Birthpangs and Building Blocks

1 Samuel 2:1-10; Mark 13:1-8
November 15, 2009
This sermon begins twice. I didn’t plan it that way, but there you go. The best laid plans ….
Indeed, that is what this is all about it seems to me: the best laid plans. So whether your concerns this morning are deeply personal or broadly social, whether they are global or of heart and home, there is a word from God for you in these texts about laying plans, building blocks and turning things upside down.
When I was in Atlanta earlier this month staying at my sister’s house, I took note of the floor in one of the hallways. It’s a short stretch of tongue-in-groove flooring that I helped her salvage about eight or nine years ago from the rear portion of the house that I helped deconstruct – roof to foundation – in preparation for building an addition. Not one stone was left on another – of course, the house was frame and there were no stones to begin with.
In any case, we saved enough of the flooring to cover the short hallway, and I recall great satisfaction in laying that eight to ten feet of floor with the only bit of the back part of the house that did not wind up in a dumpster.
Second beginning: I was moved last week by pictures of President Obama walking in the rain through the graves of Arlington on Veterans Day – the weight of two wars of which he was not the architect bearing down upon him. And I could not help wondering if he is capable, in this moment, of imagining a future otherwise than the one that seems implied and inevitable given the building blocks we have collectively gathered and put in place over the past decade.
Pondering all of this, I came across these words from Annie Dillard:
You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere ... you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. ... Knock it out. Duck. Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff that the work needs it, or the world.
Sometimes, Jesus knew, you have to tear things down to make way for something to rise up. You have to clear and break ground in order to plant. Or, in terms that Jesus certainly understood, you cannot get to resurrection without crucifixion – you cannot get to Easter without experiencing Good Friday.
Indeed, we live in a Saturday kind of world – suspended between the gathering dark of Good Friday – the wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines – in the midst of all that longing for the new hope of Easter.
So here we are, the middle of November, 2009. We have real wars, so we don’t need rumors, though we’ve got those, too. There was an earthquake in Indonesia on Monday, one in California on Tuesday and another in Greece on Wednesday. Famine continues to plague Somalia and Sudan.
We live in just such a world; and, truth be told, this is nothing new under the sun. Humankind has always lived in just such a world.
Where, in the midst of all this, do we turn for hope and its signs? Upon what do we rebuild in the midst of ruins? How is something new to be born out of all of this despair?
The disciples look at the mighty edifice of the Temple, and stand in awe of its beauty, power and sheer magnitude. Could they imagine a world without it? Could they imagine it crumbling to the ground such that not a stone would be left on stone? And could they possibly imagine something rising up in its place out of the barren earth?
If you are like me, you find it difficult to imagine a future that does not include the structures and institutions, the relationships and people who make up your present.
But each of our lives is full of the losses of just such foundations, and of the living into futures otherwise.
Faith does not promise protection from the passage of time and turning of the world.
On the other hand, faith invites us to trust foundation stones on which to build and it points us toward most unexpected sources for such stones.
Consider Hannah. To begin with, a woman in a patriarchal society is perhaps the last place one would look for a rock on which to build a future otherwise. Moreover, Hannah is barren – and thus doubly marginalized by her culture. She is destitute and despairing, bereft of hope, no vision for any future at all, much less one in which she might be recognized, honored and respected.
Likewise, the people of Israel are in disarray and despair. The time of the judges has passed. That foundation has crumbled. The hope of the nation? No one offers any.
Where should they look for hope? Where is the powerful leader who will ride in on the white horse to save them? Where is the mighty army that will prevail against their enemies? Where are the wealthy patrons who will secure the future?
Hannah? She is mourning her barren state and praying so loudly for restoration that the religious authorities accuse her of being drunk and making a spectacle of herself.
“What are you doing here, at the temple of all places – at the gates of power – making a fool of yourself asking for something you know is not going to happen?”
Hannah? The way to a future otherwise for the people of Israel is going to come through Hannah?
Who on earth is she?
Cast your imagination forward a few weeks – or centuries. The way to a future otherwise for the people of the world is going to come through … Mary?
Who on earth is she?
Who on earth are they? These women in a culture that completely circumscribes women’s lives to the powerless margins – why on earth would God choose them to bear into the world a future otherwise? Who are they, that they should be looked upon with favor and chosen to turn the world upside down?
Who, indeed.
I do not have nearly enough or good enough imagination to come up with such a plan. Fact is, I was ready to toss out those flooring pieces when my sister said, “we could use these on that hallway.”
If nothing else, faith is an act of imagination – seeing a future at once built upon the shattered stones of the past and present moment while at the same time seeing a future radically different from the present moment.
Listen to Hannah’s song:
“The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them God has set the world.”
We all tend to believe that we, ourselves, have set up the pillars of the earth. We built the great edifices that mark our cities’ skylines. We built the great highways that connect them. We built the great institutions that sustain the cities. We built the schools, the banks, the churches.
The problem is, as much as we may have had to do with those construction projects, we also built the systems that enshrine injustice and inequality. We built the institutions that provide continuity for those systems. We built the armies that protect the vested, moneyed and powerful interests and reinscribe them with blood and treasure.
And thus, we are blind to any future otherwise.
Our own imaginations are captive to systems and structures of injustice and inequality and violence. This is true on scales both large and small and we recapitulate such systems and structures with each passing generation.
We do live in a Saturday world. Our own brokenness, played out in the intimate details of our daily living and on the grand stage of history, confines our history to such cycles and constrains our imagination such that we cannot imagine anything beyond the great temples and beautiful building blocks upon which they are constructed.
But Hannah knew otherwise. Mary knew otherwise. God knows otherwise.
Jesus – the stone that the builders rejected because they could not imagine constructing a future otherwise – Jesus embodies that hope and that promise. Jesus is the gift to a yearning world – the building block upon which to begin constructing the future of God’s imagination.
Oh to be sure, all of the news continues. The wars, the earthquakes, the famines. Our own lives are marked by suffering.
But the past does not have to be prologue. This temporary affliction does not have to be a sickness unto death, but can be, instead, birthpangs in the nativity of the kingdom of God.
For you see, where our imaginations fail – where we see nothing but dust and rubble – God not only sees a future otherwise, but provides us with a way into it through the example set in the living of Jesus.
We know the way: it is a way of healing and wholeness, of hospitality without limit, of bread and cup, of repentance and forgiveness, of justice and nonviolence, a way, in the end, of love.
We are called together precisely to be people of that way. May it be so. Amen.

1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah prayed and said,
“My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.
“There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The LORD! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”
________________________________________
Mark 13:1-8
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”
Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”
Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”

One Penny at a Time

November 8, 2009
Psalm 42; Mark 12:38-44
Who are you in this story from Mark?
Put yourself in the scene: another hot, dusty day in the marketplace at the Temple. All kinds of goods changing hands amidst the hum of voices and animals; the wail of beggars, the cries of children, the shouts of vendors, the prayers of the pious.
Think about the characters who people this parable: the scribes with their long prayers; the destitute widows; the crowd paying their dues; the rich with their impressive contributions; the widow with her penny; the disciples listening to the lesson; Jesus teaching.
Who are you? With whom do you identify?
One baseline lesson of New Testament interpretation is this: we are never Jesus, though it is always the great temptation of interpretation to cast ourselves in the leading role – in this case, the good teacher who not only observes the scene with a keen and discerning eye, but describes its most crucial elements: an economic system that enriches the few at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable, and the self-righteousness of those who have been enriched by that same system.
If we can’t be Jesus, then we’d probably like to be the poor widow, giving her pittance, putting in her all and holding nothing back. But honesty, and a cursory look at the check-book ledger or credit card bill, compels me to acknowledge the simple truth that I have not given my all in contributing to the church or other good causes out of my overwhelming abundance much less out of any imagined poverty.
Personally, I recognize quickly the risk in this story of confronting myself in the scribes. I’ve certainly been guilty of saying the long prayers, walking around in the long robes, and enjoying the seating privileges that accrue to the clergy from time to time in certain settings even in this day and age.
But I’d like to hope that I might be a disciple in this story – listening and learning and being challenged in faith by the witness of the least of these.
For surely that is the first step of the disciple: being willing to stop in the midst of the marketplace, listen to an alternative story, and embrace its challenge to the ways things are.
Honestly, the way things are is, well, not so hot. I would say, “pick up the Post,” but that’s too old-school. So get your news from whatever source, with whatever spin it comes packaged in, and none of it is good. We wage wars without end in sight. More than one in ten of us is out of work. More than 50 million of us have no health care insurance and our elected leaders have failed to fix that after a century of talking about it. If your name is Goldman or Sachs you can get a bailout – you can even get a swine flu vaccine while the rest of us wait for doses to be available to the hoi polloi. It’s true – Goldman Sachs and Citigroup got vaccines for their employees last week.
The way things are stinks.
But the first step of the disciple is to stop in the midst of misery and listen to an alternative story: the story of good news, of healing and wholeness and hope. This is the story that Jesus tells.
The first step of the disciple, then, is really no step at all.
Stop. Be still. Set aside the overwhelming and oppressive bad news – the nonstop narrative of despair and desperation that dominates our days.
Not in some Pollyanna, cumbayah moment of willed ignorance or apathy, but in a willing openness to the gospel story and its compelling vision of a future otherwise. Not in some quiescent way of inaction, but as part of a living community that shows forth an authentic way of living together – even and especially in our difference and disagreement – that brings forth life instead of death. Be still. Just as Jesus was still, listening in prayer for the voice of the Holy One, the divine presence that filled his very being with kingdom values and visions.
Those values and visions are inherently political – but in an expansive way that is not reducible to party or policy. In other words, as we consider the challenges of this moment, whether we come from left or right we must confess that the gospel does not proscribe any particular version of health care reform or one particular system of health care. Neither does it lay out an energy policy for the 21st century. The gospel does not describe or proscribe a particular criminal justice system or authorize one police or defense strategy or tactic over others. The gospel does not call forth a particular economic system or a foreign policy.
Anyone who tries to convince us otherwise is either a poor reader of the gospel or a snake-oil salesman.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a rule book. The gospel does not demand a certain, perfectly orthodox and correct set of beliefs; rather the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us into a way of living together.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a dress code. But it is not a dress rehearsal either.
The gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to live – right here and right now in our time, this time – and to take notice of the world around us. We are called to notice that the way things are does stink, and that gospel values are being violated. We are also called to proclaim that this is not the end of the story.
Jesus stops in the midst of the marketplace – the center of the city, the heart of the polis, the place of political power – and says, “this is not right; the tables should be turned, there is another way for the kingdom is among you.”
And, in another passage, engaging in an act of public political theater, he does just that – turns the tables over and suggests that any economic system that enriches the few at the expense of the many is antithetical to gospel values that lift up each life as beloved and worthy of the honor he bestows upon the widow offering her final coins.
Gospel values inform economic decisions and systems.
Jesus teaches his disciples that the great economy of the kingdom of God values every life – from the lilies of the field and the birds of the air to the widow with her mite to give and even the rich young man who is unwilling to give it all away to follow Jesus, who loves him still.
Gospel values do inform not only economic decisions and policies, but also environmental ones as well.
And when the powers that be crack down on Jesus’ kingdom movement and come armed to arrest him, his followers want to respond in kind, but Jesus, even as he practices reparative healing and justice in restoring the injured imperial guard, says to his disciples, “enough of that; put away your swords.” The way of Jesus is a way of nonviolence. Violence violates gospel values; systemic violence does so systematically as the news from last week underscored tragically.
When the powers and principalities hang Jesus on a cross to die with common criminals, he does not speak a word of condemnation to the condemned men but rather words of comfort including these: “today you will be with me in paradise.” The gospel calls forth uncommon mercy and radical forgiveness.
But the story does not end on the cross or in the tomb, with death and defeat, but continues in resurrected hope and new life.
These are gospel values that give life to the vision of a future otherwise, and that inform the way we live in the present moment even as we work and pray for the coming of the kingdom. The least of these are valued and have gifts to offer. The economy based on kingdom values will account for that in its every expression.
The community grounded in gospel values will practice healing and no one will be excluded from that healing – not even those, like the imperial guard, who might seem to be enemies.
The community grounded in gospel values will practice nonviolence – it will live nonviolently in every aspect of its life from the deeply personal and intimate relationships to the broad social and economic networks at the highest and largest levels – even at risk to security – personal or national security.
The community grounded in gospel values will practice forgiveness and mercy – again, on deeply personal levels and systemically as well.
The community grounded in gospel values will be a resurrection community, open at every turn to renewal and new life.
Resurrection is essential for such a community for it arises from a culture addicted to death.
Jesus understood this. Even as he leaves the temple square having suggested all of this in his teaching, one of his disciples points to the great temple and says, “look at these great buildings and beautiful building blocks and stones.”
And Jesus says, “this entire edifice – the whole kit-n-caboodle, the system itself – will tumble and fall until not a stone is left on stone.”
And then, Jesus says, we will build the resurrection community.
So here we stand, called to look squarely and honestly at a culture of death and announce its end. Here we stand, called to proclaim gospel values of love and justice. Here we stand, called to build a new community rooted and grounded in the love and justice of Jesus Christ.
To begin with, then, we are called to offer up our two small coins – what we have to live on, for this – this community of Christ – is what we have to live for. We are building the beloved community – one penny at a time. Amen.

For the Love of God

November 1, 2009
Mark 12:28-34; Deuteronomy 6:4-9
“For the love of God …”
How do you hear that phrase? What, or whom, do you think of when you hear it?
When I think of the phrase, “for the love of God,” I imagine it being said with an eye roll, as an epithet expressing dismay or disgust with something or someone that is not working right.
For some reason, at the beginning of last week, that phrase kept rolling around my thoughts as I considered these passages.
Jesus is teaching. His followers, in the previous chapters of Mark, have been all over the map trying to figure out their teacher’s message. It is almost as if Jesus rolls his eyes himself, looks heavenward in some mix of amusement and disgust at the ineptness of his followers, and says, “for the love of God ….”
Almost as if to give him a chance to give this feeling voice, Jesus is asked about the commandments and nods his approval to the suggestion that it is all about the love of God.
“Love God; love your neighbor.” It’s all that simple, really.
The foundational wisdom of Jesus’ Jewish heritage, captured in the words of the shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. … You shall love God with all your heart and mind. Teach your children this.”
For the love of God. For this you shall live.
One wonders how that impetus came to be turned on its head such that the phrase, “for the love of God,” was turned into an expression of disgust.
Perhaps it is because living that way – living for the love of God, living out of that foundational love – is so hard.
After all, I think I heard somewhere, “how does the love of God abide in you if you have this world’s goods and riches but do not help someone in need?”
It is so easy to say that we love the Lord. It is so easy to say that God loves us. It is so hard to live moment to moment, day by day, as if we believe what we say.
We tend to build walls to keep out those who are not like us, or who seem to threaten us. But the church cannot be a gated community. All of us want to come to the table and feast. All of us want to draw close round the manger and feel the love of God. All of us want to celebrate the new life that Easter represents. But we cannot get to such places if we live fenced lived. For when we wall out the other, we wall out God.
Oh, to be sure, we all have our moments when we feel God’s love and feel and act as if it is real and powerful in our lives. But to be just as sure, we all live just as often if not more so as if we were all alone and on our own in the universe.
But Jesus was on to something when he reminded his followers that the whole of the law and the prophets – that is to say, the totality of theology and the meaning of faith – could be summed up in the great twin commandment: love God and love neighbor.
The two are intimately connected and intertwined. It is impossible to do one without the other, for if God is at the center of life and we human beings – all interconnected form a great circle of life around the divine center, then we draw closer to one another we inevitably draw closer to God. And, when we draw closer to God, we inevitably draw closer to one another as well.
Picture that circle with God in the center. Imagine drawing closer.
The question is, how do we draw closer to God? How, indeed, do you draw closer to God?
The second question is like the first: how do we draw closer to one another. How, indeed, do you draw closer to one another?
Picture again that circle with God at the center.
As I imagine that, we are gathered at a great banquet. There is a table, set for all. We are invited. Come, let us break bread together, and may our hearts be broken open as well such that God’s love may enter again.

What Is It That You Want?

Mark 10:35-45
October 18, 2009
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."
And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?"
And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory."
But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"
They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared."
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
As we tune in to TVJesus this week the Markan chronicles continue right along. Once again, the disciples come asking Jesus a question. Last time they asked him about who was the greatest. Even though he told them then that the first would be last and so on, they press the question. Even after the rich young man has come asking after eternal life, they press the question. Even after Jesus has said, “sell what you own, give the money to the poor, come and follow me,” they press the question.
“What is it that you want?” Jesus asks.
And the disciples press the question – the wrong question.
Why? Why are they so remarkably, almost comically, insistent on the wrong questions?
Well, perhaps it is because they are so remarkably like us.
The 2,000-year staying power of the gospels rests largely on these remarkably human portraits of the disciples, and the even more remarkable portrait of the even more remarkably human Jesus.
Let’s unpack that just a bit.
There are dozens upon dozens of ancient and largely forgotten accounts of gods walking upon the earth with super-powers of healing and miracle-making and mythic victories. I’d guess that there are countless such stories completely lost to the mist of time, and we know that there are dozens of them that live on in collections of ancient myths that have long since lost their power to capture our imaginations in ways that authentically inform our lives.
But the gospel accounts live on in incredibly powerful ways because they continue to reveal authentic truths about the human condition even though the stories are bound to a culture long gone.
Crucially for our time, these stories – and particularly this series of events in the center of Mark – uncover and lay bare the human tendency to confine the divine to neat, easily understandable and controllable boxes. The disciples, just like us, create God boxes.
When Jesus asks, “what is it that you want?” the disciples answer, in effect, we want to know God on our terms. We want a God who will reinscribe the same human hierarchies and structures that we understand, and, moreover, we want a God who will place us on the top rung of those structures. We want a God who understands power just like we do, and we want a God who will give us the lion’s share of that power – “who will be first?” We want a God who understands affluence just as we do, and we want a God who will bless our affluence. We want a God who understands influence just as we do, and we want a God who will put us in positions of power – seat us at the right hand of the throne of power.
We want God to fit neatly into our own God boxes.
Almost 50 years ago, J.B. Philips, in his classic Your God is Too Small, wrote – in the style of his time – “The man who is outside all organized Christianity may have, and often does have, a certain reverence for God, and a certain genuine respect for Jesus Christ (though he has probably rarely considered Him and His claims with his adult mind). But what sticks in his throat about the Christianity of the Churches is not merely their differences in denomination, but the spirit of "churchiness" which seems to pervade them all. They seem to him to have captured and tamed and trained to their own liking Something that is really far too big ever to be forced into little man-made boxes with neat labels upon them. He may never think of putting it into words, but this is what he thinks and feels.
"If," the Churches appear to be saying to him, "you will jump through our particular hoop or sign on our particular dotted line, then we will introduce you to God. But if not, then there's no God for you."
Whether in “churchy” terms or not-so-churchy terms, we still tend to construct God boxes. Here are some of the ones lying around my house. Perhaps you have built similar ones.
I find that God boxes are a bit like Russian dolls. Inside of every God box is another, then another, then another … or, perhaps it goes in the other direction.
You get to a really small box – something that might hold a precious jewel. Surely, the love of God is precious – more precious than the finest diamond. Jesus suggested that the kingdom of God – the great economy – is like a mustard seed, so it would surely fit inside this small case.
Of course, the key to the mustard seed parable is that the seed grows into an unruly bush that, like kudzu, tends to take over everything it touches. So, clearly, the small box will not do.
This next box, which reads “Sprint” on its cover – might work. After all, it was originally used to package a cell phone – a small device used to share news broadly. On the other hand, for better and for worse, these things only work on certain networks. The boxes come with brands. If this is a God box, it might come labeled “Protestant” or “Catholic” or “Hindu” or “Muslim.” Jesus has just told his followers that anyone who is not against us if for us. I think he was telling them to beware of branding and of networks that limit who gets to call upon God. If God was to be in a cell-phone box it would have to be an open-source system. So, again, this box is too small.
This next box has a couple of items in it: a clock and a Book of Confessions.
A lot of folks imagine God as the great clock-maker, who built the mechanism of creation, wound it up and set it running, and has since, like Elvis, left the building. This is the god whom the so-called “new atheists” – the Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens of the pseudo-intellectual world – claim to have killed, once again. I’m not sure why they go to such trouble to kill a god who has been dead for centuries, and who was never the God made known in the life of Christ. For the God to whom Jesus relates so intimately as to call him “daddy, poppa, abba,” was not a clock-maker any more than any parent is a “baby maker” setting the new creation on its own at birth.
In the same way, the God of Jesus cannot be reduced – as the church has so often tried – to a set of words or propositional statements or arguments too easily dismissed by the likes of Dawkins or Hitchens. We have created creeds and confessions and used them as a fence around God to be entered only through the gates of orthodoxy guarded by a priesthood of professional clergy and theologians who know the insider language of God not because God speaks that language but because the clergy and theologians invented it.
A box of clocks and confessions is too small for God.
This next box is incredibly attractive and has much to offer. Indeed, each of our boxes has its attractive attributes – that’s why they survive so long and why each of us reinvents them in our own ways. This red one is a music box – or, more precisely, a flute case.
The church fathers understood the central role of music in human experience of the divine. That’s why they placed the psalms at the center of the canon. “When in our music God is glorified … and adoration leaves no room for pride … it is as though the whole creation cried: Alleluia!”
That is as true as any hymn can be, but, of course, not even our music is a big enough box. Look around – the windows cannot sing, but they clearly express truths about God. Beyond them, it is, sometimes, as though the whole creation sings, but not in a music that we can contain and reproduce even with the incredible musical gifts that so many faithful people have been given through the ages. Even the music box is too small for God.
See, the problem with all of our boxes is that we just don’t have good enough lids.
God gets out.
As J.B. Philips suggested a half century ago, perhaps the biggest God boxes of them all is the church itself.
How many of us – despite knowing much better intellectually – live as if God is contained in this space? We come here to get in touch with God, and thus surrender the rest of our lives to something less than God or to other false gods of the culture – those gods to whom the disciples looked in vain as they argued over who was to be the first, and who was to get the best seat, and who was to have the most power and influence.
When we confine God to this space – this beautiful, peaceful, spirit-filled space – we go out and look for the gods of power and influence and affluence out in the rest of our lives, and we forget that we are also bearers of the divine in the world. We put God in a gilded box and try to clamp down the lid.
We are like the Israelites as they were carried into exile. They believed that God was confined to the temple in Jerusalem, and they had to learn that no temple was enough to contain the God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements, who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy.
The God made known in Jesus Christ will not be confined to any of the boxes we construct. That God calls us to lives of discipleship, not merely an hour of worship and reflection. That God calls us to sacramental lives, not merely a moment of bread and cup in a quiet sanctuary. That God calls us to lives of service, not merely to weekly worship services.
That God is calling. What will you say in response?
Amen.

Fields With Persecutions

October 11, 2009
Mark 10:17-31
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose not to take a risk that you knew would have improved the situation but at some cost to you – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation?
Consider that question as the text this morning confronts us.
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'"
He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth."
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"
And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you."
Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose not to take a risk that you knew would have improved the situation but at some cost to you – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation?
Consider that question.
I have shared this story before, but when I consider the question just posed it always comes back to me. It was Halloween, 1977. I was a senior in high school, 17 years old. I was iconoclastic even then, and iconoclasts are never in with the in crowd. So, when a couple of guys on the football team and three girls – the numbers seemed significant to me – when a couple of guys and three girls asked me to join them for the evening I said, “sure.”
We road around for a while. One of the guys was the son of one of Chattanooga’s largest car dealership, so nice wheels were a given. I don’t recall doing much beyond stopping at a few friends houses, and, if it was on the same night, TP-ing the snooty private girls school in the neighborhood.
But then one of the guys said, “hey, let’s go down to 9th Street and yell at the blacks”; only he did not say “blacks.” These days 9th Street is named Martin Luther King Blvd., and it was then the main street of black Chattanooga.
To my everlasting shame, I slunk down in my seat and did not say a word. To my equally great relief, we did not spot a soul on the street and headed home soon thereafter.
I knew, even scrunched down in that seat next to a girl I barely knew, that I should say something. I should say, “no.” But I was not willing to risk being thought even less cool than I was. For the sake of fleeting acceptance, I refused to speak when confronted with something manifestly wrong.
It is not necessary to drag ourselves back through the details of painful memories or share what often are deeply private stories in order for our confessions to well up in more general terms. So my confession is this: forgive me for keeping silent in the face of wrongdoing, injustice, suffering, violence.
Are there general confessions that have welled up within you as you are confronted by this text?
The good news of the gospel is that we are not loved because of what we do or fail to do; we are loved because of who we are and to whom we belong. We are the children of a loving God to whom we belong when we are seized by risky faith and when we fail to take the risks of faith.
We Proclaim the Text
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
Consider that question as the text this morning confronts us.
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'"
He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth."
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"
And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you."
Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions--and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take a risk – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your salvation – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
Consider that question.
My father told me this story when I was a child, and I have never forgotten it. He used the tale to illustrate the New Testament passage that instructs, “no one has greater love than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It is always among the first things that comes to my mind when I read about the rich young ruler.
As a young man, my dad was a camp counselor and later a camp director for the YMCA, so he spent a lot of time with kids. Kids are risk takers by nature, and the kids who went out on a Tennessee river in aluminum canoes when thunderstorms were forecast were no different.
They set off for a camp site aiming to get there in time to make camp and cook dinner before nightfall. Another counselor was supposed to meet them at the island where they would spend the night. Summer storms in that part of the country blow up quickly in the mid-afternoon, and that’s precisely what happened.
The boys did not want to pull to the side and wait out the rain; they wanted to get to their campsite and have fun. So they pulled out the tarps under which they planned to sleep that night and created floating shelter.
It was kind of clever; and kind of stupid. They could not see a thing, so they did not notice when they drifted past the island and continued on down the river directly toward a low-head dam.
River runners have a name for low-head dams. They are known as drowning machines. The one these kids were drifting blindly toward was particularly monstrous because not only was there a standing, churning, inescapable wave just below the dam, there were large round holes along its flat top through which high water roared during storms when the river was up. The river was up.
The counselor who was to meet the group at the campsite saw the canoes with the tarps drift past the island and head for the dam so he jumped in his canoe and paddled frantically after the drifting kids yelling for them to look out. The boys in the canoe closest to him heard his cries, realized the danger and paddled across the current to the safety of the shore.
But as the counselor got closer to the second boat he realized that those kids could not hear his yells over the pounding rain or the roar of the water rushing over the dam. He also realized that he would not be able to pull the canoes out of the current that had grabbed them. So paddling in desperation he made straight for the edge of the dam, leaped from his canoe onto the flat top of the dam, ran across its slippery surface leaping over the gaping holes to grab the canoe just as it was about to be swept over the edge. Inching back to the side of the dam, he pulled the canoe by its rope to safety.
When the kids recounted this tail to my father, I’m pretty sure he told them that there was no good reason that any of them had survived. No good reason except that in a moment of decision, when the outcome was anything but certain, one young man – not wealthy but rich in courage and the conviction that the gospel of Jesus Christ called him to take risks for the sake of others – risked everything to save their lives.
Have you ever been in a situation where you chose to take a risk – to your ego, your standing in the eyes of others, your bank account, your life – for the sake of what your faith called you to do?
What values of your faith – of our common faith – compel you to take risks?
The passage from Mark suggests that leaps of faith do not come without pain.
That is an excellent reminder on the Sunday when we receive the Presbyterian Peacemaking offering. While peacemakers may be blessed and called the children of God, the work of making peace – whether in families, workplaces, communities or the wider world – brings fields with persecutions.
When I think of great makers of peace, I think of Gandhi, of King, of Mandela, and of the great risks each took to heal their wounded nations. Two were assassinated, the third spent a quarter of a century in prison.
Most of us will never be called upon to take the kinds of risks that they took, but each of us is called to risk for the sake of the gospel of love and justice. Whether it is risking our treasure or risking our time, we are invited everyday to stand for values that are often at odds with the prevailing values of the culture.
Jesus understood this when he asked the rich young man to sell everything and divest for the sake of the poor, and to follow the way of Jesus – the way of the cross. Jesus also understood just how difficult the challenge could be – and he looked at the young man not with scorn, and not with pity, but with love.
That is how God looks at us today – whether or not we are able to take the risks before us. Whether we are confessing our failures to do so, or proclaiming a gospel that calls us to risk again and again and again. God looks at us with love. It is because of that love that we know that taking the risks of faith is possible. Amen.

The Big Table

Mark 10:2-16
October 4, 2009
How many of you have experienced a divorce in your family – either parents, siblings or your own marriage?
Most of us have walked on some part of that road, and all of us know people who have.
So what do we do with this text from Mark?
But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
The text seems pretty clear. The plain meaning seems obvious. Divorce, according to Mark’s Jesus, is outside of God’s plan for creation.
And yet … and yet the church has either simply ignored this passage or found creative ways around it – annulment comes to mind. “That marriage? Never happened.”
Why even focus any attention on this ancient text which obviously does not stand as prohibition or, to be honest, even as moral guidance in our time, and has not stood as such for a very long time if it ever truly did?
Well, the text itself does not much interest me beyond the reminder that love is a gift of God. I am, however, much interested in what has been done with this text and how that speaks to our time – particularly this time: the Sunday of World Communion and the day on which the local Open Doors/More Light Presbyterian chapter has its annual meeting.
This is not a lecture in hermeneutics; it is a sermon – well, in fact, it is a brief communion homily, so I am not proposing to drag us through a history of Reformed Biblical interpretation from John Calvin through Jack Rodgers. We could do that in a different setting, and it would bring us to the same point. But for the moment, let it suffice to remind ourselves that Jesus himself gives us warrant to reinterpret sacred scripture and recast it for a new time.
Reinterpretation of scripture was one of Jesus’ favorite teaching tactics. “You have heard it said … but I tell you …” and every time he used that phrase it was to take a piece of Jewish scripture and recast it for his own time.
Indeed, in the text from Mark that is provoking us this morning that is precisely what Jesus is doing. “What did Moses say?” In other words, what is the law, the holy scripture, the word of God on this? Well, you have heard it said … but I tell you … and Jesus reinscribes, rewrites and offers a teaching that was, for whatever reason, more appropriate to his time. Sometimes, as in this case, his new teaching feels more restrictive, although binding men to their promises in an age when women were utterly dependent upon their husbands was, in fact, a new understanding of justice. Other times, as with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” becoming “love your enemies,” the teaching clearly opens new paths to mercy and new understandings of justice.
If nothing else, Jesus is constantly teaching his followers one lesson: you have to get a new mind for a new time.
All of which leads me to ask: if the church can employ an interpretive practice that virtually ignores this text on divorce, why does it remain so hung up on a handful of other passages used to oppress gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons?
Why has the church continued to practice exclusion and oppression and participated in a culture of violence against the GLBT population? More pointedly, why does our denomination, our corner of the church, continue to deny ordination to men and women who are clearly gifted and called to offices of deacon, elder and minister of word and sacrament based solely on sexual identity? Why, in an age when divorce is nearly an epidemic, do we want to deny -- solely on the basis of sexual identity -- the right to marriage to couples who want to make covenant promises to each other? Why? Why? Why?
More to the point, how long must we continue down this dark path before light and more light break forth?
On this Sunday of World Communion we must ask these questions, and we must recommit ourselves to pressing them in the church and in the broader society. For if we, in this small congregation in our little corner of the world church do not continue to speak, our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender sisters and brother around the world will continue to be victimized.
I did a Google search on the term “gay bashing” last week, and I limited the results to postings from the previous week. I got more than 95,000 results.
• A gay New York DJ was assaulted and called “faggot” on the streets of Manhattan last week. Two young men in London, Ontario, were beaten after being harassed about their sexual orientation last week. It was the second instance of reported gay bashing in that city during the past two weeks.
• A young man was beaten to death in a Sydney, Australia, park last week. Police suspect the murder was a hate crime directed at the man because of his sexuality.
• Petty Officer Third Class Joseph Rocha, a sailor trained to work with military dogs in the Navy's anti-terrorism, force protection, and explosive detection operations, was brutalized for more than two years at his base in Bahrain after his refusal to hire a prostitute raised suspicions that he was gay, it was reported last week.
Those are but a few instances reported from the developed world, the liberal West, during the past week or so.
Why do we keep pushing for marriage equality and for ordination within the church? Because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and the inverse is also true: justice attained anywhere, even when it begins as a trickle in a small church like this one, continues to flow out until justice rolls down like a mighty water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
So, on this Sunday of World Communion, we break bread and share a common cup – women and men, young and old, gay and straight – committed to the ongoing work of breaking down the barriers that too often stand between us, until we come to that day when all of God’s children can gather at the big table and share in the joyous feast of the children of God.
This morning, as we gather at the table, we will be served by elders who have been ordained because they are called to this service and gifted for it. They happen, as well, to be gay – and a little more gaiety is always welcome at the joyous feast.
This morning, as we gather at the table, there’s a poster up here that represents more light shining down on the PCUSA. This evening, we’ll add this to a collection of images representing the change we are working for, specifically in the wording of our Book of Order regarding ordination. I invite you, as we continue our worship, to think about friends and loved ones who have been denied their full welcome and empowerment in the church and broader culture – whether in ordinations or marriage rights deferred or denied, or in violence suffered, or in falling victim to AIDS in an epidemic of fear and denial. As you come forward to receive the sacrament, you are invited to write the names of such friends and loved ones on this poster, for it is in the names of such people, some scared, some brave, some scarred and some silenced, that we strive for justice, and work to add another leaf to the big table. Amen.

For Us/Against Us

September 27, 2009
Be astonished! Be astounded! For I am doing things among you that you would not believe if you were told. Habakkuk 1:5
Mark 9:38-50; Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
As some of you know, I spent several days last week in Chattanooga helping my parents out following my dad’s hip surgery. I flew into Atlanta Wednesday evening and saw places that were under muddy waters from the storms that have devastated the area over the past several weeks.
You never know when the water is going to rise.
I went down to help my parents make some hard decisions that have become harder since my dad fell and broke his hip. Complicating matters, my parents’ basement had flooded with all the rain leaving my mother even more upset than she was already.
You never know when the water is going to rise.
On this weekend, three or was it four years ago, Tom Hull and I were on the Gulf Coast cleaning up after Katrina. Tens of thousands of people lost their homes; almost 1,000 lost their lives.
You never know when the water is going to rise.
In the past year, several members of this community have lost loved ones – to cancer, to complications following a fall, to a far-too-young heart attach.
You never know when the water is going to rise.
But then there is this water – waters of baptism, waters of righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, waters of justice rolling down.
Just as you never know when the water is going to rise, you also never know when righteousness and justice, when healing and wholeness, when salvation itself is going to rise as well.
And, as the stories we’ve just read so strongly suggest, you never know when a savior is going to rise up from the most unexpected places.
Esther, a Jewish woman who has married outside of her people into power, steps forward at risk to her own life to stop ethnic cleansing of her people.
Saviors come in strange and unexpected packages.
Theological orthodoxy is clearly neither sufficient or even necessary to saviors.
Gandhi was a savior who was far from orthodox in his Hindu faith, and certainly was not a Christian, though he was an admirer of Christ. According to a certain orthodox Christianity, Gandhi was bound to spend eternity in hell. According to Jesus, “if he is not against us, he is for us.”
Neither orthodox confessions of faith nor confessions of orthodox faith are necessary to participate in the salvation of the world.
Tich Naht Han was a savior who was also far from orthodox in his Buddhist faith. He was another admirer of Jesus, who helped bring peace to his war-torn land of Vietnam. Again, according to a certain orthodox Christianity, Han was bound to spend eternity in hell. According to Jesus, “if he is not against us, he is for us.”
Neither orthodox confessions of faith nor confessions of orthodox faith are necessary to participate in the salvation of the world.
This is not an expression of a certain kind of lazy liberalism, but rather a Biblically grounded statement about the nature of God and of salvation. God’s wildly inclusive love does not end at the edge of the church; indeed, it begins there anew and afresh to be received and experienced in an amazing variety of expressions. In God’s house there are many rooms, Jesus promised his followers.
While Jesus came preaching repentance and the nearness of God’s kingdom – in other words healing, wholeness, salvation – he did not come preaching an orthodox faith or requiring from those closest to him.
A few weeks back we read in Mark’s gospel the account of Jesus asking the disciples who they thought he was. When pressed, Peter offer the theologically, if not politically correct response: the messiah, the Christ of God. Clearly Peter expects the praise from the teacher due a good student who provides the right answers to the pop quiz. What does he get instead? Peter gets Jesus’ condemnation: “get thee behind me Satan.”
No, if you are going to understand the salvation offered by Jesus, if you are to receive it, you must take up your cross and follow.
In other words, the measure is faithfulness.
As Jesus’ story shows, if we are being faithful there will be scars.
In the early part of the 20th century, there was a period of religious fervor in England, and would-be saviors were arising left and right. During one revival meeting being led by the founder of the YMCA, a man entered the auditorium accompanied by a brass band and marched right down the center aisle to the stage. He stopped in front of the stage and proclaimed himself the messiah. The Y founder stilled the excited crowd, turned to the man with the band, and said simply, “show me your scars.”
Show me your scars.
This is no glorification of suffering but a pointing beyond the cross to the Kingdom and measuring the distance between the two in terms of the resistance encountered by those who follow the way of Jesus rather than the way of the powers that be in the world as it is.
Those who authentically live as bridges between the world as it is and the world that God is calling forth will bear the scars of that living.
Proclaiming a theologically orthodox faith requires little in the way of risk, but a faith that risks nothing saves nothing.
And when the water rises, we all want someone to take risks to save us.
The folks down South right now need some risktakers to come offering salvation. I promise you, they don’t care much about the orthodoxy of your faith, but I know from what I just saw over the past couple of days that they will greatly appreciate any contribution you can make to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to help them dig out and rebuild. Sometimes we can be the hands of Christ in the world by opening up our checkbooks.
When the water rises, we all want someone to take risks to save us.
Folks in this community who have lost loved ones need a listening ear for that is salvation. I promise you, they don’t care much about the orthodoxy of your faith. Sometimes we can be the hands of Christ in the world by opening our ears.
Folks who need a helping hand, a listening ear, a strong back, a keen mind to chart a way toward the light in the midst of darkness, those needing a taste of salvation don’t care much about orthodoxy, but we can be Christ in the world by opening our hearts and risking them for the sake of the world.
"For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
So, to extend our conversation this morning, have you ever been offered salvation from an unexpected source? Have you received unexpected grace from someone who was not against you even if you thought otherwise?  



You never know when the water’s gonna rise.
You never know when it will rise up in your eyes
And pour down tears
That will glisten like your fears
That the sun will never shine, that things will never turn out fine
You never know.

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, "What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled."
Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king."
Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, "Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?"
Esther said, "A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!" Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.
Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, "Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stand s at Haman's house, fifty cubits high." And the king said, "Hang him on that." So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.
Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.
________________________________________
Mark 9:38-50
John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us."
But Jesus said, "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
"For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."