I carry the watering jug from the back yard every other day or so and I give huge gulps of water to the green leafy plants. The plants appreciate my concern and my efforts, I am certain. But a colony of ants lives under the rocks and among the roots of one of those hostas. When I water the plant, the ants come scurrying up out of the ground by the thousands, maybe even by the millions, carrying ant eggs as fast as they can go—running for dry ground. I used to expect those ants to move, find a new place to set up their colony, to hatch their eggs. But they seem intent on staying right where they are. I water. They scurry. Happens over and over again.

I wonder who those ants think I am and what reason they imagine for this random flooding that happens to their home and family. I wonder if they go to church on Sunday morning and talk about whose sin is causing the colony to suffer so.

We are not so different than the ants. There is so much we do not know and cannot understand. One way to improve our lot in life is to acknowledge our limitations, just admit what we do not know. I like to think that I am different than the ants in that surely- by now- I would have tried something new.  If the floods kept coming, surely I would find a new place to live, a new place to be me. I like to think that. But I am deeply imbedded in this world and its ways. We get stuck in our patterns, our biases and our perception of reality.

The first Psalm, this Psalm we have heard this morning, is an introduction to all one hundred and fifty Psalms. Those who do not follow the advice of the wicked nor take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers will be like trees planted by the water. Their leaves will not dry up or wither. They will be fruitful. And, in all that they do, they will prosper.

We are tempted to find comfort in the simplicity of this Psalm. Those who do right will be rewarded. Those people who do wrong will be blown way, washed away, like chaff. Yet, you and I know faithful people, people who have lived exemplary lives, kept the faith, and yet are not prospering in the ways that we imagine prosperity. Just by reading the book of Job we can dislodge the notion that being a good friend to God will serve as protection from illness, grief and pain.

How do we get it right? Living faithfully and trying to understand what God wants and needs from us is so complicated. I can see why so many people give up. If we dare to ask questions, the answers are not always clear or simple.

I was recently with a young woman, Andrea, who was doing her best to figure out what it means to be faithful, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. She was going through some tough times; finances were the focus of her struggle. The ends were not meeting; her income didn’t stretch all the way through a long month of days and basic needs.

Andrea attends a church regularly and she listens to preachers on the radio. She was raised in a conservative and evangelistic congregation. She was raised to trust preachers, to believe that they are set apart by being specially anointed. Andrea was raised to believe and respect the words that come from the preacher’s mouth. The radio preacher was fired up, passionate about prosperity and how Jesus intends to give back more than what we, as disciples, can give to him. “Give!” the voice on the radio insisted. “Give everything you’ve got to this radio ministry. Give to help spread the Word of God on this program! And be amazed by what God returns to you!”

Andrea wrote a check to that minister and his radio program. She gave her rent money for the month and she waited for God’s return. She was evicted, lost her apartment. And she now lives with her parents, sleeps on their couch in the den. And she is nervous about asking questions like, “What does it mean to prosper in the Kingdom of God? What does it get a person to be faithful, trusting and true?”

In Mark’s gospel today we connect with Jesus and his disciples in Galilee. Jesus wants privacy, a chance to be with the disciples in his inner circle for some deep truth, difficult lessons. He tells them that he will be betrayed into human hands, killed, buried and then he will rise from the dead and return to life.

Not one of the disciples asked a question. Not one of them is recorded as saying, “But if you are the Messiah, aren’t you supposed to be a super hero? Didn’t you come to save us, Lord? To set us free from Roman rule and all forms of oppression?” No. They went on with what they were doing: lining up at Starbucks to pay big bucks for a cup of coffee, or whatever it was that the disciples did back then to distract themselves from the rough realities of life around them.

The disciples didn’t ask Jesus about this deep and painful lesson he was teaching them because it did not fit into their cherished narrative. They already knew the story: The Messiah would come and make things better by knocking down the bad guys and eliminating suffering. I imagine they hoped and planned to be on the front lines and on the front pages of the newspapers when the world got turned upside down by Jesus.

We want to believe that life has order and meaning. We want to know how to pass the course. “Uh, professor,” a hand goes up in the middle of the classroom while the professor is standing up front lecturing. “Will that be on the test?” That’s what we want to know. Will it benefit me to learn this lesson? How will I be rewarded? Because if learning this lesson will not move me closer to the front of the line, then I see no point in paying attention.

There’s so much in this world that we do not understand, far too much that doesn’t work out the way we planned or the way we hoped it would. I don’t know what benefit, if any, Andrea received from her generous gift to the radio minister. But I am sure that the radio minister was glad to receive her check, glad for her contribution.

We understand the radio minister. I’ll be honest. It is easier for me to understand the radio minister than it is for me to understand what on earth made Andrea give away her rent money. I know what it is like to work to earn a profit. I even know what it is like to take advantage of other people’s weaknesses in order to increase my profit. For a while I worked as the RN in a weight-loss clinic. I was the designated “medically supervised” part of that clinic and the weight loss diets of our clients. It was my job to run EKG’s, record weekly weights and to counsel clients about their progress. The more of our brand-name products I sold to clients during those counseling sessions, the more profit I made. So I did my best to convince men and women that they would look better, be happier and lose weight faster if they purchased more of our products. Lettuce, spinach and carrots from the grocery produce section just would not work the same way. I went to work to make money and that was how the organization worked.

Maybe you have done things on the job that clearly benefited the bottom line. If so, you can understand the radio minister. We might not want to recognize him when we look at ourselves in the mirror, but we understand him. It’s the way the world operates. To get to the front of the line, we have to sell more, stand out, have our brand recognized around the world and make more profit.

Let’s return to our text in the Gospel of Mark. We follow Jesus and his disciples into Capernaum. Here, Jesus asks a question. ‘What were you arguing about on the way here?” The disciples were reluctant to tell him the answer. They were arguing about who was the greatest among them.

We understand this. Competiveness runs through our veins right beside the red blood cells. We want the best, the newest, the most. We want our children to be at the top of the line in the best schools. We want to think we have earned God’s favor and that we deserve all the conveniences and things we own. In so many ways, you and I are up toward the front of the line—by the world’s standards. We have power to make choices in our life. So many people just wish they had a clean glass of water to drink.

The best we can do is be brave enough to ask questions like: What is it costing this nation to hang on to so much wealth while so much of the world goes without food and clean water? What would Memphis gain if each of the seven thousand churches adopted a person as they were released from the county jail, really supported that person and their family until they got on their feet? What rewards would our city gain if our churches united in a singular, concentrated effort to erase racism and its cancerous toll on human life here? Where would this congregation be in a year if you focused all your prayers, time and talent on increasing the minimum wage to a living wage in Memphis?

We are called upon to sit down and consider what Jesus says to his disciples about the line-up in the Kingdom of God. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” What does it mean to be servant of all?

I urge you never to underestimate the value of a good question. Don’t be afraid to ask them. Maybe we could all agree to live with this question in the coming week…What does it mean to be servant of all?

There’s so much mystery to God. God says to the prophet Isaiah, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Jesus knew how challenged his disciples were by the notion of the last being first and the first being last, so he took a small child into his lap as an illustration. A child. Open-minded. Curious. Needy. Creative. Trusting. “Be like this,” Jesus said.

I am thinking about Andrea and that radio minister. It would be so easy for us to scoff at the hypocrisy of that radio minister and to write him off as a fraud. And Andrea. It would be just as easy for us to dismiss her as foolish.

But then I have to remind myself …there is something to be learned from everyone and everything in the Kingdom. If we, as disciples of Jesus, did more learning and less judging, we might be more help to God in ushering in the Kingdom.

Amen

 

 

 

 

Tongues and Ears

First Presbyterian Church/ Memphis, TN

September 13, 2015

Isaiah 50:4-9a

James 3:1-12

I am a storyteller. People identify me that way and I am happy to be recognized as a storyteller. I have so many stories from my life experiences that long to be shared, stories I need to share in order to connect with the healing power of being heard, being respected for what I have survived and being valued as a decent human being among other decent human beings.

Being human is challenging, at its very best it is challenging. We are all doing our best to overcome yesterday’s mistakes and injuries. We are all waking up each morning with hope that we will grow into our better and higher selves. We want our story to have a happy ending, satisfying closure. And we want that for others. So I find myself these days doing more listening than telling. In my storytelling experience, I have come to see that listening helps me to be a better person while it also helps the people around me to be their better selves as well.

The title of today’s sermon, Tongues and Ears, might imply that I am going to talk about hot sex. But, instead, I am going to talk about hot and heavy listening. I am trying to listen to myself these days. What messages am I sending to myself? Which voices in my head get power and authority to tell me who I am and why I am here?

You, too, may have been wounded in the past by the tongues of others. Other voices may have told you, and effectively taught you, that you are not enough, a problem, a disappointment, a loser in the line-up of human beings. And what has been said cannot be taken back. However- it is an insult to the God who created us if you and I wallow in resentment and bitterness about the evil that has come from tongues of others. God’s plans for redemption in this world depend upon our trust in God’s power and goodness within us. So we are called in our discipleship journey to listen for the Word of God and the voice of God.

God created each one of us with a purpose. We are here for a reason, to be part of the Beloved Community, to help usher in the Reign of God. Tongues of others may have done their best to throw us off the highway, to obstruct our view of who we are and what good we might contribute to this world. It is absolutely possible for the evil on the tongues of others to trap us in darkness.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your tongue can speak healing words to yourself. Your ears can listen to lessons of hope from others. And we can all walk into the light together. It’s all about tongues, words spoken, and ears, lessons learned.  Our tongues and ears are vital to our personal growth. What we say to ourselves and about ourselves and how we listen to it are key in how we perceive our place in this world. We are all teachers. We teach ourselves first. And if we hope to teach good and healthy lessons to our children, students, families, neighbors, friends and co-workers then we must first review and improve the curriculum that we have been studying about our own value.

My friend, Karen Gennette, offers to me the gift of “Listening Sessions.” She listens while I talk. Her listening is highly effective as a form of encouragement in my life. One day I talked to Karen about kindness. I recalled experiences of being treated kindly by others and I told her about moments when I shared from the kindness of my own heart. We were both struck by how kindly we felt at the close of an hour. I talked about kindness and she listened to my talk about kindness and we both increased our investment in kindness. I think it was more than an emotional response. I understand this kind of thing to be hormonal. When we choose to focus on kindness, compassion, joy, faith, hope and love we open up the hormonal channels that release endorphins into our blood stream. And we actually become kinder, friendlier, more compassionate and loving.

We see the whole world through our own experiences. If we want the world to be a kinder place then we start by talking kindness to ourselves and asking people around us to talk about kindness to us.

Isaiah says: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” We are all teachers and we teach ourselves before we teach anyone else. It is through our discipleship, our relationship with the redeeming Word, Jesus himself, that our weary selves are redeemed and set free to lift others up to where they long to be.

It’s September and school has begun. Children are seated at desks all over the city and teachers are standing in front of the room doing their best to teach what must be learned if the children are going to succeed.

The Commercial Appeal has a feature section in today’s paper about teachers. What people think teachers are doing as opposed to what teachers are actually doing.  I have volunteered at Snowden School in my neighborhood. I confess that I could not do what teachers are called and required to do day after day after day!  I admire our teachers. In fact, I am in awe of the people who show up every day and manage all that they have to manage in a classroom full of children and young people.

Tony Campolo tells a story about a fifth-grade teacher, Jean Thompson, who looked at the students in her classroom on the first day of school and she said, “I love you. I love all of you just the same.” It was the way she routinely began the school year. But Campolo says that Ms Thompson was lying. We all know that some students are much easier to love than others. How many of you have ever been in a class where it was clear that the teacher just didn’t particularly like you? All teachers have favorites. How many of you have been in a class where it was clear that you were the teacher’s favorite? Right. While somebody else was not. That’s the way it goes in school.

Teddy Stoddart was in Jean Thompson’s room that year. He was not her immediate favorite. He slouched in his desk all the time. He mumbled and muttered when he spoke. His hair was messy. He smelled awful. And his face maintained a rather dull look.

Ms Thompson had access to Teddy’s records. She could have and should have known. The notes were all there in his file. First grade: Teddy is a good boy. He shows promise. He has some social challenges. Poor home life. Second grade: Teddy is a good boy. He is too serious for a second grader. His mother is ill. His father is not invested in Teddy’s school work. Third grade: Teddy is a troubled child. His mother died. His father is detached. Fourth Grade: Teddy is a boy who needs help.

Christmas time came and all the children in Jean Thompson’s class brought gifts to their teacher, piling them on her desk. They were all beautifully wrapped in red paper, gold paper, and green paper with pretty ribbon—except for Teddy’s gift. It was wrapped in brown paper from a grocery sack and held together with lots of scotch tape.

She opened all her gifts and when Ms Thompson opened Teddy’s gift she discovered a rhinestone bracelet with several stones missing. And a bottle of cheap perfume, the bottle half empty. The children started to giggle and make fun. But Ms Thompson put the bracelet on her wrist and held it out with an admiring look. “It’s gorgeous! Thank you, Teddy!” Then she dabbed some of the perfume on her wrist and smelled it, taking in the experience and smiling widely. “How nice! Teddy, this is wonderful!” The students changed their attitude when they saw how much the gifts meant to their teacher. The giggling stopped.

That afternoon, when all the other students had left the room, Teddy walked up to his teacher and said, “Ms Thompson, all day you have smelled just like my mother. That’s her perfume. And her bracelet looks so nice on you. I’m glad you like it.”

After that, Ms Thompson’s classroom was transformed. She had heard a new voice, a new word had been spoken to her and she had listened.  She no longer focused on teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. She focused on coaching, tutoring, listening, being kind… so the students could learn reading, writing and arithmetic.

Years went by and Jean Thompson taught many students. One day she got a letter. “Ms Thompson, I’m graduating from high school and I wanted you to be the first to know! Teddy Stoddart.”

More years went by and the teacher got another letter. “I wanted you to be the first to know. I am graduating from the university, second in my class! It has not been easy but I made it."

Six years passed and the next letter said: “Ms Thompson, I am graduating from med school and in a few weeks I will no longer be Teddy but Dr. Theodore Stoddart, MD. I am being married on June 27th and I want you to come. I hope you can make it. I hope you will sit in my mother’s place at the wedding. You’re the only family I have. Daddy died last year.”

 

Jean Thompson bought a plane ticket and she went to that wedding. She sat in the seat where Teddy’s mother would have been seated.

 

Jean Thompson was transformed by a student. And because she was able to move into a place of transformation, she gave all of her students a chance to be transformed. She saw in that rhinestone bracelet and the cheap perfume a chance to be part of the Beloved Community. She chose words to say to Teddy and to the students in her classroom that would help to usher in the Reign of God. She was transformed. Teddy was transformed. Her classroom was transformed. The world around all of them became a kinder place. A place of hope. Lonely hurting people became family for one another. The irony of the story is this: When Jean Thompson was retired and elderly, Teddy Stoddart was her family, the one beside her at the end of her days. Her student became her child, a family born from deep listening.

May we use our tongues to speak words of healing and hope. And may our ears listen carefully for what the Word of God has to say to each one of us. We are part of something magnificent.

 

Amen.

 

 

Restoring the Soul

 

Psalm 23

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Kingsway Christian Church

July 19, 2015

When I was a child, we had a brick fire place in the backyard where my father burned trash and garbage. One morning my father was emptying trash cans into a blazing fire. I was about five years old. A metal pipe was sticking up out of the flames and it appealed to me. I reached out and grabbed it, closing my fingers around the hot metal. I screamed in pain. My mother came running outside and put butter on my hand. She gave me an aspirin and we sat together until the pain subsided. She loved to tell people what I said as I sat beside her and sobbed… “Oh, Mama! That’s two important lessons I’ve learned now. One: Don’t ever grab things out of the fire. And Two: Oh, Mama! I’ve already forgotten the second lesson!”

When we look back over the important lessons we’ve learned in life, isn’t it usually associated with some kind of suffering, illness, injury, a loss or a dispute? Nobody wants to suffer but everybody does suffer.

Life involves suffering. Just being born into this life is frightening and painful. Babies cry first thing after they are born and those of us who have been here a while sigh with relief. “Ah, she is alive! She is now suffering with us.” Each of us deals with suffering in our own way.

Last year, in the United States, doctors performed over 15 million cosmetic procedures. Nearly 13 billion dollars were spent on breast augmentations, nose jobs, lipo and face lifts. We do whatever we can afford to do in an effort to deny that we are aging, to avoid the look of suffering. *

An estimated 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. There is a rising tide of addiction to prescription pain killers that has touched nearly every corner of our country. The problem can be found in thriving cities like San Francisco, Chicago and New York.  But the epidemic is harder to manage in rural and more isolated areas where poverty leaves residents particularly vulnerable and with substandard healthcare systems. ** We do what we can to avoid suffering. Nobody wants to hurt.

In my life and in my experiences of suffering I have learned two important lessons. And fortunately I remember them both at the moment…One: Don’t ever grab things out of the fire. And Two: Trying to deny or escape suffering brings its own kind of pain.

Look at us. We like to think of ourselves as self-sufficient. We enjoy believing that our lives are grounded in an order that makes sense, a routine that is dependable and under our control.  And yet we come here; we gather in this place, this beautiful church with its lovely sanctuary, to connect with the grace of God and to be honest about our need for the compassion of Jesus. We come here to be healed.  I can relate to the weariness of the disciples and I can also see myself among those who press in for a touch, for healing. We live in both places because being Christian, being faithful, being committed isn’t a vaccine against suffering.

In today’s gospel reading we see the twelve disciples returning to Jesus. They had been out teaching, preaching and healing. Jesus looks with compassion at the fatigue on their faces and he directs them to get away and rest. But before that can happen, the crowds recognize Jesus and his disciples. They press in. Jesus looks with compassion on their suffering. He attends to the needs of the crowd. We imagine the disciples also rolled up their sleeves and got to work, in spite of their fatigue, attending to the needs of that crowd. Wherever Jesus was became the place of compassion and the crowd recognized that. This happens twice. And you can imagine the disciples wondering about their benefits package. Wasn’t there any vacation time in that agreement they signed?

It is as if we are to get two important lessons from this reading: One: Jesus values Sabbath rest. His compassion recognizes that his disciples cannot meet the needs of others without being restored themselves. Two: Jesus’ compassion compels him to meet the needs of others when they come for help. And so it is that the disciples must be honest about their own suffering and humbly acknowledge that they belong to the crowd, the needy people pressing in, begging. I see the weary disciples kneeling and reaching to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He restores my soul…” We know the Twenty-third Psalm so well that it rolls off our tongues. We memorized the verses when we were children in Bible School. We teach the verses to our children and grandchildren. It is so familiar that we can easily miss the power in it: He restores my soul.

An eighteenth-century spiritual director, Jean Pierre de Caussade, wondered how we as human beings can know what God wants us to do, what God expects from us, in any given moment. Are we to rest now or keep on working? De Caussade concluded that God reveals Godself in each moment: in our rest, in our play, in our work and in our suffering. God is present and it is our duty and privilege to discern, to surrender ourselves to that compassionate presence. He wrote: “Everything turns to bread to nourish me, soap to wash me, fire to purify me, and a chisel to fashion me in the image of God. Grace supplies all my needs.” ***

The good shepherd provides pastures with fresh water and green grass for all of his sheep, a place of compassion where all souls are restored. That is what the church can be. A place people recognize as a place of compassion. The place where people come to touch the fringe of his cloak. To be comforted and healed with us. We are not always the givers. The crowd has much that we need to receive. There is no us and them in the shepherd’s green pastures. 

My partner, Anna, and I had the privilege this week of touring St Jude Children’s Hospital. We met so many nice people. Even the guard at the front gate was exceptionally helpful and kind. The place is cheerful, brightly colored with interesting art on the walls. We heard lots of good stories while we walked from building to building and while we ate lunch in the cafeteria. We heard about mothers who come to the front desk with desperation in their eyes and a sick child at their side. The receptionist at the front desk has seen mothers empty out their purses, saying, “Take it. Take everything I have. Just, please, do something to help my child.” And the receptionist has the privilege of responding with compassion and generosity. “Keep your purse. We won’t need your money.”

A place where people come for healing, mercy. A place known for its compassion.

I saw a Danny Thomas quote on one of the walls: “Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It is what you do for others.”

The successful church is recognized as a place of compassion, a place where all people recognize their need to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. A place where all souls can be restored.

Amen 

*“Nip. Tuck. Or Else.” Time Magazine, June 29, 2015

**“The Price of Relief” Time Magazine, June 15, 2015

***Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season After, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, page 262

The Need For Weakness

 

Shady Grove Presbyterian Church

July 5, 2015

Psalm 123

II Corinthians: 12: 2-10

 

Prologue:

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing to be authentic means: cultivating the courage to be imperfect, exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made from strength and struggle and nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough.” (Brene’ Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection) 

Sermon

According to ancient Christian legend, God created the angels to worship and serve God. Then God created the world and human beings. “Serve humans and worship me,” was God’s command to the angels.

To the angels, this was a strange command. They were pure spirit. So why should they defer to lesser beings? Why should they mingle with earthly matter?

Now, as it happened, there was one angel who was the most beautiful and brilliant of all the angels. His name was Lucifer, known as the “light-bearer.” Lucifer, immersed in his own brilliance and enamored of his own beauty, declared, “I will not serve humans!”

And so it was that Lucifer and his followers were cast out of heaven and into a place created for devils.

In commenting on this popular story, St Augustine observed, “It was pride that changed an angel into a devil; it is humility that changes men into angels.” (Kurtz & Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection)

“Have mercy, upon us, O Lord! Have mercy upon us!” The psalmist prays, telling God, “We have had more than enough of contempt. We have had our fill of scorn.” As people of faith we realize that when we pray this prayer in all sincerity, God is most likely in her wise and merciful way to put a mirror before our faces. Because she is most interested in our spiritual growth and maturity, she invites us to see how we have shown contempt for others, how we have been scornful, arrogant and full of pride. Few of us are pure victims and none of us are innocent.

If we pay attention, if we take our spiritual life seriously we learn to pray, “Have mercy on us, Lord! Have mercy on us in spite of our repetitive failings, in spite of our pettiness, in spite of our insistence on comparing ourselves to others.”

In today’s epistle reading from Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth we read Paul’s defense of himself. The Corinthians are being seduced by prophets, men who claim to have special powers and mystical connections with Christ and heaven. At one point, Paul refers to them as “super apostles.” He is defending himself as an apostle and he is trying not to boast in an effort to differentiate himself from the boasting super apostles. It’s tricky. He doesn’t want to fall into the pattern of his opponents. And yet he must steer clear of ugly accusations and blaming. That can be so demeaning when we’re trying to look dignified and righteous. After all, this is the church. It is the early church and we can only hope that early Christians abstained from impertinence and pettiness in their relationships with one another. Right? Wrong. Humans have always been humans, in the church and everywhere. Paul is as human as you and I as he defends his position as an apostle.

A story: One night the pastor of a Presbyterian Church, in a frenzy of religious passion, rushed to the front of the sanctuary and fell on his knees. Beating his breast, he cried out to God, “I’m nobody! I’m nobody!” An elder in the church, impressed by this example of spiritual humility, joined the pastor on his knees, crying, “I’m nobody! I’m nobody!” The church custodian was watching from the hallway. He joined the other men on his knees, calling out, “I’m nobody! I’m nobody!” At that point the pastor nudged the elder, “Hey! Look who thinks he’s nobody!”

Humility is not self-abasement and it is not self-exultation. To be humble is NOT to make comparisons. It is to recognize the reality: Each of us is no better or worse than the one next to us. We are who we are and on our own particular spiritual journey, trying to connect with the best of ourselves more often than not. We hope to do the least harm and, if we’re fortunate, to find ways to help ourselves and others find God and live in peace together.

We like to blame other people when things do not go to suit us or when things go badly wrong. It’s those immigrants. It’s the city council! It’s the police! It’s the Republicans! We find somebody to blame and that allows us to feel more secure, superior. But blaming is counterproductive to progress as individuals, as a church and as a society.

Andrew Aghapour recently wrote an article on this topic for “Religion Dispatches,” an online magazine. http://religiondispatches.org/our-failure-to-understand-ferguson-a-cognitive-explanation/?utm_source=Religion+Dispatches+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b9e6fbdafc-RD_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_742d86f519-b9e6fbdafc-42422221

Included in the article is a short film that shows the NYC subway stop on 36^th Street. There is something absolutely unique about that subway stop. One of the steps in the staircase leading up to the street level is a fraction of an inch higher than all the other steps. The video shows person after person tripping on that difference.  Black people, white people, men, women, young, old, a man carrying a baby, a woman carrying a briefcase…people trip. Fast-paced piano music underscores all the people tripping and catching themselves. (It’s funny!)

James Bording observes: “On its own, when you see one person slip, you automatically assume that person who slipped was clumsy or not playing attention. But when you look at the aggregate, you realize that the failure isn’t on the individual at all, rather the structures that cause certain people to fail with almost no fault of their own. And yet, without this data, people will very quickly ascribe the mistake to themselves.” I must be clumsy.

In the case of this subway step, it would be inaccurate to solely blame each individual for tripping. Only by observing the aggregate can we see how a social structure—here, the design of a stairwell—is a more powerful cause of what seem like individual errors.

We all trip. We all deal with larger surrounding forces that throw us off balance from time to time. All of us make mistakes. We get it wrong and have to try again. We’re imperfect.  And because that is true, it just makes good sense for all of us to let up on the blaming and our attempts to one-up the other guy. It makes good sense to find ways to value ourselves and our neighbors. It makes good sense to work together to right wrongs and to leave the world in better shape than it was before we got here. It makes good sense to realize we all need to lean on the mercy of God.

There’s something more, something bigger, wiser and filled with more love than we are able to imagine out there.  That something is the God who created each one of us. While we make mistakes, God does not make mistakes. So it is safe for us to trust that we are who we are meant to be—even with our flaws and shortcomings. We are God’s creation and so are our neighbors. It is as much a mistake to judge and condemn our neighbors as it is for us to allow the negative judgments and condemnations of our neighbors to overwhelm us with shame. Our neighbors’ opinions are nothing in the light of God’s creative brilliance and love for each one of us.

Paul tells the Corinthians that he has struggled with a thorn in his flesh. Maybe he is referring to a chronic sinus infection. Maybe the thorn is a particularly annoying person in Paul’s life, somebody toward whom he cannot feel kindly. Maybe Paul is referring to an attraction for men. Some scholars think Paul dealt with homosexuality. We do not know what the thorn was but we do know that Paul was courageous enough to be vulnerable. He models for us authenticity and vulnerability. Something about himself was not what he would have chosen for himself. Repeated prayers received this response from God: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

Accept who you are and have faith. It is so simple. We find that kind of simplicity so difficult to trust.

Paul concludes by realizing that he is grateful for his weakness, this thorn in his flesh. It is his weakness (an intentional gift from God) that leaves an opening, a place to connect with all that is good. “Just as I am.” Paul might start singing. He was well loved and put to good use by God—just as he was. Just as I am. Just as we all are.

Amen

 

 

 

What Keeps the Fire of Your Faith Burning?

 

Binghampton United Methodist Church

July 4, 2015 

Six weeks have passed since I was invited to answer this question, “What keeps the fire of your faith burning?” It is an invitation to share with you, the people of Binghampton United Methodist Church,  my testimony. That is how I see this opportunity, as a chance to give testimony to what keeps me from falling into despair. I grew up in a church where we had “Testimony Meeting” every Wednesday night. We sang choruses, raised our hands toward heaven and gave testimony, telling what God had done for us that week, what prayers had been answered and how our faith had been nourished. Those testimonies shaped our understanding and appreciation for each other. They shaped our understanding and appreciation for God. Those who have heard me tell stories about my childhood know that I am grateful to be free from the rigid legalism and the self-righteousness that was part of my childhood church. However, I am also aware that being raised in the church and in a family where faith was foremost, I have become a person of faith. It is as much a part of me as my eyes, my thoughts and my emotions. I cannot escape faith. It has been baked into my bones. And the faith that has been mine since childhood still gives my steps direction.

It has not been an easy assignment, discovering what it is that keeps the fire of my faith burning. First I reflected on how I know that I have faith. What is faith? It is certainly more than thoughts, memorized scripture verses or belief that God exists. Faith, for me, is a way of understanding life. I have faith that my life, as well as your life, means something. I am not here just to breathe, eat, sleep and move from birth to death. I am here to satisfy something deep within myself and to assist the Creator who brought me here. I believe my life means that I matter because the one who brought me here matters. And, if I pay attention to the presence of love in my life, I can help the Creator make creation what she first imagined when her work began. I am capable of helping to satisfy the Creator by becoming all that I was meant to be and by letting the light of love shine through me in such a way that creation moves toward fulfillment in the eyes of the original Creator. We are co-creators. I am a worker bee in the holy hive of life.  I have faith that we are all here to engage in divine work with the Creator.

I have concluded that there are three things that keep my faith alive: 1.) my imagination, 2.) the spiritual discipline of daily prayer and 3.) the steadfast love of my partner, Anna.

First: I imagine better days. I imagine a world where soil, water and air are treated with respect. I imagine a world where dogs and cats are not abandoned or mistreated. I imagine a world where everyone has enough tasty food to eat and regular opportunities to enjoy meals, music and dancing with friends and family. I imagine a world where diversity is a treasure to be valued and honored. I can see it up ahead. I feel it coming. And so I tell stories as a way to make it real even now—if not for all of us then for some of us. I listen to the stories that people want to tell, need to tell, as a way to let them hear for themselves how much meaning they experience in their lives, how much unique power they have to share. If not for all time then for some of the time. I imagine a better life for all of us. And I am deeply grateful for that capacity to imagine. It gives me hope and keeps me from falling into despair. I recognize that there is something childlike about the way I put my imagination to use. Some might perceive me as naïve or uninformed, too trusting for my own good, too simple to be taken seriously. There was a time when I thought I might be unintelligent, not smart enough to see how awful our circumstances are here on earth. But my faith informs me that I am surely smart enough to know that hope must be kept alive by those who are trusting, simple and imaginative. I carry a light that comes straight from the gift of my vivid imagination.

Prayer keeps the fire of my faith burning. I pray every morning, the first thing I do every day. I sit on the couch with my dog and my cat. I drink coffee, read scripture, look out into the back yard, journal and talk with God. I talk and I listen. I tell God what hurts and I share my confusion. I ask for what I want and apologize for wanting so much. I lift up the people I know who need a touch from the hand of God.  I feel heard, cared for and respected. I receive what prayer has to give me, the promise that I am not alone and that my day will not be pointless. Every day that includes a time for prayer is a day when I make spiritual progress. I trust that my entire day belongs to God but I am only able to focus on God when I sit down and devote a specific time for our relationship.

Prayer is a matter of discipline for me. I learned from my mother how to exercise and value self-discipline. I set goals for myself and work on building a new habit, whatever it is that I want to add to my daily life. Eventually the habit comes naturally and fades into my identity. I have become a person who prays every morning. That is how I see myself. It is not an effort that strains me. It is who I am. I value the discipline of daily prayer and recognize that it keeps the fire of my faith burning. I am not alone no matter what challenges face me.

And the third thing that I recognize as fuel for the fire of my faith is the steadfast love of my partner, Anna. The steadfast love of God is called “hesed.” It is a word that refers to the dependable, unchanging love of God. While God is good and being loved by God is amazing, I need to touch and be touched by love that lives in a human body. I need ears that listen to me with patience and respect.  I need to hear a voice that speaks kindly to me. I know there are cloistered saints and people of deep faith who are celibate. I am not one of them. I need to interact regularly, intimately and intensely with another human being. I need that kind of relationship in order to grow in my faith, to recognize where my own growth still needs to happen and to be reassured that I have not been abandoned. Anna is hesed personified. My faith in the goodness and abundance of God is made real for me in the love that I receive from Anna. I am grateful for my daughter’s love. Jennifer inspires me to love my own life because it is the life that gave life to her. I want her to have faith that she, too, comes from goodness and light. I value the love that I receive from so many friends. Those relationships teach me how to ask for what I need and to accept with grace the gifts that I am given.

I live in faith that we are all learning together. We have all been lost together and we have all been found in the love of God. Each of us moves back and forth between lostness and foundness. It is part of our imperfection and human weakness to waiver in our faith. We are not God. Knowing that, I trust that a better day is coming, something only God can imagine. I have faith that my prayers are all being answered and the prayers of all people are being heard even now.  And I believe that the mercy in God’s redemptive friendship with us is deeper and wider than anything we can possibly know.

This is what keeps the fire of my faith burning and I am very grateful to you for asking.

Amen

Becoming Convinced

Shady Grove Presbyterian Church

January 18, 2015

Preface to Worship:

I am becoming convinced that it is not nearly so important what we do or what we leave undone that matters most in this life. What matters most is that we are loved. No matter what we do or what we leave undone, we are loved deeply and steadfastly. Whether we are right or whether we are wrong; this is of no consequence to love. We were created because it pleased God to have us here—just as we are. Each one of us is an expression of God’s love. In fact I am becoming convinced that love is the only thing that really is. Everything else is an illusion we have created.

Sermon:

John 1: 43-51

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1822. Historians are not certain about the year of her birth because accurate records of slave births are not always available. But it is certain that she grew weary of her life, trapped and abused by the whims and demands of a white slave-master. At the age of six she was given her first job. Her master rented her out to work for a poor white farmer, Mr. Brodess and his wife. She recalled one morning being beaten five times before breakfast.

In 1844, Harriet married John Tubman, a free African American. When she learned that she was to be set on the auction block and sold to slave dealers from Georgia, Harriet decided to run. She told her husband that she planned to escape and when he said, “It’s too dangerous to run for freedom,” Harriet replied, “There are two things I have a right to in this life: liberty and death. If I can’t have the first one then I’ll take the second.” She ran for liberty, risking everything, headed for Pennsylvania where slavery was against the law. 

“I felt like I was in heaven!” she said about her first deep breath of freedom. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania had made the state a good place to learn and work for runaway slaves. Harriet got work as a servant and a cook in private homes. She earned money and saved money. And she could have remained safe and free in her new life. But the taste of freedom lost its luster when she thought about her friends and family back home. 

Freedom wasn’t freedom unless she could share it with those she’d left behind. So Harriet Tubman went back where her life was not her own so that she could keep it—so that she could live it freely and abundantly, courageously leading group after group out of the awful grip of slavery and into the light of liberty. 

She first had to taste the sweet refreshment of freedom for herself, discover that she could find her way there, and then she discovered how much she had to offer to others.

She became convinced that she had particular gifts, strength and courage to be used for the good in the world she knew. She was convinced that love knew her, claimed her and called her to set others free.

In today’s scripture (John 1:43-51) Jesus finds Philip and says, “Follow me.” Apparently there is something adequate enough in what Philip sees and experiences of Jesus that he immediately becomes convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the one he has been looking for, praying about and hoping to know. Then Philip finds Nathanael and tells him the good news. “We have found love and it came to us from Nazareth!” 

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

A good question. The question reveals more about Nathanael than it reveals about Nazareth. We can see the man’s opinions and prejudices. Love has to do an awful lot of hard work and stage multiple miracles to get through our set opinions and our deeply ingrained prejudices. Once we learn and become convinced that a place, a town, a neighborhood is bad news, we rarely change our minds about that. Once we learn and become convinced that people are not to be trusted, it takes a heap of miracles to undo the attitude. Once we become convinced that only the strong survive it takes something like an awful injury followed by a miraculous healing to make us consider the value of vulnerability and admitting our weaknesses. Once we learn and become convinced that people who look like us and live at the same level of economic security as we do are the only ones we care to know and befriend, it takes some kind of local disaster and a period of miraculous rebuilding for love to be revealed and recognized in the face of the different, the “other.”

Always there, always at work, love tries to break through the dense fog of our misconceptions and illusions to let some light in, to set us free. Because we’re never free and we can never really allow others around us to be free until we know ourselves as an absolute expression of love in this life. There’s so much useless baggage to shed, so much meaningless weight we carry around while we avoid or deny the light of love that comes from our very soul.

Jesus lets Nathanael know that he sees the light of love in Nathanael. Jesus sees and knows what’s real in Nathanael-- underneath the man’s opinions, prejudices, cultural training. Jesus is love and so he can see beneath the resistance and fears that defend Nathanael. Being known is miracle enough to turn Nathanael’s world upside down. He leaves his world and opens himself, following Jesus to see with new eyes, to hear with new ears, to taste with a new expectation, to touch and be touched with an openness to love in every fingertip, every hand shake and hug. Love knew him and he let go of his culturally influenced reality long enough to know love. His life became a life of love, devoted to loving himself and others, setting himself and others free. A true disciple.

Sometimes all we need is an open window, just a crack in our defenses, to see there’s so much more than what we had thought or believed, to be convinced that life has more to do with love than we had ever before imagined. 

“You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending …”

I went to see the film, “Selmer” this week. I highly recommend that you see to it too. The camera shows close up and fiercely the faces of people who have allowed their fears to harden into rigid, seething hate.  We all recognize ourselves in those faces. I mean, it requires that I be fearlessly honest to admit it. But I have been so hurt and so afraid of people or a person that I have hardened the love right out of my perception of them, made them into lifeless, loveless objects and given myself permission to hate the objectified frame. Maybe you have too. Maybe you know that experience and can admit how much damage it has done to your soul.

I have been known to close the door on anything other than hate, nurtured a thirst for revenge and a deep desire to erase the one I see as my “enemy.” I saw my own face in the face of Selma’s sheriff. I may not have participated in the same level of physical violence against the other as some participants in that story- but I have felt the hunger for violence that can be awakened in any of us. It is part of the illusion we live with in our world. 

Dr. King and his wife, Coretta lived with the constant threat of death’s reality in their home, at the table and in their bed and in their children’s beds. Dr. King’s nonviolent strategy was shining the light of love full blast into the faces of hate—inspiring absolute rage. While at the same time, the light of that love was inspiring tremendous courage and hope in the hearts and lives of Selma’s African American people. They were seen, recognized and called out by Dr. King as people of great worth, people with a proud history. They were people with so much to contribute to the world around them if only they were free to give, free to vote. 

So they got together with all that courage, strength, collected gifts. And other people were attracted to the light of love in Selma. People came from all over the world to join them. Love led the way in the march from Selma to Montgomery. 

Dr. King gave everything he had and all the light within him to set the people of Selma free—not just the African Americans but—more miraculously—the ones who had closed up and shut down their vision because of the opinions and prejudices that had blinded them to the best thing that life offers to any of us…love, love that lives deep within our souls.

Love brings us into this world and, for a time, that is all we know. But as life happens to us and we get hurt, we find ways to defend ourselves from love. We create barriers and defenses that distance us from our own soul and prevent us from recognizing, valuing and sharing our love with the soul of others. We find ways to trap and abuse ourselves in slavery to all kinds of illusions.

Until something happens, until some Savior comes into our town, until some relationship surprises us with its unexpected goodness, until some book or film or sermon awakens our hunger to return to what we once knew and trusted about love.

Then we start becoming convinced that love is the main thing. We recall that it is the real thing, the only reality, the thing that can set us free and give us the courage, strength and gifts to turn around, go back and set others free.

Amen.