picoblog

Moving Day

2009-11-18T12:43:00.001-06:00

Three Widows

2009-11-09T18:43:00.005-06:00

It was in the fall of 2003. I was in my study reading the story of the widow of Zarephath and the story from Mark about a widow who gave her last two coins to the temple treasury, when National Public Radio announced that some rich widow in California who had died in October had left NPR $200 Million. $200 Million is about twice the annual operating budget for National Public Radio.

The moment stuck with me because I found myself sitting in my study with three widows when the Holy Spirit showed up and said, “Thomas, which of the three would you like to have as a member of the church?”

It was one of those fairy god-mother moments where you can’t just say, “How about all three?” and get away with it.

“Honest now, preacher, which one? You’ll even get to choose the pew she’ll sit in every Sunday morning.”

There’s the widow of Zarephath. She and her son are only one meal away from certain starvation. She’s gathering sticks for the last fire, when a stranger shows up and asks her for a little water and a morsel of bread. With tears in her eyes she tells him that times are hard, recalls what little meal is left in the jar, and what little oil in the jug.

And the stranger says, “Do not be afraid. Make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.”

Why would she be afraid, I wonder. Embarassed perhaps, ashamed that she can’t show proper hospitality to the stranger at the gate. Heart-broken, yes, knowing that there would be no food the next day, that all there is for her son and herself to anticipate is death.

“Do not be afraid,” says the stranger. “I have a word from the Lord God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”

What he is saying is, “Do not be afraid to trust the promise of God.”

And she goes and prepares three little cakes – and for as long as the drought continued in Israel, the story goes, the jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail.

Would I like to see her sit in one of our pews on Sunday? O yes, I would ask her her name and then I would ask her to talk to my friends who are heart-broken because there is an abundance of food in the world, and yet, every day, over one billion women, men, and children go hungry and thousands die. “Stay with us, for God’s sake,” I would say to her, “and teach us how to find abundance in sharing.”

Then there is the widow in the temple. Jesus had just warned those who were listening to him to beware of religious leaders who devour widows’ houses while displaying their piety like peacocks spreading their tails. Now Jesus sits down opposite the treasury, and he watches what people put in the plate. Many rich people put in large sums. Then this poor widow comes and she puts in two small copper coins, worth a penny, less than 1% of the minimum wage for a day’s work. And Jesus points out that she has put in more than anyone else, and I wonder if he is praising her or condemning a religious institution that takes a widow’s last penny without blushing instead of helping her with her rent.

Would I like to see her sit in one of our pews on Sunday? O yes, I would ask her, “What is your name? What is it that compels you to give? And what are your thoughts about what Jesus said?”
“Stay with us,” I would say to her, “and teach us how to maintain our trust in God when our institutions are crumbling around us. For God’s sake, stay with us.”

Finally there’s Joan B. Kroc, the billionaire widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s. She had become known as a major donor to organizations working to promote world peace. She founded and endowed the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. She was a major benefactor of the Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta, and she gave more than $1 billion to the Salvation Army.

“So,” the Holy Spirit said to me, “which of the three widows would you rather see at church on Sunday morning?”

With a gift of twice our annual operating budget, we could hire additional staff, renovate the fellowship hall, and tell the architect to begin sketching out plans for our Ministry CoOp. We’d be happy to name it the Joan B. Kroc Center for Urban Mission, and we wouldn’t have to worry about giving for a while.

All the Holy Spirit had to do was echo my words, “…wouldn’t have to worry about giving for a while.”

All the Holy Spirit had to do was echo my words, and I knew that such a large gift wasn’t necessarily a good gift. A gift so large might actually keep you and me from becoming more giving ourselves, and becoming better stewards of God’s manifold gifts is one of the great transformative tasks all disciples face, possibly the greatest.

The widow of Zarephath, in a time of famine, opened her home to the man of God, and in a beautiful act of hospitality she broke bread with him. All she and her child had to live on, one last meal – and then the miracle of abundance, affirming the trustworthiness of God’s promise and presence.

“The church needs her,” I said to myself, “we need her simple courage in the face of economic hardship, we need her to teach us hospitality and trust in God’s faithfulness.”

The Holy Spirit said to me, “Take your time, there’s no reason to rush to an answer.”

And so I sat a little longer with Jesus in the temple, opposite the treasury. Sitting there I remembered how angry Jesus had been when he first entered the temple. He drove out those who were selling and buying, overturned the tables of the money changers, and yelled across the courtyard, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

The temple, God’s holy temple, had become a place of commerce and corruption. But Jesus taught about a new way of being God’s holy temple. He talked about a community of people, faithful to one another, strong in prayer and forgiveness, a fruitful vineyard . A community where love of God and neighbor was practiced, taught and honored.

The new temple would not be a place for pompous men in long robes or fine suits, quick to identify the best seats in the house and eager to sit in them. The new temple would not be a place for pious showmanship expressed in long prayers, carefully crafted to impress those who happen to overhear them. The new temple would not be a place for stuffed shirts with no concern for matters of justice or compassion; not a place for pride and greed barely concealed behind facades of ostentatious piety.

Beware of the scribes, Jesus taught, beware of the preachers and televangelists who’ll gladly take every widow’s last penny to line the pockets of their long robes. Be attentive to the widow, the orphan, the stranger; be attentive to the most vulnerable among you who are always the first to suffer when your financial institutions crumble and your market mechanisms fail.

Jesus didn’t draw our attention to the poor widow because she gave all she had to live on to a den of robbers. He didn’t praise her for supporting with her last penny a corrupt religious institution that was destined to fall.

Putting in everything she had to live on, she entrusted her life in God’s hands, and her complete gift became a testimony against all who turn the whole world into a robber’s den, even the places that are to bring healing and reconciliation to our divided communities.

This was the final scene in the temple, and the poor widow’s gift foreshadowed the gift Jesus was about to make: his own life, given as a testimony against our sin and for God’s power to redeem.
The old temple leadership stood condemned, but the poor widow already belonged to the new temple, the one built on the foundation of Christ.

“So,” the Holy Spirit said to me, “which of the three widows is the one?”

Each one is an example of holy love, each in her own way. One embodies holy love by welcoming a stranger and remaining open to the promise of God when her life seemed to have come to a dead end. The second embodies it by remaining faithful to God even when corruption had turned the house of prayer for all the nations into a palace of vanity and robbery. And the third one embodied holy love by using her considerable wealth to support generously the hard work of peace-making and community-building in this country and around the world.

The truth is, I don’t have to choose one from among the three. I don’t have to make that choice because all three already belong to the new temple.

The choice I must make, though, every day, is how to live with such trust, humility, and generosity myself. And that’s a choice you must make as well.

How will you live in response to God’s gift of abundant life?

How will you give yourself away for the coming of God’s reign?

How will you in your lifetime embody this holy love?

We do want to hire additional staff here at Vine Street to coordinate ministry in our community; we do want to renovate the fellowship hall to offer a place where groups large and small can gather to play and work and celebrate; we do want to help create a Ministry CoOp where new mission initiatives find a home and cooperation between faith communities and non-profit agencies in our city is strengthened.

We have a vision – will you be a part of making that vision reality?

Every single person counts.

To What End?

2009-11-03T18:26:00.002-06:00

North Haven is a small town in Minnesota, just east of Lake Wobegon.

Michael Lindvall has written a couple of books about life in North Haven, tales about a Presbyterian minister and his flock. You read the stories and you quickly get a sense that you know these people; they are your neighbors and co-workers, people you run into at the grocery store.

James Crory is one of them; an overactive seven-year-old who talks a mile a minute and sleeps only sporadically. Calling him energetic would be an understatement. Were he a child from the suburbs, he would have been diagnosed and take a pill every morning.

James loves to hang out with Angus and Minnie, both in their 80’s, and they, for the most part anyway, enjoy his company as well. They smile at his enthusiasm, and his endless conversation is way more entertaining than anything on tv.

It was in the afternoon of Halloween when James burst into Angus and Minnie’s living room complaining that his mom had gotten him the wrong costume.

“Spiderman? No one cares about Spiderman anymore. How can she not know that? I can’t possibly wear that costume! It will be the end! Everyone will make fun of me. Why did she do that to me? What am I going to do?”

Minnie waited a couple of seconds to make sure that he was finished.

“Perhaps you could be a ghost?”

Her boys had been ghosts every year growing up, even used the same costumes year after year – it never seemed to be a problem. Those ghost costumes were probably still up in the attic.
And so Angus and James climbed up the attic stairs to look for the costumes – and there they were! The classic design: a sheet with a couple of holes for the eyes, and a belt to keep the whole thing from blowing away. Angus and Minnie insisted that James use a reflector belt because it had already snowed, and you can’t see a ghost in the snow.

The little boy could hardly stand still long enough to get the belt on.

“Trick or treat! Trick or treat!” he shouted, jumping up and down.

Angus said he’d trail along behind to make sure the boy was OK, but before he could get his coat on, James dashed out the door and ran smack-dab into their maple tree.

Angus was rushing out to be sure he was okay, when little James picked himself up and ran full speed ahead again. This time he ran into the neighbor’s Bradford Pear. And this time, he knocked himself out.

Angus quickly went over to the little boy. “James! James, are you all right?”

He looked down, and he realized that the holes in the sheet were not lined up with his little eyes – not even close. James couldn’t see a thing. Angus adjusted the costume, and when the little boy opened his eyes, he was surprised.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be able to see!”

I give thanks today for people like Minnie and Angus, old couples who become friends with little boys and girls, who generously share with them their time, their love, and their wisdom.

I thought about baptism, of all things, when I read the story of James, Minnie and Angus from North Haven. In baptism we put on the white robe of new life. It’s not a costume that changes every year, nor is it a manufactured plastic dream that allows us to be a super hero or a princess for a day. The white robe of new life is much more like a treasure from the attic, something generations before us have worn with joy and great reward.

So you put on that robe, and you rush out the door to hurry toward the kingdom, only to run smack-dab into a tree. “Something just hit me,” you say to yourself, but you rub your head, get up and start over, and – bang! – you run into the next tree.

“Determination is everything,” you say to yourself, and you’re about to jump up and start over, when somebody kneels beside you, asking if you are all right, and adjusts your costume.

“Oh my, I didn’t know I was supposed to be able to see!”

We are not alone in the adventure of faith, and this Sunday gives us an opportunity to gratefully acknowledge that reality. We are surrounded by saints, by a great cloud of witnesses who have walked the road we are on. They are watching us, they are cheering us on, and they adjust our vision so we can see where we are going.

Saints, says Frederick Buechner, are not “plaster statues, men and women of such paralyzing virtue that they never thought a nasty thought or did an evil thing their whole life long. Saints are essentially life givers. To be with them is to become more alive.” (Wishful Thinking, p. 102)

Every Christian has them: those precious people who have helped shape us, role models in the art of the good life, people who inspire and encourage us. Some of them may still be around, others may have joined the church in heaven. Some of them you may have known in person, others you may have heard or read about. They are your saints, the people through whom God has made you who you are and continues to shape who you will be. They are not faith celebrities or super heroes of piety, but ordinary people whose lives reflect the glory of God’s grace. People like Angus and Minnie.

John is one of them, Saint John the Divine, a Christian leader, banned by order of Rome to the island of Patmos. Jerusalem was gone; the Romans, tired of the protests and revolts in the volatile province of Judaea, had destroyed the city and demolished the Temple – a pile of rubble was all that was left. With an iron fist they had brought peace to the troubled region, PAX ROMANA that is, the Roman variety of peace.

Christians were suspect because of their refusal to honor the gods of the empire. Violent persecution of the church wasn’t the norm, but many Christian leaders were executed or imprisoned, or, as in John’s case, banned. He found himself far from home, a prisoner on the small island of Patmos, off the coast of Turkey. The world around him was falling to pieces, and he knew that across the sea, in the cities of Asia Minor, where arrests and executions continued, his friends were suffering. They were losing hope.

They weren’t running into trees out of joyful exuberance, but because Rome had surrounded them with obstacles that turned just about every step toward the kingdom of God into an act of rebellion.

How could they possibly acclaim the emperor as Lord and Son of God when they had come to know Jesus as Lord?

How could they possibly praise the emperor as Savior of the World when in truth that title belonged to Jesus Christ?

How could they continue to live faithfully when all they could see was Rome’s might?

John saw the reality of persecution, but he looked beyond the horizon defined by Rome’s imperial reach. He saw the arrogance of power, but he looked beyond it, and he saw a holy city coming down out of heaven from God. He saw a city for all peoples, a city of peace.

To what end do we put on the white robe of baptism?

To what end do we follow Jesus on the way, and not other lords that vie for our allegiance?

To what end do we love and serve our God and our neighbor, and not our own ambitions?

Somebody needs to adjust our vision until we can see where we’re going, until our eyes are lined up with the reality and promises of God.

The end, Saint John reminds us, is not a handful of souls escaping to heaven; the end is the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to earth.

The end is not one tribe’s triumph over the others, or one nation’s victory over the others, ore one religion over the others – the end is a city for all peoples, and God is at home among them, dwelling with them, wiping every tear from their eyes.

The end is a city where death is no more, where mourning, crying, and pain are no more – the old order has been buried.

The end is a feast for all peoples, a feast of rich food and well-aged wines where Israel and the nations sing, “This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation,” and the one seated on the throne says, “See, I am making all things new.”

We hunger and thirst for righteousness, and we can already see what is coming.

We long for redemption and we work with compassion, and in the company of God’s saints we can already see what is coming.

We follow Jesus on the way, and in the company of Isaiah and John, surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, our eyes are lined up with the promises and purposes of God, and we can see what is coming: the blessed communion of humanity with God, the joy of heaven to earth come down, unhindered and unending and complete.

To what end do we put on the white robe of baptism? To be part of that transformation in this life and in the life to come.

To what end to we follow Jesus on the way, and not other lords that vie for our allegiance? To be part of that transformation in this life and in the life to come.

To what end do we love and serve our God and our neighbor, and not our own ambitions? To be part of that transformation in this life and in the life to come.

Little Houses and the City of God

2009-10-19T16:18:00.004-05:00

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them, a solitary figure against the darkening horizon. All they could do was try and keep up with him.

On the road, Jesus had taught them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be killed and after three days rise again, and they couldn’t hear it. The first time it was Peter who rebuked him for saying such things. Another time, Jesus was teaching them again how the Son of Man would be betrayed into human hands and be killed, and after three days rise again. They didn’t understand what he was saying, and instead of asking him, they argued with each other about who was the greatest. Jesus was way ahead of them, and all they could do was try and keep up with him.

A third time he stopped to tell them what was going to happen to him, and the contrast couldn’t be any sharper. He saw with blinding clarity where he was headed; he spoke in great detail about the religious authorities who would reject and condemn him, about Rome’s representatives who would mock, abuse and torture him before killing him. And again he spoke about rising after three days.

James and John approached him, and perhaps they had actually listened to what he had said. Perhaps they had heard every detail about how he would run into the walls of religious certainty and political convenience, the arrogance of power and the fickleness of public opinion, and how these walls would become his grave.
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” they said.

Perhaps they weren’t as inattentive and insensitive as we might suspect. Perhaps their confidence in Jesus’ final triumph was so complete that they ignored the dark clouds gathering ahead of them and leapt straight from the dusty road to the golden throne. In their minds, the way of Christ was but a step from all that was wrong with the world to the reign of righteousness. In their minds, they were standing at the door, their toes touching the threshold, and they could see the Risen One seated on the throne of glory.

“What is it you want me to do for you?”

“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory,” they replied.

They were dreaming about cabinet seats. Certainly the Messiah would need a Chief of Staff or a Vice President of Righteous Reign – and why not them, trusted friends who had been with him almost from day one?

Years ago, Dave Barry wrote about his experience as a summer intern in Washington.

The key thing was your position on the great Washington totem pole of status. Way up at the top of this pole is the president; way down at the bottom (…) is the public. In between is an extremely complex hierarchy of government officials, journalists, lobbyists, lawyers, and other power players, holding thousands of minutely graduated status rankings differentiated by extremely subtle nuances that only Washingtonians are capable of grasping. For example, Washingtonians know whether a person whose title is “Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary” is more or less important than a person whose title is “Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary,” or “Principal Deputy to Deputy Assistant Secretary,” or “Deputy to the Deputy Secretary,” or “Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary,” or “Chief of Staff to the Assistant Assistant Secretary.” (All of these are real federal job titles.) Everybody in Washington always seems to know exactly how much status everybody else has.

James and John thought of God’s reign as Washington writ large, and they wanted to be near the top of the totem pole.

“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory,” they said.

And Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.”

The way of the cross is not some new and improved way to power and glory; it is the way of the cross. It is a way that leads to rejection and suffering because it goes against the grain of human aspirations and the logic of human institutions.

Mark has no intention of singling out James and John as more naïvely ambitious than the other disciples. Peter, James and John, together with the others illustrate the gap between the mind of Jesus and the minds of those who follow him – and all we can do is try and keep up with him.

The way of Jesus is difficult because it requires that we surrender deep-rooted ideas of power and weakness, and follow. And that surrender is not a one-time laying down of arms, but a daily letting go of control.

“Not what I want, but what you want,” is the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane as he prepares to drink the cup of suffering, and it is the prayer of those who follow him. Not what I want – not my aspirations, my ambitions, my pursuits, but what you want – your will, your desire, your purpose.

The kingdom is not Washington writ large – the same old world with a new set of rulers on the same old thrones. The kingdom comes into the world by subverting our notions of power. It enters by undermining our desire to go all the way to the top in order to transform the world and all that is wrong with it from the top down. The kingdom entered the world in Jesus who came not to be served but to serve, and gave his life for a new way of being human.

We accept too easily that to seek control, influence, and power is simply human nature. Jesus certainly didn’t approach life that way and he revealed our true nature. He didn’t manipulate people to get what he wanted. He didn’t lord it over those who recognized his authority. He didn’t use others in the pursuit of his own personal ambitions. He was in the world as one who served God and every human life that touched his.

Now he is walking ahead of us, and all we can do is try and keep up with him on the way to God’s reign. He invites us to join him in his mission of service to all people by looking at others not as means to boost our own status and make our name great, but as fellow human beings whose desire to flourish goes hand in hand with God’s purpose for creation. He invites us to pray with him, “Not what I want, but what you want.” He invites us to quiet our ego that is so ambitious to rule, and to trust the reign of God. “Not what I want, but what you want.”

We are about to launch a ministry project here at Vine Street, homelessness: 360

For about a month we will bring together our worship, our study, and our service around the reality of women, men, and children who lack adequate housing. The causes and consequences of homelessness are complex, and nobody I know or have heard about claims to fully grasp what is needed to address and transform that reality.

Next Sunday, during lunch after worship, we will have the opportunity to talk with Jeff Blum, a Disciples minister who for over twenty years has worked in the crimininal justice system. Jeff is the Mental Health Coordinator for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, and in that role he sees daily how mental health issues, homelessness, and delinquency interact in ways that prevent human life from flourishing. I hope you will join us for that conversation.

Two weeks later, on November 8, Councilmember Erik Cole will be give the 2009 Roger T. Nooe Lecture for World Peace. Erik is the son of Pat and Ed, and as Chair of the Metro Homelessness Commission he has worked with creativity and dedication to bring our community together to prevent and end homelessness in our city. I hope you will be here to hear his thoughts on coordinating government programs with efforts in the business community, the non-profit sector, and Nashville’s many faith communities in addressing homelessness. There is a host of events and programs over the next four weeks, and they are all listed in today’s special insert and online.

One is especially near and dear to me, though. When Jesus tells us to seek greatness through service, I believe he is pointing to Room in the Inn, where we come together to prepare meals, make beds, open doors, and welcome the stranger under our roof. We share a meal, we share stories, we pray, we laugh and cry. For one night, the world is changed. You may not get your picture in the paper, you may not even get your name in the newsletter, but for that one night, you are part of changing the world and welcoming the reign of God.

Changing the world and welcoming the reign of God are big words. What I want to talk about in conclusion, though, is this little house. It’s little more than paper, glue, and some paint – even though it was designed by one of Nashville’s finest architects. It’s not a mansion, no matter from what angle you look at it, but it’s a house with four walls and a roof, a door and x windows.

We want at least one of these in every Vine Street household. We started production last week, and about 100 kits are ready for delivery and assembly. Each comes with a set of questions, so that every day you and your family, or you by yourself, or you and your co-workers, neighbors, or friends can spend some time thinking, talking and praying about what it means to have a home or not. And every time you do that, you drop a little piece of paper through the slot in the roof, a tiny piece of paper with a word or a sentence written on it, or a picture drawn on it.

In every Vine Street household, over the course of four weeks, a little house will collect and hold our gratitude, our hopes and frustrations, our helplessness and our commitments. And four weeks from today, on November 15, we all bring our prayer houses back to God’s house to build a city where all are at home – right here around Christ’s table.

James and John thought that in the kingdom new and better rulers would sit on the old thrones. Jesus taught them that the change required was much more significant. He challenged them and every generation of disciples after them to imagine a world where our love of God and neighbor is stronger than our ego’s ambition to rule.

Spending just a little time every day talking about what it means for us to have a home or not, may not seem like much. Setting aside just a few minutes every day to reflect and meditate on the reality of homelessness, may not seem like much. Filling a little paper house with little paper prayers every day, may not seem like much.

But the change required for human life to flourish and God’s purpose for creation to be fulfilled is not just one of political will or economic priorities or cultural attitudes. The change required is spiritual in nature, and it aims at the conversion of our imagination.

At first we may see only lots of little houses. In the end we will see the city of God.

Audio of this post

Terminator Friday

2009-10-16T11:57:00.004-05:00

I love animals. Most of the ones I know, anyway. Most of the time.
Until yellow jackets moved into our composter.

They, or rather one of them, bit Miles. We thought it was just one of those things that can happen in your backyard. We didn't know we had a whole nest of them right there in our green, boxy friend.

Then came the day when I emptied a bucket of coffee grounds and tea leaves. I wacked it against the composter to get all the stuff that alwasy sticks to the bottom of the bucket. Well, hello, yellowjackets! They came out like something from a bad horror movie, and they were mad! Luckily, I got bitten only twice, but it hurt (I don't know what the dickens are, but it sure hurt like them).

How do I get rid of them without chemical warfare? Today I went to the garage and got my little blue friend, the shop vac and the biggest vacuum hose withe longest extension.

I set it all up, with the deadly end of the vacuum hose right by the "entrance." All I had to do was give the composter a couple of wacks, and out they came - only to be sucked into eternal darkness.

Terminator Friday.

Just a Slice or the Whole Circle?

2009-10-15T18:55:00.005-05:00

homelessness : 360 is a ministry project that brings together what belongs together.

Too often we treat ministry like a pizza: a slice of worship, a slice of education, a slice of service in the community… But ministry is more like a circle where all points are defined by the common center.

Our worship, our study, our work, our fellowship, all share a common center in the God who meets us in Jesus Christ.

homelessness : 360 brings together all dimensions of our ministry around just one issue, homelessness. At Vine Street, over the course of approximately four weeks

we pray every day, guided by a simple question like, “What do I look forward to when I go home at night?”
we visit places like the Oasis Center and Campus for Human Development;
we listen to speakers who have left behind easy answers a long time ago, but won’t stop pushing for better responses;
we learn together how and why women, men, and children lose their homes;
we build little houses for our hopes and our sorrows;
we watch movies that help us imagine and understand the reality of not having a home;
we bring the little houses we have built and filled with our prayers to worship and we build a city with them;
we make beds, prepare meals, open the doors, and invite homeless men to spend the night and tell their stories.

No, we won’t look at the complexities of homelessness from every angle, but we will go full circle in engaging with them: with all our heart, mind, and strength. This is how we love and serve our God. This is how we love and serve our neighbor.

Here's a list of all homelessness: 360 events with more information.

Stumbling into hell?

2009-09-29T16:53:00.003-05:00

Demons and hell and self-mutilation, sprinkled with salt and unquenchable fire. Whoa!

Whatever happened to last Sunday’s Jesus? What happened to the gentle teacher who made it so easy to remember Mister Rogers? What happened to the nursery-painting-Jesus, the smiling man surrounded by the little children of the world, black and yellow, red and white?

This is no zero-calorie, honey-sweet Jesus who doesn’t offend anyone; this is holy fire and salt with a bite. This is Mark’s way of shaking us out of our unholy habit of making our own personal Jesus in the image of what we like to call our needs. This is Jesus pushing back against our desire to domesticate him to our own little world where we have prepared a place for him.

On the way to Jerusalem, on the way to the cross, the disciples had been arguing with one another who was the greatest. Jesus took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Without a doubt he surprised and confused them when he told them that the littlest ones, the ones without any power or status, are indeed the earthly embodiments of the great God of heaven who desires to be with us.

I wonder if Jesus was still holding the child in his arms when John responded, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

Jesus was speaking about welcoming little ones, but his disciples were concerned about what others were doing in his name. Ironic, isn’t it? Jesus urges us to learn to see the presence of God in the ones we so easily overlook, like the very child in his arms, but our eyes are busy watching the competition instead.

“Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” Yes, you heard that right. Not ‘because he was not following you’ or ‘because he was not following with us.’ “We tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” Ironic, isn’t it? Jesus is teaching his followers to see the world through his eyes, but we are busy observing and judging the actions of others who don’t see things our way.

The greatest irony, however, may well be that only a few verses earlier in Mark, the disciples were unable to do anything when a father asked them to help his son who was being tormented by a demon. They couldn’t do anything, because they didn’t pray (Mark 9:14-29). But now, instead of celebrating that great works of healing and liberation in Jesus’ name were being done outside their circle, they intervened as if they had the exclusive copyright on Jesus’ name.

Lack of spiritual grounding, failure to bring about healing, lack of attention, obsession with status, and jealous protection of what we consider our turf – the emerging picture of Jesus’ followers is not very attractive. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and we claim to be following him, but Mark holds up a mirror and for a moment we realize that we are suffering from serious ADD. Our eyes are not on the one who is going ahead of us; our feet are not pointed in the direction he is going; and our hands are busy doing many things. We stumble over our attitudes, our priorities, our distractions, ourselves.

Mark confirms that stumbling is quite common among disciples, and to the degree that it puts an occasional dent in our pride, tripping over ourselves is perhaps even to be welcomed. But our lack of attention and our misdirected desires have consequences not just for us but also for others.

Just like the disciples were not able to cast out the demon from the boy because they were not rooted in prayer, we will not be able to do our part in God’s mission of healing, liberation, and wholeness unless we are spiritually rooted in the presence and power of Christ. We need to be grounded not just for our own well-being and wholeness, but for the sake of others, for the sake of the gospel and the world.

Just like John overlooked the child in Jesus’ arms because his attention was elsewhere, we will be blind to the presence of God in the powerless unless we have our eyes opened by the living Christ. We need to have our vision adjusted not just for own sake, but for the healing of the nations.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are to be fully engaged in God’s mission: our hands the hands of healing, our feet the feet of messengers of peace, our eyes the eyes of compassion, our lips the lips of truth. We bear the name of Christ in order that we might be conduits of God’s grace and mercy, and anything that blocks their flow must go.

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 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.

I hear these terrifying words, and I don’t know what to make of them; their brutality shocks me, their violence disturbs me. My immediate reaction is silence. My inclination is to joke, “Now if your other hand causes you to stumble, you’ll find it difficult to cut it off since you have only that one hand left.” I want to joke and laugh to release some of the tension, yet at the same time I know that these words are no laughing matter.

Throughout history, people have been scapegoated and cut off from their communities for allegedly causing others to stumble. Heretics were cut off and burnt at the stake lest they cause the body of Christ to stumble. Dissenters were cut off and disappeared lest they cause chaos in the body politic. No, these words are no laughing matter.

I wonder if they are meant to shock us; because so much is at stake, and we don’t get it when Jesus tells us to stop obsessing about status and start paying attention to each other. Perhaps he speaks of decisive, violent action, because nothing else gets our attention.

I am reminded of a wolf who stepped into a trap and it snapped shut. For an entire day, she tried unsuccessfully to free herself, pulling and biting the chain, trying to pry open the steel jaws with her snout. The next day she bit off her own leg, leaving her foot in the trap. She was limping, but she was free, she was alive.

You know it’s not your foot that’s causing you to walk off the trail, literally or metaphorically. It’s not somebody’s hand that’s causing them to lash out and hurt their spouse or a child. It’s not my eye that’s causing me to ignore the needs of others or to see only what I want to see.

It is my lack of attention to the reign of God that’s causing me to stumble. It is my being absorbed with myself, my status, and my needs that’s pulling me off the way of Christ. Jesus says that this path of self-centeredness can only end in hell, and I believe him. I don’t believe, though, that hell is a place of God’s making. Hell is what happens to life when we have it our way.

The path to life requires that I let myself be transformed by the grace and mercy of God. It requires that I attend to and trust the voice and word of God, that I keep my eyes on Jesus and my hands ready to serve others. It requires that I don’t try to domesticate Jesus by showing him the place I have prepared for him in the house of my life. It requires that I follow him on the way until we get to the city where all are at home.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to be fully engaged in God’s mission with all our heart, and soul, and might. We bear the name of Christ in order that we might be conduits of God’s grace and mercy, and anything that blocks their flow must go.

The imagery of cutting limbs and gouging eyes is disturbing, but it reminds us that faith in Christ isn’t just a matter of the heart feeling strangely warmed by the touch of grace, and then seeking to repeat or prolong that feeling. The transformation of the self in the image of Christ includes the removal of all that hinders the flow of grace – walls of suspicion, boulders of pride, dams of greed – and removing those obstacles can be painful. Our spiritual formation as disciples of Jesus Christ is not just a matter of heart and mind, or of attitudes and opinions. Our hands and our actions must invite and proclaim the reign of God. Our feet must become familiar with the way of peace and the path of forgiveness. Our eyes must learn to completely follow the gaze of Christ, our ears to pay attention to the still, small voice, and our lips to be careful in what we say and sing.

When and how do we learn these things and develop these new familiarities? First and foremost in weekly worship, in the presence of the living Christ in the community of believers. Then in our daily attention to prayer and work.

In the end, it is not our willingness to go to violent extremes with ourselves or with others that allows us to enter life. It is God’s unwavering commitment to us and our redemption, and our willingness to allow God to do this work with us.

Audio of this post

World Communion Sunday 2009

2009-09-22T13:02:00.006-05:00

World Communion Sunday is celebrated by congregations around the globe. The first Sunday of October has become a time when Christians in every culture break bread and pour the cup to remember and affirm Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church. On that day, Christians everywhere remember that we are part of the whole body of believers. With this unique focus on the Table and on Christian unity, it should not surprise us, that this day is one of the "High Holidays" of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Whether the Table brings people together in a grand cathedral, a mud hut, outside on a hilltop, in a meetinghouse, or in a storefront, or whether the Table is made of wood or stone or represented by a blanket on the ground – God’s people around the globe gather in response to Christ’s invitation to give thanks for the gifts of God.

At Vine Street this year, we will celebrate World Communion Sunday with our friends from the Congo. Nouvelle Aliance has been worshiping on Fridays and Sundays in our chapel for several months now, and our worship committee and the leadership of Nouvelle Aliance decided to have our first joint worship service on this special day. We will sing familiar tunes with words in English, French, and Lingala. We will hear Scripture read in various languages as well, and our prayers will reflect the wonderful diversity of the body of Christ. All of us, no matter what journey has brought us to the table, no matter what language or culture has shaped us, all of us will come to the table with empty hands to receive the gifts of God for a hungry world, the gifts that make us whole.

It is no coincidence that in the afternoon of that day, we will have yet another celebration. In the fall of 1809, Thomas Campbell published a brief essay, Declaration and Address, a passionate call to Christian unity. That document became one of the key texts for the Stone-Campbell Movement and its vision of the church, and to this day it inspires the ministry of Christian Churches, Churches of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

In celebration of the bicentennial of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address Christians, congregations with roots in that movement will come together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on Sunday October 4, 2009. Here in Nashville, we will meet at 4PM at the West End Church of Christ; our own T.J. McLaughlin will direct a unity choir. There won’t be any preaching, only a brief statement about the historical importance of the occasion – both two-hundred years ago and today – and an invitation to what Campbell called “that great ordinance of Unity and Love.”

Won't you be my neighbor?

2009-09-22T09:17:00.006-05:00

I didn’t meet Mr. Rogers until I was well into my thirties – the Mister Rogers that is, the one with the cardigan and the warm smile and the song, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…”

My colleague, Rochelle Stackhouse grew up with Mr. Rogers and his kind invitation to all children,

Since we’re together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?

Rochelle remembers the first time she met Mr. Rogers in person ( see Lectionary Homiletics 20, No. 5, August/September 2009, p. 61). She was standing with a group of adults and several small children waiting for an elevator at Princeton Seminary. The doors opened, and to their great surprise, out stepped Fred Rogers. In case you’re wondering, “What on earth was he doing there?” – Mr. Rogers was a Presbyterian minister, and thus not completely out of place at Princeton. Anyway, he got off the elevator, and as the adults all spoke to him, he didn’t pay them any attention and instead stooped down to greet the children standing there first. Only after he had spoken to each one of them did he stand back up and speak to the taller people.

That was Mister Rogers. A tall man, he stooped to live, at least for a moment, in the world of the little ones. And with that small effort of attention he brought them in.

Do you remember having to climb up on the kitchen stool on which you simply sat down only a few years later? Do you remember being in a room with adults and they were all standing and chatting way up there while you were trying to find your way across the room through a forest of legs?

I remember sitting at the small table with the rest of the kids at every family gathering, and we would eat and talk and laugh and fight – and I remember how proud I was when I got to sit at the grown-up table for the first time. They had put one of the firm pillows on my chair to bring me up a couple of inches, so I could reach my glass and get a better view of my dinner plate. So there I sat, and I ate and I drank and I watched and I listened. At that table, I didn’t laugh much; the adults weren’t even half as hilarious as my cousins. I also didn’t say much, because my mom had been very clear that I was only to speak when spoken to, and who talks to a little boy when there’s a table full of grown-ups? I noticed that knocking over my glass of apple juice got everybody’s attention, but I also learned that the adults didn’t think peas in a puddle were nearly as funny as I thought.

We all have memories like that, memories of a world just beyond our reach, a world we can’t wait to belong to. Getting to the grown-up table is easy, all you have to do is get older. Getting to hang out with the cool people at high-school is a lot tougher, and getting a piece of the American Dream Pie even more so: you either have to figure out who’s doing the slicing and get yourself a seat at that table, or get a hold of the pie and a knife, or learn to bake.

From a very young age, we are encouraged to be ambitious and competitive, to set goals for ourselves and pursue them, to work hard and meet the right people.

The disciples had met Jesus. They had met the one who would set all things right. He had talked about going to Jerusalem, and they were ready for the challenge. They were still in Galilee, still preparing for the great journey south to the city of David. Jesus was still teaching them, talking again about being betrayed into human hands and being killed and after three days rising again.

They did not understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to ask him. Why do you think were they afraid to ask? Was it because they didn’t want to appear too slow for the race to the top? Was it because they had to make the others believe that they had it all together?

Instead of asking questions, they were jockeying for positions of influence and status. You know that at least two of them spoke with great conviction about sitting at Jesus’ right and left when he would come in glory. And one of them had to mention several times that he had been with Jesus the longest, and another that Jesus had already entrusted him with the office of treasurer. And while one touted his revolutionary zeal, another bragged about his connections in the business community.

When they got to the house, Jesus, never afraid to ask questions, said, “What were you arguing about on the way?” And suddenly they were silent, the whole chatty, ambitious bunch; no one said a word. Do you think they were embarrassed? I don’t know; had he asked them in private, individually, he may have heard statements like, “That Theophilus thinks he is the greatest” or “Bartholomew is dreaming about a seat on the supreme court.”

Three times in the gospel of Mark, Jesus talks about being rejected and betrayed, being handed over and condemned to death, being killed and rising again after three days. Three times, not just because this is disturbing news that doesn’t sink in easily, but because the meaning of discipleship is so tied up with that particular path. To follow this Messiah on his path is to let him turn our world, the world we and the generations before us have made of God’s creation, to let him turn that world upside down.

He sits down, calls the twelve, and says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” In the kingdoms of the world, those at the top of the ladder lord it over those at the bottom. But in the kingdom of God, earth and heaven touch not at the top, in the clouds of power where one hand washes the other, but at the bottom where Jesus stoops to wash our feet. On this path, greatness is defined not in terms of superiority but service.

It is easy to imagine at this point a new round of arguments among the disciples, only now we try to outperform one another in lowliness, now we strive to stand out, head and shoulders above the rest, with our perfect humility. “Look at me, Jesus, I’m the humblest.” But that’s not the path.

We all start out little. We all start out needing to be noticed, needing to be held, needing to be talked to and fed. We all start out needing to be welcomed despite our lack of status, knowledge, accomplishments and any measure of greatness. We we need somebody to see us simply because we are here, and we become human only through the eyes and hands and words of others.
I wonder how much our desire for greatness has to do with that deep need to be seen, to be noticed and recognized, and finally, finally welcomed.

Jesus took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

We are arguing about who is the greatest and worthy of recognition, and Jesus puts a child among us. We didn’t notice the child, did we? We were engaged in important conversations, making sure our voice would get through, our opinion would be heard, and our contribution recognized in its importance.

Jesus stoops and picks up a little child; not necessarily a precious, cuddly little sunshine, one of those fat-cheeked cherubs politicians like to pick up anytime cameras are around. Just a child, any child, and he says to us who want to follow him, “If you want to be great, notice the little ones and bring them in.” To be great is not to make yourself as big as possible just to be seen, but to shift your attention and notice the little ones. Welcome the one who has little or no status, who is not great by any measure, the one who is beyond the circle, who needs a welcome.

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Welcome is woven through this teaching unlike any other verse of scripture. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, as steady as the holy, holy, holy sung in heaven. Welcoming the little ones, those who are so easily overlooked at the tables where the grown-up conversations take place, we welcome Christ himself, and welcoming him, we welcome the One who sent him.

Much of our theological tradition has taught us to wonder, “What must I do, who do I have to be in order to be worthy to be received and welcomed by the holy God?” In Jesus’ teaching the perspective is turned around, and our attention is turned away from ourselves and our anxious obsession with our status. The challenge for a disciple of Jesus is not to be seen, but to see.

The little ones, those made invisible by our arrangements of power and importance, our patterns of inclusion and exclusion, are truly the embodiment of the invisible God who comes to us. Welcoming one such child, says Jesus, we welcome the Holy One whose powerful word created the heavens and the earth.

Since we’re together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?

Those are lines worth remembering and repeating.

Audio of this post

homelessness : 360

2009-09-15T09:11:00.006-05:00

why 360?

At Vine Street, we want to integrate what we do in education, advocacy, service, and worship; 360 is the sum of all angles, and a circle is a beautiful thing (especially when no one’s left out).

why homelessness?

Lack of housing makes all other problems worse; poverty is a systemic issue (and a challenge to any spirituality), and housing is a good point of entry into the complexities of loving and serving the poor among our neighbors. In the future, we will use the 360 concept to address other issues like hunger or immigration as well as our local and global neighborhood.

how?

On October 20, Campus for Human Development commission their new volunteers in a worship service at Vine Street.

In the weeks to follow we address issues of homelessness through education events for adults, youth, and children – including tours, books, videos, and conversations.

Members of every Vine Street household engage in two weeks of prayer: every human being needs a home. Families and individuals have a little paper house – like a coin bank – to collect and offer some of their prayers in writing.

On November 8, Erik Cole gives the 2009 Roger T. Nooe Lecture on World Peace with a focus on homelessness in Nashville. Erik grew up at Vine Street, and he is known in the community for his work on the Metro Council, and specifically for his strong leadership on the Metro Homelessness Commission.

On November 15, individuals and families bring their “houses of prayer” to God’s house of prayer. The worship service celebrates God’s hospitality and challenges us to renewed commitment to participate in God’s mission of bringing all people home; part of that recommitment are our time&talent surveys. Our annual Thanksgiving luncheon adds to the festive character of the day; that night, Vine Street begins a week of hosting Room in the Inn.

Throughout the process, participants write about their experience at vinestreet.ning.com

Worship Forum 3

2009-09-14T16:55:00.005-05:00

One wild and precious life

2009-09-14T16:40:00.002-05:00

Mark 8:27-38 provides the context for this post

All the school supplies have been purchased and the first ball games of the new season have been lost and won. You have moved your beach bum and pool clothes to a different corner of the closet, perhaps to a different closet altogether. The garden, after weeks of lush fecundity, is dreaming of cold sabbath days of rest. And on the Osage Orange tree the leaves are already turning and falling. Summer is on its way out and fall is in the air.

I invite you to linger a little, to hold on to one of those summer moments when you could hear the crickets chirping, and the whole world smelled like grass and, by some wondrous magic, time stood still.

I want to read for you The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver. I connect with this poem because I too have sat in the grass, lost in wonder, watching some little detail of creation. I too have strolled through the fields, idle and blessed all day long, simply allowing views, smells, sounds, and questions to rise.

In Mary Oliver’s poem, the questions change from childlike curiosity and wonder, “Who made the world?“ to very grown-up responsibility,

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Questions about life float easily into each other. Tell me, what will it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your one wild and precious life? Jesus teaches that the way to find life and save it is to give it away, to lose it for something. And nothing is more terrifying than the suspicion that you have given away your life, perhaps only one day of it, for too little or for the wrong currency.

I heard an interview with a New York stock broker on the radio last week. When the big brokerage houses went down fast last fall, he thought his job with a smaller firm was safe. He had a position on the trading floor, he had a function and he fulfilled it. And he fulfilled it with pride, because Frank – let’s call him Frank – was a certified member of the New York Stock Exchange like his father and grandfather before him, and they both had worked well beyond their 80th birthdays. Frank was looking forward to a few more good years before retirement.

In November he got the phone call, and the news hit him like a truck out of nowhere; somebody said something about streamlining and necessary adjustments to the overall cost structure. Frank hung up the phone and got on the subway back to New Jersey.

Frank is 52 years old, and his chances of ever working in the financial sector again are slim. He still gets up early in the morning, but instead of catching the subway to Wall Street at 6:30 AM, he now makes breakfast for his wife and youngest son. He’s noticed that the number of dads dropping off their kids at school in the morning has been going up, and at the end of the summer he went to his first parent-teacher-night in years. Frank lost a dream when he lost his job, but now he knows that in the pursuit of his dream he had given away his life for too little, and he is grateful that he noticed that before it was too late. Mercy comes in surprising ways.

In today’s Gospel lesson, the question, “What will it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?” is raised rather late. The first question of the dialogue is an easy one, the answer a simple matter of completing an informal poll and reporting the results.

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks.

The disciples answer, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets. They look to you as a teacher and healer and a spiritual master.” It’s easy to talk about Jesus.

The second question is anything but easy.

“Who do you say that I am?”

They had been with him since the first days on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. They had followed him from town to town, village to village, farm to farm, and wherever he went, they had seen signs of God’s reign: he healed the sick, he drove out demons, and he gave bread to thousands. They had seen hope springing up among the poor; they had heard powerful words of forgiveness, and teachings that left the religious experts speechless.

“Who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” You are the Christ, you are God’s Anointed One, you are the One sent to save God’s people Israel. That’s a powerful response, but it is not as simple as it may seem.

The journey will go to Jerusalem, the City of David. They look down the path, and images of greatness rise in their minds: God’s Messiah waging war against the forces of evil and cleansing the land from all impurity; God’s Messiah driving out the foreign oppressors and establishing peace in Zion; God’s Messiah entering the city in glory and claiming his crown and throne and kingdom.

They look down the path and see it all very clearly: the words of the prophets – finally fulfilled; the glory of Zion – finally restored; the reign of God – finally established.

But Jesus doesn’t call for his horse and armor. He is not the answer to our questions. Jesus looks down the path and what he sees is very different from our expectations:

The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

His suffering, his rejection and death are not unfortunate accidents, the regrettable but preventable results of particular political circumstances. Jesus must undergo great suffering and be killed because in faithfulness to God’s way he rejects our self-seeking, self-serving, power-building, and control-maintaining ways.

To say to Jesus, “You are the Messiah”is to let him break the mold of our expectations and follow him on the way. To say to Jesus, “You are the Christ”is to believe that the way to enter the reign of God is laid out not in our imagination, but in his way to the cross.

Peter took him aside and rebuked him. The glamour of following Jesus to the City of David was suddenly gone for him; he had a different map in mind, a different path and outcome. This wasn’t what he had planned to do with his one wild and precious life, so he quit following and became a voice of temptation until Jesus called him again.

At the center of Mark’s Gospel, the question is, Do we follow whom we need Jesus to be for us or Will we follow Jesus on his way?

Midway between Galilee and Jerusalem, Jesus calls us again to follow him, only this time we know what lies ahead:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

He calls us to let ourselves be marked as Christ’s own and to follow him on the way where life is not measured in what we gain and pile up and secure, but in how we give ourselves away. We cannot possess this one wild and precious life, we can only live it in love with God and with each other. All our attempts to secure life by gaining control over the world and over others will only exhaust our souls in the effort; we will lose what we meant to save. He calls us to follow him on the way where we no longer try and save ourselves with all our formidable means of power, but let him be our Savior. He frees us from the incessant tyranny of doing more and walks us to a life of losing our petty obsessions and mistaken priorities for the love of God and neighbor.

Summer is almost over and our schedules are filling up fast. New routines quickly become old ones, and you already know that soon you will forget that summer day when you remembered,

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?

This question is a good one when it asks for more ways to live fully in relationship with God, and with loved ones, friends, neighbors, and strangers, and with this beautiful earth. This same question is a sad one when it is asked too late and with regret, because so many summer days, fall, winter, and spring days have come and gone with too little wonder, too little attention, and too little love.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

For us the answer has everything to do with how we respond to Jesus’ question, Who do you say that I am?

Audio of this post

Worship Forum 2

2009-09-09T10:31:00.003-05:00

A Tale of Two Houses

2009-09-08T09:25:00.005-05:00

Jesus went away, far away from home; he went north to the region of Tyre, a city on the Mediterranean in what’s today southern Lebanon. Going there, he crossed the border in more than one sense, leaving behind the familiar Jewish and rural culture of Galilee for a port city infamous for its pagan ways. He went from where almost everybody was “one of us” to where almost everybody was “one of them” – Greek-speaking people who worshiped strange gods, ate strange foods, wore strange clothes, and observed strange customs.

This wasn’t the first time Jesus went away to be alone, but it was the first time he went so far. “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there,” Mark writes, “yet he could not escape notice.” Word about him had travelled faster than he did, and a Gentile from the area, a mother whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately had heard about him. All by herself, she entered the house and bowed down at his feet, begging him to cast the demon out of her child.

It wasn’t proper for a woman to enter a house in order to approach a man who didn’t belong to her family for help. It was unthinkable for a Gentile woman to approach a Jewish man for help for a little girl, let alone a girl possessed by a demon.

She did it anyway. So much was wrong with that little scene, but she ignored every rule to get close to Jesus and beg for her child’s well-being. We may continue to wonder why Jesus crossed the border, but we know in our bones why she did. The walls of custom, language, gender, religion and ethnicity were high between her and the man from Nazareth, insurmountable, some might say, but her love for her child gave her wings. She left the house where her child lay bound by a demon, and she went to the house where Jesus was, a house built with walls of otherness and difference, but also one in which the promise of healing was hiding. She got through to Jesus, bowed down at his feet in a posture of complete surrender, and begged him to free her daughter.

It would be so easy to imagine how he took her by the hand and told her to get up and go home, saying that the demon had left her daughter and that all was well. But he didn’t. Instead he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

If you were to write the script for a Jesus movie, that’s a scene you’d likely want to skip, unless you want to portray Jesus as a ranting radio talkshow host. This line about children and dogs just doesn’t sound like the kind of Jesus you’d want to introduce, does it? It’s like he’s sitting in this little house of exclusive concern for his own people, telling the rest of the world that we’ll just have to live with our demons. The kingdom of God has come near, but nearer to some than to others. “Let the children be fed first,” he said to her, telling her in no uncertain terms that at the table where the bread of life was broken and shared her little girl didn’t qualify as a child.

Galilean peasants were not fond of city folk like this woman. Small farms produced most of the food for the urban populations, but the latter controlled the markets. People in the cities bought up and stored so much of the harvest for themselves each season that the country folk did not have enough, especially in times when supplies went down and prices went up. In the ears of poor Galilean farmers, Jesus told this rich lady to get in line and wait her turn. In God’s reign, the last would be first, and those rich, sophisticated, urban Gentiles who always managed to be first, those dogs would be last.

The little scene is explosive because this encounter in the border region brings to light powerful prejudices that have a real basis in the social, economic, and political relationships between two neighboring peoples. When Jesus refers to the woman and her daughter as dogs, he does not evoke an endearing image of happy puppies who sleep in their owners bed and eat better than half the world’s children; he insults her and her child with a familiar pejorative.

In Jesus’ time and culture, dogs were semi-wild animals that roamed the streets scavenging for food; they were not allowed inside the house. Jesus told the woman that the door was closed for her and her child. The time would come when those outside of the covenant would be welcome inside, but not yet, not now, not her. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

But this unnamed mother was already in the house. If you want to call her a dog, call her a bulldog, for she won’t let go.

“In my house, Sir,” she says, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

She takes the insult and reflects it back, and now the picture looks very different. In my house, she tells him, dogs don’t wait until the children are finished; dogs and children both eat at the same time. The dogs position themselves strategically around and under the table, their eyes focussed with undivided attention, their tails wagging in joyful expectation of a bit of bread dropped either by accident or by a child’s secret design.

In my house, she tells him, the children eat their fill and the dogs still get to feast on the crumbs. You can send me away, but not until you have tossed me a crumb-sized blessing. I’m not asking for a seat at the table; even a morsel of mercy will suffice to free my daughter from the chains of the demon that is holding her captive. There is no reason why the reign of God should be enclosed by the walls of this house; break the bread, feed the children, and let the dogs have a feast.

Jesus said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”

Seven short verses that can make your head spin. Did this woman, with her dogged persistence and her quick wit, driven by her love for her child, did she remind Jesus of the wideness of God’s mercy? Did she convince him that the time to open up the covenant was not sometime but now?

She left the house where he had hoped to remain invisible, and she left it with a blessing she had wrestled from him – or rather with a promise: “You may go, the demon has left your daughter.”

She still had to go from the house of promise to the house where her child was now free. She wouldn’t know with certainty that God’s reign was indeed open to all until she had returned. All she could do was to take Jesus at his word and leave for the long journey home. She had begged with desperate intensity, she had argued with wit and unbending resolve, but now she had to walk with trust. And she did; she stepped across the threshold and went home – with a morsel of a promise that meant more than the world to her.

In this scene of only seven verses, an unnamed Gentile mother dwells at the margins; she bumps up against walls of custom, language, gender, religion and ethnicity, walls that have the power to hide Jesus and the promise of God’s reign, walls that can exclude people from the abundance of God’s mercy.

In this scene she dwells at the margins, but in the gospel of Jesus Christ, this unnamed Gentile mother dwells at the center together with others who show us the meaning and power of faith. The word faith is never mentioned, but her actions embody it beautifully: her dogged determination fuelled by her love, her courage and perseverance in wrestling with the very Son of God, and her trust in the promise that the reign of God was indeed open for all.

She went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. And more than one demon was gone. The equally threatening demon of prejudice, and of relationships destroyed by injustice, had been driven out as well. The miracle of Jesus’ power and a woman’s faith consisted not only in healing a child far away; the miracle also became manifest in the bridging of the divisive distance between nations and cultures, in the overcoming of the realities that separate us by the reality that brings us together. We sing a song about that miracle:

As Christ breaks bread and bids us share,
Each proud division ends.
The love that made us, makes us one,
And strangers now are friends.

The miracle continues wherever the power of God in Jesus Christ and the tenacity of our faith come together. The house of prejudice becomes the house of promise, and the house of bondage becomes the house of laughter. May God bless us with faith that won’t let go.

Audio of this post

Outside In and Inside Out

2009-08-31T10:46:00.002-05:00

Wherever Jesus went during his ministry in Galilee, people gathered. Wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they brought the sick and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed (see Mark 6:56). People wanted to get close to him because his presence was healing.

Others gathered, because Jesus’ presence was confusing, even disturbing. The Pharisees and some of the scribes from Jerusalem closely watched him, kept an eye on his followers and what they did, and what they saw didn’t mesh with their high expectations for proper piety:

Tax collectors and sinners sat at table with him and his disciples.
The disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees fasted regularly, but his didn’t.
On the sabbath, they plucked heads of grain while walking through the fields, and their master even cured a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on that holy day.

It was all a bit too much for the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a reform movement within Judaism with a passion for sanctifying every dimension of daily life. When God said to Moses, “You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exodua 19:6), they heard a call to holy living modelled on priestly standards. God wanted Israel to be a priestly kingdom, and for the Pharisees that meant that the laws written for the priesthood and the Temple applied to all people and every aspect of daily home life.

To them every meal was a sacred ritual, every action an occasion for blessing the Lord. They opened their eyes in the morning praising God for the gift of light; they went about their daily work praising God for the gifts of their skills and strength; they opened a scroll of scripture blessing God for the gift of Torah; they broke bread giving thanks to God for the gifts of the earth and of human labor; they tucked in their sons and daughters at night praising God for the gift of children – a beautiful practice.

Yet Pharisees also stayed away from all things and all people that might have rendered them unclean. They did not eat with known sinners. They avoided interacting with strangers. And around the sick, they were careful not to touch or be touched.

Wherever Jesus went, people gathered.

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them (Mark 7:1-2).

Their concern was not personal hygiene, but piety and ritual purity. Ritual washing would remove any accidental impurity they might have acquired unknowingly while interacting with all kinds of people. A simple act like pouring a little water over one’s hands before a meal, recommended by wise teachers of the past, helped maintain the boundary between holiness and the common world.

Some of Jesus’ disciples did not observe that tradition, others apparently did; so the clash wasn’t just between Jesus and the Pharisees, but perhaps also between groups of Jesus’ own followers. In Mark’s account, however, perhaps for the sake of clarity, the lines are clearly drawn. He even adds an editorial comment saying, “all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands,” which is incorrect historically, but makes for great drama.

“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders?” the Pharisees and the scribes from Jerusalem ask. Jesus calls them hypocrites who honor God outwardly, but whose hearts are far from God. He accuses them of teaching human precepts as doctrines while abandoning the commandment of God and holding on to human tradition.

If anyone asked you and me whether we will live by God’s word and commandment or by human tradition, we would obviously choose God’s word. But then it wouldn’t take us long to realize that God’s word is available to us only through human mediation, be it written or spoken or embodied. The word and command of God is not a voice from heaven or a book that fell from the sky, but a voice that speaks to us in the voice of Moses and the prophets, in the life of Jesus, in his death and resurrection, in the teachings of the apostles and the stories of the gospels. Before we can understand and obey, we must interpret the written and spoken words – and our interpretations will always differ.

The Pharisees heard the commandment of God, “You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine” (Leviticus 20:26). Who can blame them for wanting to maintain that separation in every dimension of daily life? Who can blame them for striving for holiness in all things? Who can blame them for sometimes losing sight of God’s mercy in their persistent attention on the line between the sacred and the profane and on not allowing it to get blurry?

In the conflict of interpretations, of course we identify our own traditions with the word of God and denigrate the viewpoints of our opponents as merely human tradition. Things will only get better when we learn to listen together to the many streams of our tradition. Things will only get better when we have men and women who teach us not only to understand and obey the word of God in our own tradition, but also to look at our own certainties from the perspective of those who question them.

The Pharisees gathered around Jesus when he ate with sinners; they saw that he crossed a line; what they didn’t see was that he crossed it to bring reconciliation.

The Pharisees gathered around Jesus when he cured a man on the sabbath; they saw that he crossed a line; what they didn’t see was that he crossed it to include the man in the peace and promise of sabbath by healing him.

The Pharisees gathered around Jesus when five-thousand had been fed with bread and fish and the baskets were overflowing – and all they could see was that some disciples hadn’t washed their hands.

Their passion was deep, their knowledge broad, but they could only see what their tradition allowed them to see. Like them, we will only see what our tradition allows us to see – unless we at least consider that sometimes the living word of God will say and do something unheard of.

“Listen to me,” says Jesus, “all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”

I want to scribble in the margins, “Not so fast. There is plenty outside a person that by going in can defile. We are not born with our prejudices. We are not immune to the subtle messages that tell us that we are unworthy of love.” Like I said, if I had an inch or two of white margins in my Bible, I would have started listing the many ways in which words, ideas, attitudes, and reactions can defile a person’s innate sacredness and even snuff the light of hope in their heart.

But Jesus is speaking in the context of a tense debate over boundaries and how to maintain holiness, and he flips the Pharisees’ view on its head.

Their focus on ritual purity leads to a desire for islands of holiness in the threatening sea of unholy chaos that is the world. In their view, the danger comes from outside, from others, from those whose only place in the sacred order of things is that of outsiders.

And Jesus says, “Evil things come from within. Evil intentions come from the human heart.” He draws my attention away from me as the possible victim of exposure to unholy and polluting influences. And he draws my attention back to me as the possible source of the very things that I’m afraid might touch me.

As long as I expect the threat to holy living only to come from outside, I’m more likely to develop patterns of avoidance, critical observation, and accusation of others. But as soon as I begin to look honestly at myself, I will learn patterns of self-knowledge, repentance, and humility. And the better I know my own heart, the deeper my compassion for others will be.

The God we serve is holy and calls us to be holy. The God we serve is in our midst not to erect new boundaries but to gather us into relationships and draw us into the holiness of Christ. And in his presence we realize that, yes, sin is strong, but forgiveness prevails. The world is not what it could and should be, but Christ is risen from the dead and a new world has begun. Our calling in that new world is to find windows in the walls, to reach across barriers of language and culture, and to push aside barricades of prejudice and fear.

Jesus was not afraid to touch the sick, the poor, the crazed, he wasn’t afraid to brush against those fallen from the public’s grace, he touched and healed and held and fed, and wherever he went, the people gathered. Because of him we know that God’s holiness is not the static quality of a distant deity, but a movement to the world, a loving fearlessness that leaps over walls to get to every single one of us, until all are one.

You know better than I where you can participate in that movement. You know better than I who might be waiting for a phone call from you. You know better than I where you can reach across the fences that still divide our community into insiders and outsiders.

In the law of Moses, God commands God’s people, “Be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45).
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus commands, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus commands, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”(Matthew 5:48).

Once we begin to see that God’s holiness is God’s merciful movement to the world, all three speak of the same reality: God transforms our hearts that our lives may be sanctified by our daily participation in God’s mission, finding windows in the walls, reaching across barriers, and taking down barricades.

God Moments

2009-08-19T17:16:00.010-05:00

There’s a brand-new feature on vinestreet.ning.com; it’s a microblog called God Moments.

It works very much like a community bulletin board. Members write brief paragraphs to share those unexpected moments in the course of a day when God becomes more real than anything or everything else around. They write about beautiful encounters that inspired them, or situations that shocked them into noticing the previously ignored. God Moments is about all kinds of daily encounters with the Divine.

Vine Street members and friends are familiar with a beautiful night ritual to lift up a day of work, play, and fellowship: one person asks, “Where did you see God today?”, and some or all members of the group respond by sharing their stories.

The microblog God Moments is very similar. The one thing that’s different is that the focus isn’t so much on seeing, but on being found. The opening question is, “How did God find you today?”

The God moments members share will appear at vinestreet.ning.com, Vine Street’s social network for members, as well as at Vine Street’s new website (will go live in early September). There, they will give online visitors an opportunity to see faces and hear voices that introduce them to the people of Vine Street (and not just to the staff and/or webmaster).

Give Me Jesus (Flesh and Blood)

2009-08-17T13:49:00.006-05:00

One day, tired out by his journey, Jesus was sitting by a well around noon. When a woman came to draw water, he asked her for a drink. She thought that was strange, since he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan, and Jews didn’t share things in common with Samaritans.

He said to her, “If you knew who it is that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

The woman pointed out that the well was deep and that he didn’t have a bucket. “Where do you get that living water?”

And he said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

What else could she have said in reply but, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty”? -- John 4:5-15

We drink to replenish our bodies with water, lest we faint and shrivel up like raisins and die. We drink, and we get thirsty again. We eat, and we get hungry again. The fullness doesn’t last.

One day, Jesus was sitting by the lakeshore. When he looked up and saw the large crowd gathered around him, he gave thanks for a little boy’s lunch, broke the loaves and distributed them to all. They ate as much as they wanted, all five-thousand of them, and the left-over pieces of bread filled twelve baskets.

No wonder they came back the next day, looking for him, and he said to them, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life. The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

What else could they have said in reply but, “Sir, give us this bread always”? --John 6:1-34

We eat in order to grow and to fuel our bodies for work and play, lest we faint and die. We eat, and we get hungry again. We drink, and we get thirsty again. Hunger and thirst are familiar rhythms of our life like waking and sleeping, work and rest, going out and coming in, breathing in and breathing out. The fullness doesn’t last.

When Martin Luther wrote his Small Catechism, he wanted to give children and their parents a resource to study the basics of the faith. In the chapter on the Lord’s Prayer, reflecting on the line, Give us this day our daily bread, he asks, "What, then, is meant by daily bread?”

And the answer follows,

Daily bread includes everything that we need for our bodily welfare, such as food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, land and cattle, money and goods, a godly spouse, godly children, godly workers, godly and faithful leaders, good government, good weather, peace and order, health, a good name, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

Our prayer for bread is indeed our prayer for everything that we need for our bodily welfare. We say bread, because we don’t know a more beautiful word for the dailiness of our needs, the fragile nature of our lives, and our dependence on God, the earth, and one another.

Jesus offers us bread that stills our hunger not just for a while, but for good. He offers us water that quenches our thirst not just for a while, but for good. Some of you hear this, and you can’t help but think about one of those late-night infomercials where a salesman praises the benefits of this or that product that will change your life not just for a while, but for good: the pill that will make you both smart and sexy; the crème that will take twenty years of wrinkles off your face; the tonic that will give you your hair back and bring about world peace.

We’re on our guard because we think that somebody’s always trying to sell us something. Jesus isn’t selling anything.

Living water and living bread – this is no two-for-one with a free crystal cross thrown in for good measure, a $69 value for only $9.95 plus shipping and handling. No, Jesus isn’t selling anything. The world sells, but Jesus gives.

The merchants and the marketeers know every dimension of our hunger and our thirst, in ever more sophisticated consumer profiles and with offers tailored to our credit ratings, but the fulfillment never lasts. We drink, and we get thirsty again, and we drink more. We eat, and we get hungry again, and we eat more. We labor for that which does not satisfy, and spend our money for that which is not bread (Isaiah 55:2). And when the bubble bursts, we act surprised.

Jesus isn’t selling anything, he gives – living water, living bread. He gives what only God can give – life, and he gives it abundantly.

When the crowd came to him, he said to them, “You are looking for me, not because you know who I am, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” In the presence of Jesus, bread was miraculously abundant. He gave them bread to eat, because he never taught people with empty stomachs that man and woman don’t live by bread alone. He gave them bread to eat until even the hungriest among the twelve-year olds said, ‘I’m kinda full’ – and he waited until the next day to teach them that fullness of life is not the same as a full stomach.

What do you eat when the desire behind your hunger is a gnawing hunger for life itself? What do you drink when the desire beneath your thirst is a craving for fullness that will last? We eat our daily bread knowing that we cannot live without it – and sometimes sensing that we cannot live by it alone.

To know and live life in fullness, we need the Word of God, and we need that Word in the flesh – visible, tangible, vulnerable, audible, and edible. We need the bread of life. We need the bread that comes down from heaven for the life of the world. We need the living bread: whoever eats of it will live forever. Fullness that will last.

Jesus points us away from the bakery and the vineyard, from the fields and the stores and the malls and the banks and the credit card bills and yes, from all labor and every broken promise, and he points to himself: I am the bread of life. I give what the world cannot give. I give you what no one on earth can grow or make or sell or buy. I myself am the food that gives life, not the loaves miraculously multiplied.

And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Suddenly he’s done talking about bread and water, and now he talks about flesh and blood. We can handle talk of flesh and blood; we sometimes speak of our children as our flesh and blood. Jesus is done talking about bread and water, but he continues to talk about eating and drinking:

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

We’re not sure what to make of the associations this sets off in our imagination – surely, he doesn’t mean…?

Eating, drinking, and breathing refer to the most basic level of our being, the most fundamental necessities of food, water, and air. Jesus invites us, urges us to relate to him, and through him to God, at that most basic level of our need: Eat me. Drink me. Breathe me. Sleep in my arms. I want you to know me with your intellect and will, but also with your skin and bones. I want you to know me completely, the Word of God in flesh and blood. I want to be your first thought at dawn and your last thought before you go to sleep. And I want to be your daily bread, the light in your eyes, and the fire in your belly. Let me be your life, for I am the life of the world.

The fullness you seek is not more of what you have or what you work for; fullness is what I give – and I give myself. Eat me. Drink me. Know me completely, the Word of God in flesh and blood.

And what do you say in response to this offer of life-giving, life-restoring, life-fulfilling relationship? What can you say?

Give me Jesus; this one is all I need.
When I wake up in the morning – give me Jesus.
When I close my eyes at the end of the day – give me Jesus.
When I am alone – give me Jesus.
When my heart aches and I have no more tears left – give me Jesus.
When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh – give me Jesus.
When I listen to the news and and I can feel my soul drain through the bottom of my feet – give me Jesus.
When my courage shrinks in the freezing grip of fear – give me Jesus.
When I no longer know what a human being looks like for all the wolves in my life – give me Jesus.
When the face of God is nothing to me but a faded photograph from my childhood – give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus; this one is all I need. Good as bread. One loaf for the life of the world. The Word of God in flesh and blood.

Audio of this post

Vine Street Worship Forum I

2009-08-13T18:36:00.002-05:00

mission explorers

2009-08-13T12:27:00.004-05:00

We are in the planning stages of a new project. With Tallu being in Nicaragua for a year, working in several community development programs (thanks to Church World Service and Week of Compassion), we want to explore possibilities of an ongoing relationship between Vine Street and Tallu's partners in Nicaragua.

After Christmas, we will send a group of approximately seven women and men (youth and adult) to meet some of the people Tallu has been working with, to listen, look, and learn.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this project and its promise.

Ponyo

2009-08-12T15:54:00.001-05:00

Life in Fullness

2009-07-27T11:06:00.004-05:00

John 6:1-21

This is kingdom math: A crowd of five thousand, a boy’s lunch, and all ate as much as they wanted until they were satisfied. Then the disciples went around picking up the left over pieces, and they filled twelve baskets. No wonder this was a favorite story among the first Christians; Jesus feeding the five thousand is the one miracle that found its way into each of the four gospels.

Five plus two, divided by 5000 equals fullness for all and baskets of leftovers. This is kingdom math. What’s missing in this simple equation, though, is the most crucial element; whether our focus is on the overwhelming number of people or on the meager resources the disciples were able to identify, the story draws your eyes to the hands of Jesus: Jesus took the loaves, he offered thanks, and he distributed the food.

The first Christians loved this story because it pointed to the meal they celebrated every time they gathered on the Lord’s day. The same abundant grace that welcomed and fed the multitude by the sea, they remembered and encountered at the table.

We love this story because it shows us how grace flows freely from the source of life, the heart of God, the hands of Jesus, into our hands, our hearts, our lives. This is kingdom math: grace flows freely, and those who receive it discover life in fullness.

The first Christians also loved this story because it points back to the great story of the Exodus; it points to God’s mighty act of liberation when God’s people left the house of slavery and journeyed to the land of fullness, a land flowing with milk and honey.

We get a little hint right at the beginning, "Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near."

Very near indeed, and not just on the calendar, but in the events about to unfold. Passover was near in the person of Jesus. Liberation and the promise of fullness were present in the person of Jesus.

When he saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”

We get another hint: he said this to test him. Philip didn’t know it was a test, and so he quickly did the math he knew, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

But it wasn’t a math test, nor was it an employment test for the position of Director of Procurement and Purchasing. The test is for us: are we who are following Jesus on the way, both in the course of the story and in our lives as witnesses, are we beginning to see who he is?

Jesus’ question sounds very similar to one raised by Moses in the wilderness, when the Israelites were tired and hungry, and began to remember the house of slavery as a land of fleshpots.
“If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.”

And Moses turned to God and said, “Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? (…)Are there enough fish in the sea to catch for them(Numbers 11:4-5, 13, 22)?”

Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” and Andrew pointed out that two fish were barely worth mentioning.

With Moses and Israel in the wilderness, the question was, ‘Are the promises of the Lord trustworthy?’

With Jesus and the disciples and the crowd by the sea, the question is, ‘Are we beginning to see who Jesus is?’

Jesus was about to do another sign. “Make the people sit down,” he said.

Then he took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

Grace flowed, food abounded until all were satisfied. None were asked if they were Gentile, Jew, or Samaritan. Male and female, young and old, rich and poor, wise and foolish – all ate until they were full. The fragments left over filled twelve baskets – enough for every tribe in the nation; enough for every month of the year, or perhaps simply enough. Whether it is wine at a wedding or bread at a picnic by the sea, there is enough for all to be filled until they want no more. This is more than kingdom math; this is life in fullness.

“Who do people say that I am?” The question doesn’t get asked here, but it is the one lingering in the background; and the people themselves give the answer.

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

They had tasted life in abundance, and they began to draw their conclusions. Within the framework of their experience and knowledge, they tried to identify the place where Jesus would fit in, and called him the prophet. And when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him to make him king, he withdrew.

Why did he withdraw? Why didn’t he let them crown him? He healed people, so obviously he knew how to make healthcare affordable and accessible. He fed people, so obviously he knew a thing or two about the economy. He taught people, so obviously he had a passion for education. His character was flawless; not even a hint of corruption. Some people may have questioned his positions on gun control or divorce – but still, wasn’t he the best man for the job? Why did he withdraw? Why did he withdraw at the precise moment when he was about to be confirmed as king by public acclamation?

You may have read the question somewhere on a church marquee, “If God seems far away, who moved?” The question implies that if God seems distant, God isn’t necessarily the one responsible. In this story, however, it is clearly Jesus who moved away, and the people who were left wondering where he went. Jesus withdrew to the mountain by himself.

Withdrawing Jesus showed that he would give what he had to give without claiming worldly power; that he would bring fullness of life only on his own terms, not by being pressed into the crowd’s mold of expectations. The miracle of bread and fish provided them with a glimpse of who he was, and they immediately tried to take his grace and twist it to conform to their purposes and the existing systems of power.

We get a glimpse of Jesus, and we immediately want him to be who we need him to be; but he only gives himself as who he is. As soon as we cast him into the mold of our expectations for a make-over in the image of our desires, he withdraws.

Grace is utterly free, and the path of our knowledge of God is littered with disappointed expectations and broken idols. Jesus is indeed prophet and king, teacher and healer, but he redefines all these terms in the mold of his life and mission. To follow him is to trust him enough to let him dismantle our illusions of fullness; and in their place we receive the fullness of grace and truth he embodies and reveals.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea toward Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

There is the darkness of night fall when the sun slowly sinks behind the horizon, and there is the darkness that spreads when Jesus withdraws. This darkness is the frightening reality of his absence, and at the same time it is the darkness in which the light shines.

The sea is rough, the winds are strong, and the disciples are alone in the boat. Then they see him, walking on the sea as on solid ground, and they are terrified.

Listen to these lines from Psalm 77.

When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you,
they were afraid; the very deep trembled.
Your way was through the sea,
your path, through the mighty waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Passover was near indeed. The One who made a path through the mighty waters of the sea so Israel would be free to live as God’s people, was near in Jesus. The One who said to Moses by the burning bush, “I am who I am,” was near, saying, “I am I, do not be afraid.” They saw who he was; they saw the glory of God in Jesus.

Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

John loves to play with multiple layers of meaning; his passion isn’t so much for kingdom math as it is for kingdom poetry.

On one level, the land toward which the they were going was of course Capernaum, the town on the other side of the lake, just another stop on the way.

On another level, though, the land toward which they were going was the land of God’s promise, the land of life in fullness.

The moment they saw Jesus – the moment they saw who he was and is and always will be – they arrived. May God bless us that we too may see as they have seen.

Audio file of this post

Come Away

2009-07-21T10:59:00.005-05:00

Summertime, and the living is easy…

The smell of the season is a blend of peaches, tomatoes, and watermelon, hot dogs and fresh corn on the grill, and just a hint of sunscreen lotion wafting through the air. The sound of summer is a mix of children laughing by the pool, the faint thunder of a distant storm, and the raucous choir of crickets and treefrogs at night. The dress code is simple: barefoot, shorts and t-shirt; shaving is optional.

David Johnson, our camp manager at Bethany Hills, saw me after Nancy, Miles and I had spent a great week on the beach in Alabama, and he captured the experience perfectly in a little drawing: a preacher on the beach, with a sign next to his chair, “no shirt, no shoes, no service.”

Summertime – and blessed are those who can sit in the sun and watch the waves rolling up on the beach. You get up when you feel like getting up, and you go to bed when you’re tired. It’s a different rhythm, a different beat, and most would agree a better one than the relentless ticking of the clock driving you from one task or appointment to another.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves,” says Jesus, “and rest a while.” What a sweet commandment, and what a pleasure to keep it.

I love getting up early in the morning to make my coffee and sit on the back porch. Sometimes I take a book and read, sometimes I just sit and listen to the world waking up. Early morning is really the only time of day other than the night hours to enjoy the quiet and safely avoid the curse of the suburbs: anytime you sit outside or settle into the comfort of your hammock under a tree, at least one of the neighbors decides to mow their yard. Yet another great benefit of going to the beach: no one feels tempted to bring along a lawn tractor.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves,” says Jesus, “and rest a while.” We had arrived on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday morning I got up, made some coffee, grabbed my book and my readers, and sat on the deck. From my chair I could see Mobile Bay on one side and the gulf on the other; I could hear the waves, a few seagulls, and the soft voices of a couple of joggers running past the house. I watched brown pelicans fishing for breakfast as the sun slowly climbed above the pine trees. It was a moment of great beauty and peace – until a horrible sound pierced the morning air—a leaf blower.

I will not repeat the words that came across my lips on that first morning; let me just say that they felt highly appropriate at the time. First I thought that the curse of the suburbs had followed us nine hours south and that not even the early morning hours were safe from disrupting intrusions anymore. Then I saw him. The noise came from the house across the road; a house just like ours, sitting about nine feet above ground on pylons, with two vehicles parked underneath on the concrete slab, and wooden steps leading up to the deck and the entrance. Our neighbor, just as pale as myself and dressed in red shorts – clearly a very recent arrival – was blowing sand from the carport. The house was practically sitting on the beach, but he seemed determined to keep the sand where it belonged.

“I just hope this isn’t part of your daily routine, buddy,” I said to myself, wondering if their house came with a leaf blower or if he had brought it all the way from home. It takes a while to get used to the different rhythm of life by the ocean, I told myself. He probably woke up before everyone else in the house, and he was so used to doing stuff and staying busy, he just had to find something to do until the rest of the family got out of bed, I told myself. The rest of the week, thank God, the leaf blower remained silent.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” Jesus said to the disciples. They had just returned from their first mission trip. He had sent them out two by two, empowered to proclaim repentance, and bring wholeness by casting out demons and anointing the sick. They were no longer just followers, pupils, students or disciples – Mark refers to them here for the first and only time as apostles, that is, sent ones. They had been hearers of the new, authoritative word, and now they had become its bearers.

These emissaries, these newly-named apostles of the Lord gathered around Jesus, two by two, to tell him what they had done and taught. On their mission they had discovered, to their surprise, that they could do much of what they had observed Jesus do; that his authority and power became manifest in their own words and actions. They had stories to tell; yes, they were tired, but they were also wound up like children who cannot possibly go to sleep until they have shared every wondrous moment of their day.

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while,” Jesus said to his excited and exhausted missionaries who had no leisure even to eat. There were people everywhere; people driven by curiosity and drawn by the promise of wholeness. People came to wherever they heard he was. So they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves, to a place with the promise of soul-nourishing solitude.

Just to be out on the water in the boat was great.

They pulled away from the shore, away from the daily demands, away from the needs and the noise.

Soon they heard nothing but the sound of the bow cutting through the swells and water dripping from the oars.

It didn’t last, though. When they pulled up on the other shore, they discovered that a crowd had followed them on land. It was as if there was simply no getting away from it all.

They could feel how the care and compassion in their bones was slowly turning into resentment, and they hated it.

They didn’t tell each other because they felt ashamed for what they could only describe as a profound lack of love and presence.

We’re all in that boat, disciples of Jesus, sent to proclaim good news and bring wholeness. But how do we respond when we feel emotionally and physically drained by the brokenness we encounter constantly? Compassion fatigue is a modern expression, but the men and women in that boat have known the reality it describes for centuries. Our emotional capacity to perceive, let alone respond to the demand made on us by human suffering is limited.
Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art, we sing with Charles Wesley, and the song reminds us that we cannot depend on our own wells to draw strength for the great work of loving the world. God alone is all compassion, God alone is unbounded love, and we must learn to draw from the wells that never go dry.

The scene in Mark is so short, you have to intentionally slow down to not miss an important little detail.

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

We are so eager to know what it was he taught them, that we almost miss what he is teaching us. We are so eager to know what it was he taught them, that we almost miss the fact that we are part of them. He looks at us and has compassion for us, because without him, we are like sheep without a shepherd. And then he goes ashore. And he does the teaching. And we stay in the boat and listen; we receive his gifts.

Some of us hear the word that forgives and renews, equips and sends, and we get up and go. Others hear the sound of the waves lapping gently against the shore, until we doze off, rocked to sleep like babies in a cradle. And when we awake, we rub our eyes and realize that the world turned without us.

We follow Jesus because in his presence we experience a conversion to a depth of life we did not know existed. We follow Jesus because in his presence our heart and mind and strength are transformed. We follow Jesus so we may live as those sent by him, drawing compassion from no other wells but his boundless love for God and the world.

In our mission work of teaching and healing we learn that our small words and actions can make the compassion of Christ manifest.

And when he calls us away to rest a while we learn that the same compassion can be at work without us; that can be a humbling experience for newly-named apostles, but ultimately it’s the most liberating experience for a disciple of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the summer.

Crossing Over

2009-06-24T09:16:00.008-05:00

On Thursday I went to the maternity ward to meet Quinn Moseley, who was a just a little more than one day old then. I walked into the darkened room, greeted his parents, and there he was, all wrapped up, sound asleep, a perfect picture of peace.

The only thing I like better than looking at babies is holding them. Earlier this month, I drove to Lebanon to meet Jack McLaughlin, and I got to hold him because he was waking up anyway. I also got to hear him, because something was bothering him and he made it known.

Little Jack made me wonder what we do when something is bothering us before we are born – we cant scream in the womb. Little Quinn suggested that, in the womb, nothing can bother us – food comes to us, steady as our mother’s heartbeat; all other noises are muffled, the temperature is always right, we just curl up in the water and float in complete happiness – until the water breaks, that is. Then it’s gravity and bright lights, cold air, strange sounds and voices, and – very soon – hunger. But being born also means being welcomed by parents who hold us, feed us, whisper in our ears, keep us safe and warm, and respond to our presence with love and care.

It may well be the fact that we spend the first weeks and months of our existence immersed in water like fish in the ocean, that we have this life-long attraction to water. There’s nothing like soaking in a hot tub when your muscles are sore – or your soul. You just float in memories of complete happiness, and the tensions melt, the muscles relax, and your soul sings songs of joy and peace.

We love water; the pleasure of splashing and swimming and jumping in puddles; the satisfaction of a drink of cold water on a hot day; the calming sound of rain on the roof; the fun of water slides and snorkeling; the beauty of rivers, lakes, and water falls; the sound of waves rolling up on the beach; the fragrance of the earth after a gentle summer rain. We love water – it flows through our bodies, it freshens our tired spirits and revives our souls.

Jesus was baptized in a river, and he did much of his teaching by the lake, the Sea of Galilee. When the crowds who gathered to hear him got larger and larger, he asked his disciples to have a boat ready for him, so he could pull away from the shore and teach from the boat.

People heard his parables with the sound of water in the background, little waves lapping up onto the pebbles and rocks. People listened to his teaching while looking at the vast, open stretch of sea and sky. I don’t know if it was as beautiful a scene as I imagine it, but to me sitting by the water’s edge and listening to Jesus are two of my favorite things.

On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to the disciples, “Let us go across to the other side,” and leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.

Most of the people on the beach had gone home, they had things to do, meals to prepare, the kids had to get ready for bed; but some stayed and watched the boat go east.

“What business does he have going over there,” they wondered, “it’s all Gentiles on the other side, it’s unclean, full of unholy spirits. It’s not our people over there, not his people, what business does he have going over there?” Dark clouds were moving in, casting deep shadows on what had been a beautiful day on the beach.

Meanwhile, in the boat, the disciples were enjoying the evening breeze and quiet. It had been a long day, they were tired, and the gentle rocking of the boat almost put them to sleep.

But then the wind picked up; dark clouds began to build up behind them, and soon the storm broke lose. The waves beat into the boat, and it was being swamped. Some of the disciples were fishermen; they were accustomed to wind and waves, but nothing like this. Chaos had been unleashed, the raging wind whipping the water into a frenzy of waves and whirls – their little boat nothing but a nutshell.

The disciples got to see water’s other side, they saw that which makes us build fences around our pools, and wear life jackets in our boats, and stay close when our little ones are in the tub, long after they have learned to sit on their own. There’s danger in the water, and we better learn to respect it, because the moment we learn to breathe, we can drown.

The disciples knew that, they knew the danger of capsizing and going down into the deep. But they didn’t know Jesus. They saw him, curled up on a cushion, sleeping like a baby, a perfect picture of peace in the midst of the storm. They woke him, saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Now why do you think they woke their teacher? Did they want to hear one last story before the boat went down? That seems unlikely. Did they need him to help them get the water out of the boat or hold the rudder? If they did, why didn’t they say so or hand him a pail? To me it sounds like they were anxious and they couldn’t stand that he didn’t seem to be the least bit troubled. “Do you not care that this little boat is going down and all of us with it?” They were frantic and the fact that he wasn’t made it worse.

Jesus woke up; Mark doesn’t even mention if he got up from the cushion. He woke up and rebuked the wind and the sea.

“Quiet! Be still!”

And it was so.

He spoke and it came to be.

He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.

Dead calm.

Can you see the disciples? They are sitting down, wide-eyed, barely breathing, their hands clenching the wall of the boat with white knuckles. Before, they were anxious, now they are afraid.

Jesus said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

There is a popular reading of this story where Jesus isn’t rebuking the wind and the waves, but the disciples for being afraid in the storm. According to that reading, we ought to always remember, no matter how high the waves, how violent the winds, that Jesus is in the boat with us – and that we shouldn’t be afraid, and if we had faith, we wouldn’t be afraid. According to that reading, we ought to tie ourselves to the mast of the cross with ropes of faith and laugh at the storm.

I believe this is dangerous nonsense, because the next time your little boat gets hit by a storm, and you know it will, you’ll be afraid, and on top of everthing else, you’ll feel guilty for being afraid. As if fear wasn’t enough.

Jesus didn’t rebuke the disciples, he commanded the wind and the waves to be still. He spoke, and the violent force of chaos was tamed.

Remember, the whole trip was his idea, “Let us go across to the other side,” he said. This was no evening cruise to a restaurant on the other side of the bay. He took them out to sea, away from the familiar coast, away from the land they knew, to the land of the Gentiles. Why? Because demons ruled on the other side and Jesus invaded their territory to proclaim and bring the kingdom of God. Because sin and death ruled on the other side and Jesus crossed over to bring forgiveness, healing, and wholeness to life. This was no pleasure cruise, this was D-day. Little wonder the forces of chaos tried to stop them with waves bucking like bulls and wind gusts strong enough to break everything in their path.

Jesus’ life and mission is one dangerous crossing after another. His presence, his teaching, his actions lead to confrontation between entrenched powers and the reign of God; confrontation between the way things are and the way they are to be. The truth is, when Jesus is near, the storms aren’t far.

But when Jesus speaks, the eternal word that spoke light and life into being is present. When Jesus speaks, we hear the One who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb; who made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling bands;who prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

The truth is, the disciples in the boat were not half as afraid of the storm as they were of Jesus’ authority to tame its power. They were afraid because it finally dawned on them that they hadn’t taken him into the boat with them; Jesus had taken them into the boat with him, and this ride to the other side was the invasion of enemy territory by the forces of grace, forgiveness, healing and wholeness.

“Why are you afraid?” he asked, “Have you still no faith?”

Our Bible translation is very kind, saying, “They were filled with great awe,” when the words can also be translated, “they feared with great fear.”

They were afraid because they began to see that this boat was going to keep crossing to the other side, and that neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything else in all creation would be able to stop it before its journey was complete.

“Who then is this,” they said to one another, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

They stayed in the boat with him, as they were, with their great fear and their little faith, and they sailed all the way to Easter, all the way to the shore where life in fullness is at home.

Audio of this post

Common as Mustard

2009-06-15T08:56:00.006-05:00

“With what can we compare the kingdom of God?” Jesus asks. With a garden perhaps, where the weather is perpetually mild and lovely things grow, and creatures great and small live together in peace? Or can we compare it with a city of great splendor, through whose open gates the nations of the world enter, carrying their gifts to celebrate the feast of life?

Can we compare the kingdom of God to nature in its awesome grandeur minus the things that frighten us, or to a global culture where the injustice and pain of history have been redeemed? With what can we compare the kingdom of God?

The task before a small committee, meeting for the first time on a July afternoon in 1776, was much smaller. The thirteen colonies had just declared their independence from Britain, and now these United States needed an official national seal. Three men met to select a design, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. “With what can we compare this revolutionary adventure, or what parable will we use for it?” the three patriots asked, and they had very different ideas. After much discussion, they agreed on a drawing of lady Liberty holding a shield to represent the thirteen states.

Lady Liberty would later have a long career in France, but the members of Congress were not inspired by the committee report. And so more committees met, and eventually, in 1782 Congress adopted a seal designed by William Barton, with just one small but significant change: the golden eagle in Barton’s design was replaced with the bald eagle, because the golden eagle also flew over European nations.

To this day, the great seal shows a bald eagle with a shield covering its breast, holding in its talons a bundle of thirteen arrows on the left, and a thirteen-leaf olive branch on the right. The new nation was still at war with England at the time, and the fierce-looking bird seemed to be an appropriate emblem.

Benjamin Franklin, though, famously frowned at it. In a letter from Paris in 1784 to his daughter he wrote,

For my part, I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of this country. He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched in some dead tree where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for his young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes the fish. With all this injustice, he is never in good case; but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, no bigger than a sparrow, attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district.

Franklin argued that eagles could be found in all countries, and that “a true native of America” and “a much more respectable bird,” the turkey, would have been a more appropriate symbol. He conceded that the turkey was “a little vain and silly,” but maintained that it was nevertheless a “bird of courage” that “would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”

I don’t know much about the moral character of birds, but Franklin obviously preferred a bird that might be perceived as a little vain and silly over one that might be perceived as lazy and lousy.

“With what can we compare the kingdom of God,” Jesus asks, “or what parable will we use for it?” People in first-century Judea were familiar with images from nature to represent nations and kingdoms; a very common symbol for royal power was the tree. There’s a particularly beautiful example in the book of Ezekiel:

Mortal, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes: Whom are you like in your greatness? Consider Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon, with fair branches and forest shade, and of great height, its top among the clouds. The waters nourished it, the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place it was planted, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field. So it towered high above all the trees of the field; its boughs grew large and its branches long, from abundant water in its shoots. All the birds of the air made their nests in its boughs; under its branches all the animals of the field gave birth to their young; and in its shade all great nations lived. It was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its roots went down to abundant water. The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs; the plane trees were as nothing compared with its branches; no tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty. Ezekiel 31:2-8

But Assyria, a cedar of Lebanon, was cut down and fell. All the people of the earth went away from its shade and left it. The birds settled on its broken trunk, and among its fallen boughs all the wild animals lodged.

In the book of Daniel we read about a dream the mighty king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had.

Upon my bed this is what I saw; there was a tree at the center of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew great and strong, its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth. Its foliage was beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it provided food for all. The animals of the field found shade under it, the birds of the air nested in its branches, and from it all living beings were fed. Daniel 4:10-12

But Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of greatness and power ends with a frightening announcement.

Cut down the tree and chop off its branches, strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit. Let the animals flee from beneath it and the birds from its branches. Daniel 4:14

Israel’s experience with royal power was that it comes and goes, that kingdoms rise and fall. Israel’s hope was that one day God would plant a tender shoot on the mountain height of Israel, a sprig that would become a noble cedar that would never fall.

When Jesus asks, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?” it is easy to imagine a tree; a mighty tree whose branches extend to the ends of the earth; the tallest, the most magnificent tree of all, forever defining the center of the world; with its top in the heavens and its roots in the depths of the earth; with beautiful foliage and abundant fruit; with shade and food and peace for all living beings.

And then Jesus tells us his parable. He leaves the lofty cedars on the mountain height of our imagination, and goes to the field just outside the village where you work every day.

"The kingdom of God," he says, "is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth."

Oh yes, it’s a tiny seed, but we know the potential of a seed: one acorn has in it not just one oak, but an entire forest, mighty oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, taller than the cedars of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon or Rome.

Except that in this parable, the lowly mustard seed doesn’t grow into a tree but merely becomes the greatest of all shrubs.

Now if you expect God’s reign to powerfully transform nature and history, and to bring creation to its fulfillment, a scrawny mustard shrub of about 4-5 feet is hardly an appropriate emblem, is it?

If you prefer to keep the tree in the picture, you can read the story in Matthew, where the mustard seed “is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree”(Matthew 13:32).

Or you can go to Luke, where the kingdom is like a mustard seed “that someone took and sowed in the garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches” (Luke 13:19).

According to Matthew and Luke, the ancient hope for an empire where God alone is Sovereign and the nations find peace, begins to be fulfilled in the story of Jesus and his followers. According to Mark, the story of Jesus rewrites the ancient hope for an empire to end all empires from the bottom up.

At the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel, the great king arrives at a difficult insight.

The Most High is sovereign over the kingdom of mortals; he gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of human beings. Daniel 4:17

The lowliest of human beings.

The parable of the mighty tree announces a restoration of the Davidic kingdom among the kingdoms of the earth. Other kingdoms will dry up, while that of David will flourish and outlast them.

In contrast, the parable of the mustard shrub speaks of a kingdom which, for all its miraculous extension, remains lowly; there’s nothing mighty or majestic about it.

It grows everywhere, not just on the hights of Lebanon or the seven hills of Rome or by the great rivers of Egypt or Babylon, or wherever the centers of power happen to be.

It grows dependably wherever there’s just enough soil for the tiniest of seeds to take root.

Perhaps the most beautiful detail about the mustard shrub is that it is an annual plant. It doesn’t just sit there and simply get bigger and bigger with the years. The mustard shrub depends on renewed sowing and its perennial promise lies in the fruitfulness of the seed and the faithfulness of the sower.

God’s kingdom is no divine empire, but faithful followers who continue to sow the seed of God’s grace and truth.

We do small things: small acts of compassion, tiny steps toward greater justice, a kind word to the cashier at the check-out line who just got barked at by an unhappy customer – small things that seem utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of human history and cosmic time, but Jesus reminds us that God’s reign grows everywhere and from the tiniest of seeds.

We do small things in lots of small places, things as common as mustard, and God’s reign spreads and grows and nothing can stop it.

With what can we compare the kingdom of God? It is like sowers who scatter seed on the ground, and the seed sprouts and grows and they don’t know how, and their lives bear fruit.

Audio of this post

Midweek Sabbath

2009-06-11T11:35:00.007-05:00

It's Sunday morning on Vine Street, and the church buildings are full of people of all ages. There's chatter and laughter on the steps and in the hallways, singing, prayer, and music in the sanctuary - lots of energy, from early in the morning until the last after-worship conversation over coffee has ended. Sunday is a day of worship and learning, nurturing relationships and making new friends, a day of celebration and sabbath rest.

A few weeks ago the Elders created a sanctuary of a different kind, a window to sabbath rest in the middle of the week. We used to use our chapel only for worship on Sunday morning and on occasion for a small wedding or funeral. Now we gather there every Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. for Evening Prayer, led by one of our Elders.

The chapel is especially beautiful at that time of day. The sun is low, and the mild light pours through the windows, bathing the entire space in a warm glow. It is wonderful to just sit there and enjoy the peaceful silence.

Evening Prayer is a brief service, lasting only about thirty minutes, of responsive readings from the book of psalms, a reading from scripture or a short meditation, the Magnificat, a. k. a. the song of Mary from Luke 1:47-55, prayers of intercession, and the Lord's Prayer.

You could wait for a particularly hurried week to come by the chapel on Wednesday evening to immerse yourself in the peace of God, or you could just come next Wednesday to sit and rest, to pray for the church and the world.

Sometimes I cannot participate in this midweek Evening Prayer, but whenever I do, I leave enveloped by that light, and with a sense of deep joy.

Signs

2009-06-08T10:51:00.008-05:00

There was a funeral on Saturday in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. George Tiller had been shot last Sunday in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church as he handed out bulletins before worship. For years, Dr. Tiller and his family had lived in a gated community, he drove a bullet proof car, and he wore a bullet proof vest – he had been shot before, and his office had been bombed. Dr. Tiller was murdered because he performed abortions.

Security was tight at the funeral service, with dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers mingling among the mourners inside and outside the sanctuary. A few blocks from the church a dozen or so protesters gathered in a holding area, one holding a sign, “God Sent the Shooter.”

Inside the church, near the end of the service, Mrs. Tiller rose and, standing in the chancel, sang “The Lord’s Prayer” in a clear, strong, unwavering voice. I am glad that hundreds stood with her and only a handful with the person outside holding up a sign with a lie.

I carried with me this week a passage from the gospel of John reminding us that God does not send shooters.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved trough him.—John 3:16-17

Throughout the week I questioned if these words had any strength left in them, if John 3:16 could be anything but a slogan, tattered and worn out by too many bumper stickers, t-shirts, and posters held high during ball games. The words have become a cliché, an empty formula, little more than a password for a tribe – but no matter how ragged and frayed they appear, they are true: God sent the Son, not the shooter.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world, and to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.—John 1:9, 12-13

Nicodemus had seen things he didn’t understand, strange and wonderful things, signs whose significance he did not know.

There was a wedding feast, and Jesus was there. When the wine gave out, he told the servants to fill large jars with water; and when the chief steward tasted it, it was the best wine.

One day Jesus went to the temple, and he drove out sheep and cattle, poured out the coins of the money changers, overturned their tables, and said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

These actions raised a lot of eye brows and questions, but many believed in his name because they saw the signs that we was doing. Nicodemus had seen the signs, but he didn’t know what to make of them, or what to make of Jesus. He had seen what Jesus did, and he thought that God was connected, somehow, but he didn’t know how. He was in the dark.

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

We know, he said, like someone who has studied long and hard, taken his time to observe, and carefully drawn his conclusions. We know, he said, speaking for more than himself. Did he represent the Pharisees? Maybe. Did he speak for the religious leadership in general? Possibly. Does he stand at the beginning of a long line of many who are in the dark about Jesus, yet are drawn to his light? Certainly. Nicodemus speaks for all whose souls thirst for the living God, all who long to learn about and live the life of the Spirit, all who are attracted to Jesus, recognizing something extraordinary in him but not yet believing. Nicodemus speaks for all who come to Jesus with our considerable knowledge, our well-established certainties, and our questions.

We know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.—John 3:2

We have seen the signs, we have drawn our conclusions, and now we come for more. And Jesus responds, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

This is very confusing to Nicodemus who knows his religion and knows it well. He is a learned man, steeped in scholarship—and now Jesus is telling him that in order to know the life of the Spirit in the kingdom of God he must be born anew, a second time. How can this be?

How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?—John 3:4

Brian Williams took a large crew of reporters and videographers to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to document a day inside the Obama White House; some of you may have seen the program. At one point he talked with Vice President Joe Biden about saying things off the cuff that the White House staff had to carefully rephrase or creatively interpret afterwards. And Joe Biden’s reply was basically, “Look, you don’t teach an old dog new tricks. I am who I am, and some things I just can’t change.”

Old age and new beginnings just don’t go together. It’s not like you can just go back and start over and undo who you have become. Nevertheless, Jesus speaks of birth.

Jesus tells Nicodemus, tells you and me that seeing the kingdom, entering the dominion of God is a birth.

Do you know what you did in order to be born?

Nothing. Exactly. You didn’t choose your parents or your birthday. All you did was listen to your mother’s heartbeat and suck your little thumb. And on your birthday, surprised, you submitted to the force that pushed you down the birth canal, you squinted at the light, and you cried until somebody held you close and tight and warm. Your birth was an awesome and exhausting event, but it wasn’t your doing.

“Do not be astonished,” Jesus tells us, “that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.”

Nicodemus comes to Jesus to find out where the man from Galilee fits in the framework of his knowledge and experience, and Jesus talks about two of the most uncontrollable, uncontainable of human experiences, birth and wind. He tells him that the life eternal is a mystery beyond human knowledge and control.

Nicodemus has come no closer to understanding Jesus. He is confused by this talk of wind and spirit, water and birth. He cannot fit Jesus into his knowledge of God and the traditions he has followed for many years. He cannot fit Jesus into his life and who he has become. The thought of birth confuses him because there’s nothing for him to do—no books to read, no papers to write, no exams to take.

The only thing birth requires of you is to relax and rest in the labor of God. To be born again, to be born from above is an adventure in trust.

An adventure in trust, not control. Nicodemus has so many questions and he can’t just give himself to the life Jesus offers. At the end, though, he does not argue with Jesus or depart in protest. He simply throws up his hands, asking somewhat helplessly, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? How can these things be?”

It doesn’t end there. In chapter 7 we read that it was Nicodemus who publicly spoke up on behalf of Jesus when the religious leadership accused him without giving him a hearing (John 7:50-52).

Then after Jesus’ death on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, and Nicodemus came to prepare Jesus’ body for burial—Nicodemus bringing a hundred pounds of fragrant myrrh and aloes (John 19:38-42).

In the end, Nicodemus didn’t participate in the world’s hatred against Jesus. Instead, his actions reflected neither confusion nor fear, but boldness, generosity, and most of all, love. John doesn’t tell us that Nicodemus had become a believer, but he shows us a man who loves fearlessly and extravagantly.

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.—John 3:8

I cannot shake the suspicion that the hands that at the funeral held the sign, “God sent the shooter,” on other occasions have held a sign, “John 3:16.” I am troubled by the air of certitude and knowing that surrounds these signs. I am troubled by views that can see the world solely in black and white, ignoring the colors that love paints between them. I am troubled by the portrait of a God who is an enforcer of texts, rather than the lover of the world.

When I look at the cross, I see a different picture. I see the light that shines in the darkness. I see the face of God who comes not to condemn but to save. And I hear the call I believe Nicodemus heard: to participate in what God is doing, which is to love the world.

Audio of this post.

The Adventure of Life

2009-06-02T12:09:00.004-05:00

Miles and I joined the Mission Trip to Nashville group last night to watch "UP."

It's a great animated movie, and if animation makes you think, "Hm, kid stuff," you're on the wrong track.

This is great story telling, great animation (with amazing attention to detail), and great fun.

The journey to Paradise Falls (the name alone is a lovely variation on an ancient theme) is a beautiful meditation on the things that give us the courage to live.

Go and see this movie. Borrow somebody's kid if you need an excuse.

Rain on the Driest Place

2009-06-02T11:50:00.006-05:00

The driest place on earth, according to climatologists, is the Atacama desert in the north of Chile. There are sterile, intimidating stretches where rain has never been recorded, at least as long as humans have measured it. You won’t see a blade of grass or cactus stump, not a lizard, not a gnat. The air is so dry, it literally sucks the moisture out of your finger nails and turns them brittle as autumns leaves.

It is dry in the Atacama, but it’s not the driest place on earth. The driest place is where hope has evaporated:

The driest place is the desolate land between Israeli cities and settlements and Palestinian villages and refugee camps where every peace initiative seems destined to fail.

The driest place is among the walls of destroyed schools in Pakistan’s Swat valley, where the Taliban have ruled that educating girls is against God’s will.

The driest place is in a little suburban house somewhere in the U.S. where a young man has to decide whether it’s OK to stay in college after both his parents lost their jobs.

The driest place on earth is the place where all roads come to an end and you know you can’t stay there, but you can’t see a way out either. The driest place is the place where all hope has evaporated and nothing moves.

Ezekiel has seen this place; it is a valley full of bones. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t go there out of curiosity. It was the Lord who set him down in the middle of the valley. It was the Lord who led him all around so he would get a good look. There were very many bones, and they were very dry.

When I was little, I hid behind the couch when a tv program got to scary for me. And I still close my eyes sometimes when I don’t want to see what I’m afraid I’m about to see.

When I was little, and I didn’t want to hear what I was being told, I put my hands over my ears and started chanting, “I can’t hear you – I can’t hear you – I can’t hear…” and I still pretend I can’t hear sometimes when I don’t want to hear what I’m afraid I’m about to hear.

When I was little, I ran up the stairs from the dark basement to the kitchen where my mom was, and she thought it was all youthful energy, but I knew it was fear of the dark. And I still want to turn around and run sometimes. Instinctively I reach for the remote to change the channel from disturbing and unsettling to distracting and entertaining. I don’t want to be in the driest place; I’m afraid it will suck me dry. Give me a story that puts hands over my ears and eyes.

Ezekiel stayed; he stayed, with open eyes and ears, and the Lord asked him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Now he could have responded, “No, Lord, this is where all roads come to an end, and the only thing awaiting these bones is to be turned into dust.” Or he could have given the perfect Sunday school answer, “Yes, Lord, these bones can live, for with you all things are possible,” and turned around and gone home.

But Ezekiel stayed and replied, “O Lord God, you know.” You must decide whether you want to hear that as a statement of profound confidence in God or as a challenge – something like, “You’re asking me, if these bones can live? What do you say?”

And the Lord said to him, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”

Ezekiel didn’t go to the driest place by choice, but when the Lord set him down in the middle of it, he stayed long enough to see, long enough to hear the question, long enough to hear the call, “Speak to these bones.” He stayed long enough to hear the word of life, “Thus says the Lord God, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

And Ezekiel’s tongue may have been brittle as a leaf in the fall, but he spoke as he had been commanded, and as he spoke, the bones became bodies, and the bodies a people, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

The Spirit of God came with the words of the prophet who stayed long enough to see and hear and obey. And in the driest place on earth, the words of the prophet are like rain in the Atacama.

On Pentecost, the church celebrates the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the disciples. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus is particularly concerned to prepare his followers for the time after his death and return to God.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” he promises them, preparing them for the reality of feeling abandoned like motherless children.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” he commands them, again preparing them for the time when he would no longer be physically available to them.

“Abide in me as I abide in you,” he urges them, leaving them wondering how he would abide and go away, be present and absent at the same time.

Three times Jesus speaks of someone who would come from God to be with them. In our Bible translations we call him the Advocate, the Counselor, the Helper, or the Comforter; the greek word refers to someone called to the side of another to help.

Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.”
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.”

Having seen the glory of God in Jesus, the disciples would not face the world alone, but testify together with the Spirit to the grace and truth in Jesus Christ. Having heard the words of eternal life from Jesus, they would not face the future alone. The Holy Spirit would proclaim the teachings of Jesus to them in the new and changing circumstances of their lives. Jesus’ revelation of God would not be limited to the first generation of believers to whom Jesus was visible in the flesh and tangible; his ministry would continue in the ministry and witness of the disciples and the Spirit. The work of the Advocate is to make Jesus present, to mediate fresh encounters with his words of eternal life, given at the time of need. And in the driest place the need is great.

On Pentecost, the church celebrates the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the disciples. The Advocate did not remain a kind promise to the confused and frightened followers of Jesus. The Holy Spirit came – and continues to come – to inspire, empower, and teach the church to act with love and speak with boldness. It is through the Spirit that Christ abides in us and we in him.

According to John, the Holy Spirit is not busy bestowing particular gifts on individual believers, nor is the Spirit’s presence discernible as an internal experience of the individual believer or an outward display of spectacular spirituality. The Holy Spirit is given to the community for the life of the community, and the community’s calling is to be in the world as witnesses, as those who love as we have been loved, and proclaim as we have been commanded.

The Holy Spirit is given to us so we can be in the driest places where hope has evaporated and nothing moves, and not turn away, not run away, but abide with those for whom going away is not an option. The Holy Spirit is given to us so we can be there long enough to see, long enough to notice the great silence behind the world’s chatter, long enough to hear the question God is asking, long enough to hear the word of life, long enough to speak it. The Holy Spirit is given to us so we can hear and proclaim Jesus’ words of eternal life, words that comfort and challenge, words that guide, illumine, teach, convict, and liberate.

Very few of us can be in the parched place where Palestinians and Israelis no longer live as neighbors but as enemies. And very few of us can be in the parched place where the education of girls or the participation of women in public life are forbidden in the name of God. But we can listen to their stories with hearts strengthened by the Spirit, hearts ready to hear and respond.

And we can be in the driest place where families struggle with making ends meet, where co-workers go through trying times without a friend, and where fear is creeping in from all sides.
We can be there. It may be hard to stay, to see and hear and understand what’s really going on. It may be hard to bear the burden of knowing without seeking easy answers that are almost always too easy.

It may be hard, but the Advocate is given to us so we can continue to live as witnesses of our risen Lord even in the driest place.

The Advocate is given to us so we too can be advocates, comforters, helpers, vessels of God’s refreshing and renewing love.

Audio of this post.

Journey Home - A Model

2009-05-28T14:28:00.003-05:00

The new addition to Room in the Inn's facilities began with a vision and years of planning and fundraising. Last Thursday was the groundbreaking.

I wanted to share a portion of the program with my readers; a paragraph that describes beautifully the work and vision of Campus for Human Development:

This expansion to our facilities and programs will enable us, using Mayor Karl Dean's words, "to complete the Campus." What this means is that we will be able to open a path for a person to make the "Journey Home," from living on the streets to securing a permanent apartment all under the guidance and support of our Room in the Inn community. In 1995, we formed the Campus for Human Development, becoming the city's only single site of services, offering an array of both emergency and long-term services. Today we stand on the brink of a new chapter in our long story. Specifically, what we will be able to create is a larger Campus that includes increased medical, educational, and day service space; and, for the first time, 38 affordable housing apartments. In short, we will expand and complete Nashville's comprehensive center for the homeless.

I hope the Mayor will remember this development - a single site with comprehensive services for the homeless - as a great model.

Nashville has a variety of services, both government-based and through non-profits and congregations, that address poverty in the city. Unfortunately, the system is very difficult to understand and not easily accessible. In many cases, multiple appointments with various agencies across the city are necessary. This is very time-consuming and potentially frustrating, e.g. for people who depend on public transportation or who can't afford to take an entire day off of work to meet with just one or two agencies.

It would be a significant step in the right direction, if we could combine those services in a network of neighborhood-based, single-site access points. One social worker could work with an individual or a family to help them understand all the resources available to them and assist them with completing the necessary applications. Non-profit organizations and neighborhood congregations that work on related issues like substance abuse, adult literacy, parenting skills, budgeting etc. could be partners at these centers.

Head Start Centers or community centers come to mind as potential sites for more comprehensive services for Nashvillians battling the causes and consequences of poverty.

Kneeling

2009-05-27T11:28:00.006-05:00

It was on the evening Jesus and the disciples gathered for one last meal, when he took off his robe and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin, washed the disciples feet, and wiped them with the towel. He spoke for a long time that evening, but what we remember, without even opening the pages of the gospel, is that act of hospitality and service; what we remember is Jesus the Lord kneeling on the floor.

I was reminded of that beautiful scene when Hope and I were standing in the little courtyard of the Campus for Human Development on Thursday morning. Several hundred friends of Room in the Inn had gathered under the smiling sky to participate in breaking ground for a new facility where Nashville’s homeless would find shelter, food, medical care, counseling and education. The Governor couldn’t be there, but he sent a representative with the gold-embossed certificate declaring May 21, 2009 Room in the Inn Day in Tennessee. The Mayor was there, the Chief of Police, the Attorney General and the Public Defender, and many other community leaders, together with representatives of the more than 150 congregations who support the many services provided under the umbrella of the Campus for Human Development.

It was a great day for Nashville, and I already look forward to the day when we will dedicate the new building, including 38 units of affordable housing (I am excited that with our recent grant of $10,000 to Campus for Human Development, Vine Street will help families and individuals transition into permanent housing).

It all began in 1977 when Fr. Charlie Strobel, then the priest at Holy Name Catholic Church on Woodland, gave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a homeless man at the door of his rectory. It didn’t stop there – the simple gesture of sharing food with a person in need led to the creation of Loaves and Fishes. Charlie’s simple gesture of opening the doors of the rectory to those sleeping outside in the cold led to the creation of a cooperative ministry by six Nashville congregations known as Room in the Inn. And it didn’t stop there. Last year, 151 congregations in and around Nashville provided 26,737 beds and served 64,779 meals to their homeless guests from November 1 to March 31.

Today the PBJ has iconic status among the people of Room in the Inn; it speaks of God’s unconditional love for all human beings, and especially the poor and dispossessed; it stands for the truth that relationships of trust and respect are healing; and it reminds us that even the most complex problems can be addressed with caring gestures we all know and understand.

Standing in the courtyard, I was reminded of Jesus who taught us how to be the community of his friends by kneeling on the floor with a basin and a towel. That evening, after he had washed the disciples’ feet, he returned to the table and began to teach them, or rather, continued to teach them. He didn’t tell any stories or parables, and only the image of the vine and the branches can anchor the many words of his farewell speech in our imagination. The vine and the branches speak of being the community of Jesus’ friends, of having roots and bearing fruit, even when the full meaning of the many words printed in red eludes us.

At the end of his farewell speech, after Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven. Throughout the evening, his eyes and attention had been on the disciples: he washed their feet and wiped them dry, he spoke to their troubled hearts, he promised them fullness of joy and truth, he taught and encouraged them.

Now he looked up to heaven, and the words he spoke were addressed to the One he called Father. At the end of the evening, before they crossed the Kidron valley to go to the garden, Jesus prayed.

“I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”

This is not the prayer of a man in agony, wrestling in the dark night with God’s will and the knowledge of his impending death; there is not even a hint of struggle. This is the prayer of a man who has complete confidence that the purposes of God will be fulfilled in the events about to unfold. It is the prayer of the Son whose earthly mission is completed in his death and return to the Father.

Most of the prayer, however, is more than merely a reflection of the love and intimacy the two share with each other. The prayer opens up to include the community of Jesus’ friends; his eyes are lifted up to heaven, but his arms are stretched out to embrace all believers.

“Now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

Most of Jesus’ prayer is intercession for the future life of his followers, for generation after generation of believers. He prays for us and our work and witness in the world. He prays for us, because we live in the world, but we don’t belong to it.

We belong to the community of Jesus’ friends; we belong to the communion of life, based in the mutuality of love and intimacy between Jesus and God. We don’t belong to the world, but we live in it as those sent to reveal the glory of God by embodying the friendship of Jesus. We live in the world as the living, breathing invitation to life in communion with God and one another.

Twice in this prayer, Jesus speaks of unity. “Protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

In these times of deep division within the church over how to be church, how to respond faithfully to God’s call to ministry, perhaps the first thing to remember is that Jesus is praying for us.

His words are not instructions for us on the subject of unity. We are not to determine the character of the relationship between Jesus and the Father in order to come up with ecclesial principles and organizational flow charts. Jesus entrusts the future of the church not to the church itself and our capacity to understand, agree on, or live that unity. With the same confidence with which he entrusts himself to the love and power of God, he places the church’s future in the hands of God.

We participate in his prayer by overhearing it and remembering that we are a community that not only needs Jesus’ prayer, but can depend on it. Gail O’Day wonders how the Christian community’s self-definition would be changed if it took as its beginning point, “We are a community for whom Jesus prays.” To me, it is profoundly comforting to remember that.

Anthony Healy is a church consultant, and one evening he was sitting in the fellowship hall of a congregation that had been plagued by trouble throughout its existence and wanted to move on.

Part of his work was to trace that painful history, touching gently on the episodes that had befallen that community with a senseless regularity. It was a distressing yet necessary process.
He looked around the room and saw sorrowful faces, eyes close to tears turned toward him. Then he noticed on the opposite wall a picture that had to that point escaped his attention.

It was the picture of the Laughing Jesus, you have probably seen it many times. Healy asked himself, “What in the sorrows of this church is so humorous?” He was convinced there was a reason he noticed the laughing face of Jesus when he did, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He completed his work with the congregation, and a few weeks later the epiphany emerged from this seeming outbreak of divine levity over a church’s troubled past. The message was: Ease up. Even as they are, these people are my people. Even as it is, this church is my church (see Healy's book, The Postindustrial Promise). Smile, we are a community for whom Jesus prays.

Jesus’ words in the gospel according to John are written for repeated reading, for slow, persistent ruminating – the individual phrases come to life only in the context of the whole. I used to dread reading John, but not anymore. Every time, it seems, I open the pages, I hear echoes and notice patterns I hadn’t seen before. Reading John is like walking through a garden that looks different every time you set foot in it, and as soon as you think you have finally determined the layout of its paths it takes you to a corner where surprises grow. The secret, I believe, is to keep walking. The secret is to live in that garden.

Reading and rereading the chapters of Jesus’ farewell speech I noticed that the tall columns of words in red were flanked by two beautiful and memorable images: At the beginning, Jesus kneeling on the floor, close to the ground, washing the disciples’ feet, and at the end, Jesus looking up to heaven, his arms stretched out to embrace all whom the Father has given him, praying for the disciples.

Jesus calls us to live and abide in the communion of love he shares with the Father and to love one another as he loved us. Jesus sends us into the world to be the living, breathing embodiment of the reconciliation he brings.

Until we discover an even fuller expression of our calling, let us serve as he served, with humility and loving attention, and remember that he prays for us.

And when we pray, let us pray as he prays, with confidence and loving attention.

Audio of this post

Falling Over

2009-05-19T10:44:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, KK and the kids talked about things we do with our hands in worship and ministry. Clapping, shaking hands, holding hands, hugging - they came up with over forty things we do with our hands to share God's love with one another!

At one point, KK was shaking her hand in a way that reminded me of dusting the furniture. "This is something Thomas does a lot," she said. I was confused. "Dusting?" I asked, and she started laughing. "Not dusting, writing! Thomas writes a lot!" and there was the motion again. I fell over backwards on the carpet, laughing.

Then the kids led the congregation in what TJ calls, "Jazz hands!" a.k.a. applause in American Sign Language, thanking me for five years of ministry at Vine Street.

Carol Doidge, John Marshall, and Greg Bailey added words of thanks and Greg handed me an envelope with a thank-you gift.

I didn't open the envelope until after our worship service - and I almost fell over backwards again! Thank you all for this wonderful gift, and for the relationships, the conversations, the prayers, the songs, the meals, the work, the laughs and smiles and tears of the past five years.

Thank you, Vine Street!

For the Peace of the City

2009-05-19T10:07:00.003-05:00

Requests to the church office for housting assistance have been going up steadily since October 2008. In these difficult times, more individuals and families need help so they can stay in their homes and pay their utility bills. At the same time, funding for local non-profits that focus on helping Nashvillians stay in their homes (or assisting them in getting back into permanent housing) has dried up: many charitable foundations have lost 40% or more in assets in the current economic downturn.

I am happy to report that Vine Street Christian Church decided to meet this critical moment with a strategic move. The Official Board voted on Monday, May 18, to invest, in addition to current outreach commitments, $30,000 in local agencies who address the need for housing from different angles. The details of the proposal had been worked out by Julia Keith, Chair of Local Outreach, and Hope Hodnett, representing the staff.

Checks for $10,000 each will be sent to

Disciples Village, a retirement home in Nashville that opens its doors to low-income elderly in our community;
Room in the Inn, a ministry that assists people without housing with essential services and help to find permanent housing; and
Rooftop, an organization that provides funds to individuals and families in need of emergency financial help with the goal of preventing homelessness and providing hope.

I am grateful for the work of this church, love in action for the peace of the city. I am grateful for leaders who step out boldly when tough times call for bold action.

What Abides

2009-05-11T11:03:00.003-05:00

In April, the U.S. lost 563,000 jobs, and who would have thought that this labor statistic could be cause for cautious optimism: The numbers are down 100,000 or so from the 663,000 jobs lost in March; we may have reached the bottom. Since December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been cut – that’s about ten times the population of Nashville.

These numbers are important, but they don’t tell us how dramatically life has changed for the individuals and families directly impacted by those losses. This summer, high-school students are competing for summer jobs at Nashville Shores and for other seasonal work with men and women who must make a living for themselves and their families. Every day the church office receives multiple requests for financial assistance to pay rent, utilities, medications, gas or food. We use my discretionary fund to help individuals and families stay in their homes – and last month, for the first time in five years, it was almost depleted. Rooftop, one of the key non-profit agencies in the city assisting people with housing expenses, ran out of funds for the month of May after only two days.

We are currently working on a proposal to the Official Board to double our outreach funding by strategically using endowment earnings and designated funds. We want to use those funds specifically for housing here in Nashville, because once a family loses the roof over their heads, issues like loss of work and income, lack of education and health care become a lot more difficult to address.

I am telling you this because this is what the staff here is working on every day. I am telling you this on mother’s day, because this year, whenever I call my mom, she asks me three questions, and I know today will be no different: First, how are the kids and Nancy? Second, what’s new at Vine Street? And third, how are people dealing with the depressed economy?

My mom taught us that love isn’t a word we write on a card on occasion, but our response to the world and to the needs of others. In her life and her faith, love has always been a lot closer to solidarity than to sentimentality. She taught me that love is the power that keeps us from getting lost in fragmented isolation.

When people lose their jobs, they lose more than their income. Work is our way to make a living, but it is more than that. Work is how we each turn the gift of life into our life. Work is an important part of who we are, it gives us a sense of purpose, the deep satisfaction of having something to offer – skills, products, and services that others need and appreciate. The work we do is an essential piece of the story we tell about ourselves.

Let me tell you about Emilio. Emilio was sixteen at the end of World War II when he came to the U.S. from Sicily. He married Flavia and they had two boys. [My thanks to Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character, for insight and inspiration]

Emilio had little education, and he worked as a janitor all his life. Working hard, saving regularly, and playing by the rules, he and Flavia were able to buy a little house in the Boston suburbs and send their two sons to college. Whenever the boys talked about their class work, Dad didn’t understand a word, but that didn’t diminish his pride. The little house and his sons’ education were visible results of his life’s work. To his colleagues and neighbors Emilio was a friend they could rely on, and he was a respected member of the catholic parish in what was once an Italian neighborhood.

His son Rico graduated from a local university in electrical engineering, went to business school, and married a fellow student – Jennifer was neither Italian nor Catholic, but that was OK. School prepared the young couple to move and change jobs frequently, and they did, following the demands of an economy that values flexibility. In fourteen years at work, Rico and his wife have moved four times, from New York to California, then to Chicago and Missouri, and back to the east coast.

The world they live and work in is very different from the one Emilio and Flavia knew. Stable routines and predictable career tracks are things of the past. Staid bureaucracies and hierarchical management have given way to flatter, more fluid networks. Flexibility has replaced long-term commitment. No more gold watches after thirty years with the same company.

In some ways these changes are positive; they make for a dynamic economy. But they are also destructive.

There was a time when the word “career” referred to a carriage road – a means to help you get from one place to another. Applied to work, a career was a path with fairly predictable stops and turns. You would start at the bottom and work your way up over time in just one or perhaps two companies. Or you would choose a field, get the required training, and all you had to do was fine-tune a skill set that would remain valuable for decades.

We can no longer count on that. The estimates change constantly, but college students are advised these days to anticipate more than ten job changes during their working life. Flexibility is key – colleges are preparing young people for jobs for which no job descriptions have been written yet.

And it’s not just flexible minds that are needed, the demand for flexible bodies is also growing. Recently, when IBM closed a facility in California, they told 200 engineers they could keep their jobs if they were willing to move their families to India.

Flexibility makes for a dynamic economy, but it cuts roots and makes it more and more difficult to sustain family ties and friendships.

Rico makes more in a month than his dad made in a year, but he is worried. He grew up with values like mutual commitment, self-discipline, loyalty, and trust. “You can’t imagine how stupid I feel when I talk to my kids about commitment,” says Rico. “It’s an abstract virtue to them; they don’t see it anywhere.” Flexibility means, there is no long term; stay loose, keep moving, don’t be dependent, don’t get too attached, it only hurts when you have to leave.

I find it curious how changes in our economy lead to the loss of homes for thousands of workers and their families, and at the same time create a sense of being uprooted and disconnected, a sense of homelessness among those most successful in this new world of constant and rapid change.

I have thought much about housing recently, simply because the number of people looking for help to prevent eviction has gone up. I have thought about the things that can give us a sense of stability when everything is in flux, a sense of being at home in the world, if you will.

Some of those thoughts were triggered by an old-fashioned word, abide, repeated again and again in today’s readings from the gospel according to John and from First John. We don’t use the word abide much anymore, and even in parts of the country where traditions and the King’s English are honored, highway motel signs don’t read, “Abide with us.” They simply flash, “Vacancies” or perhaps, “Stay here.”

“To abide” has to do with staying, even if it is only for a night. But it also has to do with dwelling, persevering, and lasting.

Perhaps you remember the ending of chapter 13 of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where the Apostle writes, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

All things come to an end, but love outlasts them all. Love is the power that keeps us from getting lost in fragmented isolation.

In the gospel according to John, Jesus gives us this beautiful image, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

We want to lead fruitful lives, we have a need to lead fruitful lives, and we need a sense of belonging that can outlast the ever-changing circumstances of our lives. Jesus points to himself as the place where we can stay. He gives us roots we can rely on no matter where in the world we are. He invites us to draw strength from him and bear fruit, fruit that brings joy to the vinegrower, to us and to those with whom we share the gift of life.

Love abides: not as a principle or a virtue, but as the living relationship we have with God and with each other through Christ the Vine.

Love abides because Christ abides, because Christ lasts, endures, perseveres, hangs in with us, holds on to us.

Love abides because Christ binds us together across boundaries of income, education, ethnic origin, and political philosophy.

I am not sure if we will be able to create just and sustainable ways of producing and distributing goods around the world, but I hope so. I am not sure if we will be able to build political and economic institutions that serve the well-being of all, but I hope so. I am not sure if we will ever be able to promise each other that none shall have to live on the street, but I hope so. I have the courage to hope because I believe that love abides. I have the strength to hope because Christ is risen, Christ abides.

The love of Christ is the power that saves us from getting lost in fragmented isolation. The love of Christ bears fruit in our lives in all the ways necessary for God’s planting to flourish: we become generous and creative in making sure individuals and families have a roof over their heads; we encourage our children and each other to trust God and think about more than just ourselves; and we practice disciplines that help us to abide in him who so faithfully abides in us.

The love of Christ is the power that saves us from getting lost in flexibility.

Make yourselves at home.

Audio of this post

In love laid down for me

2009-05-04T11:38:00.006-05:00

1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” It’s not about words, it’s actions that matter. I think I know what the writer of 1 John has in mind. Let’s not just talk about love. Let’s not just sing pretty songs about love. Let us embody love and put it into action.

But words do matter, or the writer of 1 John wouldn’t use so many of them to try and convince us. Words do matter, or we wouldn’t lose any sleep over hate speech. Words do matter, because to speak or to write is to act. The words of 1 John are not just words, but testimony, argument, authoritative demand, and urgent plea.

Let love determine what we say and how we say it, what we do and how we act, the letter insists. Let love be the fabric that weaves together all strands of our being, let love be the pattern of our days.

And not just any love. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and the love of power thrives in its company. No, not just any love will do.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Jesus is the pattern. Jesus laid down his life for us – he sought neither power nor wealth. The center of his attention was occupied by God and God’s will, life in abundance for all. Jesus didn’t think of himself outside of these relationships – with the One he called Father, and the many he called brothers and sisters. Not once did he place himself outside of these relationships in splendid isolation. Not once did he participate in the game, where everything and everyone can become a means to selfish ends, and every action is calculated, every step and gesture and word.

Let us love, but not just any love will do. We know how easy it is to mask our desire to have as affection – or our need to control, our hunger for attention, our need to be needed, all dressed up in love-talk.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Frightening words; we wonder if we’re supposed to be willing to die for each other.
Jesus didn’t wait until the end to lay down his life. Jesus didn’t wait until government, religion, and public opinion came together in uncommon accord, condemning him to death and executing him – Jesus laid down his life for us from the beginning. Every step of his, every gesture, every word, every touch, every breath was life laid down for us.

How do we lay down our lives for one another? In 1 John, the answer comes in the form of a question: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”

The laying down of our lives begins not with a big, bold, once-and-for-all yes, but with just one small no that is not spoken, neither in word nor in action. The laying down of our lives begins with seeing a brother or sister in need and not turning away, and it continues in the slow, persistent refusal to think of ourselves outside of our relationship with that brother or sister and God. The laying down of our lives is complete when we can no longer say “I” without saying “you” and “You.”

I believe this is what Jesus calls the life abundant. I believe this is what Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon has in mind when he teaches, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” The abundance, the fullness comes with the laying down.

By happy coincidence I watched a movie last week that offers great commentary and insight on what it means to lay down one’s life. The Mission, released in 1986, tells the story of a Jesuit mission in the heart of South America.

Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, climbs the steep rock face of Iguazu Falls to bring the faith to the Guaraní, an indigenous people living above the falls. He can’t expect a friendly welcome; the last missionary to go there had been strapped to a cross and sent over the falls to his death. Father Gabriel enters the forest, and when he notices that he’s being watched, he sits on a rock, assembles his oboe, and begins to play. Soon he’s surrounded by curious warriors who listen to his music. They let him live and take him with them.

Then we meet Rodrigo Mendoza, played by Robert de Niro, who makes his living as a slaver, kidnapping indigenous people and selling them to the nearby colonial plantations. Rodrigo stabs his brother in a jealous rage, and his guilt buries him alive. Father Gabriel visits him and invites him, as an act of penance, to come to the mission with him.

So Rodrigo also climbs the falls, dragging behind him his heavy armor and weapons, tied into a net. He drags his guilt all the way to the Guaraní camp, where one of the men cuts the rope, releasing him from the weight of his past. Armor and sword are thrown into the river, and Rodrigo begins a new life. He becomes a member of the mission community, a community of peace and learning, of music and worship, where life in fullness thrives.

But suddenly the political circumstances change dramatically. The colonial powers, Portugal and Spain, have come to an agreement that portions of the land claimed by Spain would be signed over to Portugal, including the land above the falls. Portugal wants the Jesuit missions closed, in order to pursue without interference the conquest of the land and the expansion of the plantation economy based on slavery.

The Pope sends an emissary to survey the Jesuit missions and decide which, if any, to allow to continue. Cardinal Altamirano is faced with a difficult choice: If he closes the missions, the indigenous people will certainly die or become enslaved. If he rules in favor of the missions, the Jesuit order may be forced to leave Portugal and all its colonies. The decision is made: Father Gabriel’s mission is to be abandoned, along with all other Jesuit missions.

Now Portuguese troops and militia gather at the foot of the falls; Father Gabriel and Rodrigo, the former slaver, debate how to respond to the violent threat. Rodrigo once more takes up his sword that a boy has retrieved from the river; he cannot stand the thought of the people he has come to love becoming slaves. Fr. Gabriel shakes his head and says to him, “If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don’t have the strength to live in a world like that, Rodrigo.”

They both prepare for the attack. Rodrigo by organizing the defense and building weapons, Gabriel by praying and gathering women, children, and old people in front of the church.

The battle begins, the defenders fight bravely, but they can only slow down the attackers – there’s no stopping them.

Rodrigo is shot several times and lying on the ground, he watches Fr. Gabriel leading the unarmed congregation out of the burning mission compound toward the river. They sing, and all they carry is a crucifix and a monstrance, all they carry are symbols of the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. The soldiers hesitate for a moment, but when the order comes, they fire, some of them crossing themselves before they pull the trigger. Dying, Rodrigo watches his friends fall, one by one, only a handful escape by running away to the jungle. Rodrigo watches until he sees Fr. Gabriel collapse, his body pierced by bullets.

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” says Jesus according to John. Rodrigo and Fr. Gabriel both laid down their lives for their friends by living with them, teaching them and learning from them, receiving their forgiveness and offering it, working with them, building a community of peace with them. Rodrigo took up arms in defense of the defenseless, Fr. Gabriel refused to live in a world where might leaves no room for love. Both died a violent death because of their commitment to that life of embodied, daily love. Who wants to decide which one made the right choice?

At the end of the film, we see a group of Guaraní children loading a few salvaged belongings into a canoe. One of the girls notices a broken violin floating in the water, next to Fr. Gabriel’s scorched oboe. She picks it up and takes it with her as they set off, up the river.

I hope that somehow, after all the brutality and loss, she will be able to play the tune Fr. Gabriel had played and invite those around her to trust the power of love.

The film doesn’t end with that scene. It ends with Cardinal Altamirano, the Papal emissary, concluding his written report: “So, your Holiness, now your priests are dead, and I am left alive. But in truth it is I who am dead, and they who live.”

This the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This is the fourth Sunday of the new song, the fourth Sunday of praise, the fourth Sunday of bold hope: might does not equal right – Christ is risen from the dead. The good shepherd continues to seek the lost and bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. He doesn’t send out the dogs to round up the herd, or emissaries to negotiate with the wolf; he calls, he talks, he sings the shepherd song and plays the kingdom tune like only he can play it. “I lay down my life for the sheep,” is the chorus. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Christ is risen and he sings for Jews and Gentiles, for slavers and Guaraní, for priests and warriors, for all who hear and recognize his voice in the wilderness we have made of God’s world.

Pick up the broken violin and learn to play.

Click here for audio of this post.

You Are Witnesses

2009-04-27T10:11:00.008-05:00

We’re moving on, and we’re moving fast. After Easter, there are so many things to do. Gardens and flowerbeds need to be planted, graduation invitations need to be mailed, and with camps, vacation, summer internships, General Assembly, and the family reunion coming up, summer plans need to be made. It’s two weeks after Easter, and we’re moving on – it’s almost May; and we know, before we’ll be finished saying, “Happy Mothers Day!” it’ll be Memorial Day.

But a big boulder is sitting in the rapids of time. The church’s lectionary – quietly, yet stubbornly – resists the rush.

The ‘lectionary’ is a set of recommendations that has evolved over the centuries, recommendations for how we read Scripture when we gather for worship, and what portions we read and when. The lectionary is also the church’s calendar where every Sunday and every holiday is given a name, and today, perhaps to your surprise, is not the Second Sunday after Easter, but the Third Sunday of Easter.

Spring is rushing toward summer with bright-green speed, the schoolyear is rushing toward graduation with flying gowns, and the lectionary – quietly, yet stubbornly – resists the rush. Easter lingers, and today is only the third Sunday of it.

We open the Bible for the gospel reading, and in Luke it’s still the first day of the week. The entire chapter 24, his final chapter, walks us through the day that began with the women coming to the tomb. They returned with a story, but their words seemed to the others an idle tale.

Then Luke tells us about two of the disciples going to a village called Emmaus and talking with each other about all the things that had happened. They shared their story with a stranger who came near and went with them, told him about Jesus and what a prophet he was and how they had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel; told him about how he had been condemned and crucified and how the women had astounded them with their words. You know the story, how the stranger interpreted to them the scriptures, how he accepted their urgent invitation to stay with them for the night, and how they recognized Jesus in the stranger in the breaking of the bread.

That same day, they returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and their companions gathered together – and now everybody had a tale about the risen Lord! And while they were sharing resurrection stories, Jesus himself stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

No one had let him in; he just showed up, startling them. Now perhaps you think that this was the third time, after all, that the resurrection disrupted the flow of their day, and that by now they should have been able to deal with the fact that Jesus was not dead but risen. But they were still startled and terrified, then disbelieving and wondering.

Perhaps you think it was time for them to get it and move on – but move on where to? What did it mean for them that Jesus was not dead but powerfully present? What does it mean for us?

In the gospel according to Luke that first day begins at early dawn, but it never ends. There’s not a single word indicating that eventually everybody got tired and went to bed. Jesus ate a piece of broiled fish, and then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. How long do you think he taught them? Until the next morning?

Until their imagination was unlocked; until a few closed doors in the hallways of their minds swung open. Jesus interpreted for them the witness of scripture until they understood that his rejection and his death were part of God’s work to redeem humanity and renew creation.

Jesus opened to them the witness of scripture until they could hear the call: Now that Christ is risen, repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

Jesus is neither a dead man, nor a ghost, but the risen Lord who teaches, sends, and blesses us for ministry. “You are witnesses,” he said to them, he says to us. You have a story to tell. You have a story to embody and live.

In the gospel according to Luke, the entire final chapter is dedicated to the first day when Jesus rose from the dead; and the sun doesn’t go down on that day, night doesn’t fall.

The chapter ends with Jesus leading them out as far as Bethany, and, blessing them, being carried up into heaven. The sun doesn’t go down, night doesn’t fall. The gospel concludes with the disciples worshiping him and returning to Jerusalem with great joy.

The first day doesn’t end; it culminates in the disciples’ return to the city, and the way I see it, they are not alone. Returning with them in an unending procession of great joy are the nations who have heard the good news of repentance and forgiveness of sins.

On Easter Sunday, the children sang,

“Every morning is Easter morning from now on, every day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone.”

What they are telling us is not that our days are an endless repetition of a day that began and ended two-thousand years ago. They are telling us that we are living in a new day. A day that is not defined by sunrise and sunset, but by the Lord Jesus, crucified and risen. This day is defined not by humanity’s sinful past, but solely by God’s power to create and redeem. Easter lingers because this day does not end.

Jesus is neither a dead man, nor a ghost, but the risen Lord who teaches, sends, and blesses us for ministry. “You are witnesses,” he says to us. You have a story to tell. You have a story to embody and live.

Like every generation of disciples before us, we move on not to leave Easter behind, but to live in it more fully every day of our lives.

We move on – from words that seem an idle tale to moments of recognition.

We move on – from the burial of hope to the table where our eyes are opened.

We move on – from having our vision impaired by fear and doubt to having our minds opened to understand the scriptures.

We move on – from being slow of heart to believe, to hearing the call of Christ in any kind of circumstance.

“You are witnesses of these things,” he says to us. And we want to respond, “Who – us?” because the world has a way of robbing us of our hope, filling us with fear, closing our minds, and colonizing our imagination.

But he continues to break into that reality saying, “Yes – you.” We have a story to tell. We have a story to embody and live, a story the world cannot be without.

In the spring of last year we got into a little boat, big enough for all of us, yet small enough to remind everybody that this is no cruise ship where some are crew and the rest are passengers. We set sails, allowing the Spirit of God to blow freely and pull us forward. We called our adventure ‘The Journey.’

We were very intentional about listening to each other. We gathered in groups of various sizes, heard presentations and shared comments, and then we met in groups of three for a hundred days. One hundred days of prayer – obviously some of us were more reluctant than others to participate in that part of the journey, but it turned out to be the most rewarding.

We talked and listened, we prayed, we watched in wonder how trust and friendship grew among us; we had our hearts and minds opened. We moved from the safe surface to the secret places, and were not our hearts burning within us again and again?

No idle tales; we were free to share our hopes and fears, our frustrations and our dreams. Insights emerged and visions, discoveries were jotted down, ideas refined.
The summer of prayer turned into a harvest season of gathering and rejoicing. And like wheat becomes bread to strengthen the human heart, and the grapes gathered in the vineyard become wine to gladden the human heart, the harvest of our conversations and prayers has become a story to nourish the heart and kindle the imagination.

It is not just any story, it is our future story, Vine Street 2019. I’m not spilling a secret when I tell you that we will watch a video presentation of that story during lunch today – the 30-second trailer was released online on Thursday afternoon, and it had over 70 views already by Friday.

We will watch a video premiere, but this little film is more than the play of light on a screen and sound waves on the air – although it is that. It is more than the product of the creativity of a writer, a director, a photographer, and an editor – although it is that. It is more than the faces and voices of several of our members – although it is that.

It is the embodiment of our work and prayer of an entire year. It is the call we have heard and the beginning of our response. It is the shape we will give to our witness over the next 5-7 years, beginning in Nashville and extending to all nations around the world. Yes, it is that big.

This is how we intend to live in the day that began with the women coming to the tomb and finding the stone rolled away.

This is how we intend to live as witnesses of our crucified and risen Lord.

This is how we intend to live as God’s Easter people in the world.

Audio of this post is available.

And here's the video:

Delicious and Imaginative

2009-04-22T14:58:00.004-05:00

The Resurrection Continues

2009-04-21T13:23:00.004-05:00

It is a strange reversal, when you think about it. Jesus is out of the tomb, risen from the dead and on the loose in the world – and the disciples? Hiding behind locked doors, prisoners of fear.

There was little conversation, nobody had remembered to get something to eat, but no one really felt like eating anyway.

Mary had told them that she had seen the Lord and what he had said to her, but her tesimony, for whatever reason, hadn’t made the slightest difference. We don’t know if they didn’t believe her of if they couldn’t imagine what her words might mean.

One of the stories I suspect was in circulation in the first century but John didn’t write down, is the one about Mary pulling her hair in frustration: all she had were words, and her words were not enough to break the paralysis of fear and guilt, not enough to let them hear what she had heard and see what she had seen.

It is strange reversal; Jesus is out of the tomb, and the disciples are in it.

Then Jesus came and said, “Peace be with you.”

The first word of the Risen One to the gathered disciples was peace. The last time they had been together, he had told them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (14:27).” And now Jesus stood among them, after their betrayal, their denial, and their abandoning him – Jesus stood among them and spoke peace into their troubled, fearful hearts.

He showed them the wounds in his hands and his side, and his presence transformed the dark tomb into a house of joy, with laughter pouring into the street. Their fear melted away and the living Christ was once again the center of their lives.

“Peace be with you,” he said, not, “Shame on you, you sorry bunch” or “OK, friends, let’s talk about this,” but, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Suddenly they saw the world outside, the world of sin, death, and fear no longer as a threat, but as the object of God’s love. Only moments ago they had been little more than bodies in a tomb, now they were a community with a mission, sent by the risen Christ.

In the book of the prophet Ezekiel, the prophet looks at a valley full of bones, and the Lord asks him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And the Lord tells him to prophesy to these bones, to speak to the bones and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord (Ez 37:1-14).”

In Ezekiel’s day, the bones represented the people of God in exile, lifeless, dry, dispirited and discouraged.

I know Mary must have felt like she was talking to a pile of bones when her words couldn’t break through the pall of fear and grief that lay on the disciples. But now Jesus was in their midst and he breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit. A small band of fearful men, held together solely by habit, shame and fear – now they were the church, commissioned and empowered by the living Christ, born into living hope.

Can these bones live? We shall see – the mission of Christ continues, and his disciples follow him telling the story, forgiving sins and serving others until the peace of Christ, the shalom of God, fills earth and heaven.

Since the days of Mary and the other apostles, frightened disciples could be church because the Risen One keeps breaking in on us, breathing on the white bones of our lives, leading us out of our tombs, and placing in our hands the gifts of God for the world: peace and forgiveness. Because Christ is risen from the dead, we no longer live toward the horizon of death, but toward the horizon of fullness of life for all creatures.

The resurrection isn’t something that happened to Jesus two millennia ago, but rather something that began with him and continues with those who hear the word of life. It is the transformation of our old, tired world into the new creation. It is the wind that blows from the future of fulfilment, the breath that brings life to dry bones, the dew from heaven that renews the earth.

Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus came in the evening of that day. Neither were any of us around then. All we have is what Thomas was given, the words of witnesses.

The other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But their words, just like Mary’s before, didn’t have the power to break through whatever kept this disciple from hearing them with faith.

He didn’t know whom or what they had seen, what apparition might have fooled them. He needed to see for himself, and more than see.

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

He needed to see, he needed to touch, he needed to get close. Thomas wanted proof – not a convincing argument about the general possibility of bodily resurrection, but tangible proof that this Risen One was indeed the Crucified One.

He had questions nobody could answer for him with a reference to scripture or to some other authority. He needed to see, he needed to touch, he needed to get close.

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. That is remarkable, isn’t it?

There are plenty of churches where you are no longer welcome when your questions cannot be answered with a quick reference to scripture or to some other authority.

There are too many Christian communities where no one voices their doubt or their struggles for fear of being excluded or declared spiritually challenged.

And there are countless individuals who hear the words of Mary and the disciples, but they won’t be back a week later with their questions and their need to experience for themselves what the words declare.

In this gem of a story, the community of disciples consists of those who have seen and those who have not; no one is pushed out or forced in; they’re together. And the scene repeats itself, solely for Thomas’s sake, we suppose.

Jesus comes and stands among them and says, for the third time now, “Peace be with you.” He turns to Thomas and, far from rebuking him for his stubborn insistence on something more tangible than words, says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

And Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God.”

The one who wanted proof, the one who didn’t want to settle for repeating the words of others but held out for an experience of the Risen One on his own terms, this Thomas made a confession of faith unlike any other in the gospels.

Thomas has been remembered in the church as the doubter par excellence and called to the aid of authorities whenever the questions of some became uncomfortable and needed to be squelched. I don’t think we should remember him as a doubter, though, but rather as one who insisted on the continuity between the ministry of Jesus and the mission of the church, one who insisted that the glory of God is revealed in the wounds of the crucified Jesus.

The gospel according to John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Close to the end of the gospel, it is Thomas who, after much struggle, affirms that statement in the presence of Jesus, crucified and risen.

The resurrection is not something that happened to Jesus two millennia ago, but rather something that began with him when God raised him from the dead.

The disciple whom Jesus loved came to the tomb and saw the linen wrappings; then he went inside, got a little closer, and he saw and believed.

Mary Magdalene had seen angels at the tomb, but they had no comfort for her; then a stranger spoke her name, and she recognized Jesus and believed.

The disciples believed when they saw the risen Jesus, and they rejoiced, “We have seen the Lord!”

Thomas believed when he saw Jesus with the other disciples, and the word of the risen Jesus moved him from unbelief to confessing, “My Lord and my God.”

Not a bad conclusion to the gospel story.

But in the final verses of this chapter it becomes clear that the Sunday evening scene wasn’t repeated solely for Thomas’s sake, but also for ours.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

We have not seen what the first disciples have seen, but we hear their witness.

In the final verses of the chapter, we read a note from the author to the readers, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

We trust the Word that comes to us through the proclamation of the first witnesses.

We follow the call that comes to us through their word and the work of the Holy Spirit.

We continue the mission of Jesus Christ, embodying his peace and forgiveness in how we live our lives.

We believe, not because we have seen, but because we trust that we will see the shalom of God filling earth and heaven.

And we continue to be witnesses who declare what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life.

The resurrection continues.

Audio of this post is available.

Now the Story

2009-04-20T14:36:00.004-05:00

The little boat has served us faithfully.

We got on board in the spring of last year, and the Spirit of God blew across the sails – gently sometimes, forcefully occasionally, always pulling us forward.

We gathered in groups of various sizes, heard presentations and shared comments, and then we met in groups of three for one hundred days. How surprised we were to find this portion of the journey to be the single most rewarding!

All the insights and discoveries, all the thoughts, hopes and dreams were harvested – no, not to be stored in a pretty barn. Like grapes become wine and wheat becomes bread, the harvest of our conversations and prayers has become a story. Are you curious?

On Sunday, April 26, during our Spring Luncheon, we will present “Vine Street 2019,” our future story. This is not only a premiere you don’t want to miss; it is a sacramental moment: it is the embodiment of our work and prayer of an entire year, it is the call we have heard.

Tallu in Nicaragua

2009-04-19T19:24:00.007-05:00

On Monday, April 20, Tallu will fly from Nashville to Managua/Nicaragua to work for one year in a community development project coordinated by Church World Service, Week of Compassion, and CIEETS.

Tallu is a member of Vine Street Christian Church in Nashville; we are very proud of her, of course, and we look forward to this opportunity to build relationships with the people she'll be working with. I hope she'll soon have her blog up!

For today, have a safe trip, Tallu, and God bless your adventure in ministry!

Who Are We Now?

2009-04-19T10:09:00.006-05:00

In the Garden

2009-04-15T10:53:00.004-05:00

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.

What kind of sabbath had she passed the day before?

Surely not a day of holy rest, a day of rejoicing in creation’s beauty and abundance. More likely, she spent her sabbath in numb silence, a vast stretch of grey time, punctuated by episodes of hellish fury against Rome, against the temple leadership, and against God.

She had allowed this man to awaken hope in her; she trusted Jesus like she had never trusted anyone before. Because of him, she had dared to step out of the darkness into a life of forgiveness, love, and promise. And now he was dead; and with him, her hope had died.

How do you put into words that your world has a hole in it larger than life itself? How do you sit with this unending absence, this void that swallows up light like a black hole? A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty, says Philippe Ariès.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.

On Monday, an earthquake shook the ground under the small town of L’Aquila in central Italy, killing 292 people. We do not know how many went to the graves, early this morning, while it was still dark, to touch the earth, or to just be where they had buried a loved one without whom the fabric of their lives was little more than a frayed cloth about to fall apart.

On Wednesday, news anchor Dan Miller, a virtual family member of thousands in Middle Tennessee and a husband, father and friend, died suddenly, only 67 years old.

On Friday, a tornado touched down several times in Murfreesboro, killing a mother and her baby, injuring dozens of people, and damaging or destroying 250 homes. The same storm system had caused three deaths in Arkansas on Thursday.

Too many funerals that did not come at the end of long, well-lived lives, but too soon, too violently, ending too many dreams, leaving too many promises unfulfilled.

Earlier this week, somewhere in America, a woman was called into her supervisor’s office. Sales had been down since September last year, and the company was losing money daily. ‘So sorry,’ the supervisor said, ‘we have to let you go.’ She cleaned out her desk, wondering how long their family could afford to pay the mortgage with just one income.

Earlier this week, somewhere in America, a man sat across the desk from his doctor, trying to make sense of the words, ‘three months, perhaps four.’

Someone else heard the words, ‘I have never loved you,’ and slipped over the edge into nothingness where life is a fall without end and the darkness is overwhelming. [See Craig Barnes, “Savior at Large”]

Earlier this week, the darkness of Friday covered the world like a suffocating blanket.

Early on the first day, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.

She didn’t want to see anybody, or she could have asked one of her friends to come with her. She wanted to be alone, close to the one who used to be the light of her world, whose name was the first name of her hope.

The moment she saw that the stone had been removed, leaving the entrance to the tomb wide open, Mary ran to tell Peter and another disciple that Jesus’ body had been stolen. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then John tells us that for a while there was a lot of running back and forth to the tomb, with what sounds like an odd competition between Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved – an entire paragraph about who got there first, who entered first, and who saw what and when.

After emerging from the tomb, rather than starting to search the garden for the missing body, the two disciples went home, without another word to each other or to Mary. John explains that ‘as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.’ A generous interpretation would suggest that they went home to study the scriptures some more.

Mary didn’t go home; I suspect she didn’t have anywhere to go, since the closest she had ever come to feeling at home had been with Jesus. Mary stood outside the tomb, weeping.

The angels she saw sitting where the body of Jesus was supposed to be, showed remarkably little sensitivity.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” they said to her.

She told them what she had told the disciples, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

The angels had no comfort to offer.

You have to wonder if angels do not know how difficult it is to keep on living after someone you love has died. Not being mortal, they may not know the pain of loss and grief. They may well lack the capacity to imagine a world without hope, a world without light, a world falling and collapsing into a dark, formless void.

Are you hearing echoes of the first chapters of Genesis? I am.

This is the first day, while it is still dark. This is the darkness before God speaks. This is the garden where it all began, where it begins again and again with the love of God for a rebellious humanity.

The cross is the ultimate clash between the will of God and our will; it is the tree of life robbed of its fruit, stripped of its leaves and roots, and perverted into an instrument of death. The cross shows us what we do to each other in the name of justice, political ambition, and religious conviction. We betray, we deny, we forsake, we accuse, abuse and condemn. We turn the garden of creation into a world where God is crucified and buried.

This day is not about a missing corpse. Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” the stranger asks, sounding just like one of the angels. “Whom are you looking for?” She doesn’t answer him; all she wants is for him to give her back the dead body of Jesus.

And he says, “Mary!” – and she turns and light and life and laughter return to the garden.

“Rabbouni!” she replies with wonder and joy, lunging forward to embrace the long-lost friend.

How is the scene to end?

Richard Hays suggests, in a 1992 article in the Christian Century,

A Hollywood director (…) would finish the scene with lush strings, Cat Stevens on the vocal track, glints of light from the rising sun on the morning dew, slow-motion shots as Mary runs to embrace him.

Some of you may not remember Cat Stevens, but we have seen enough movies to imagine the closing scene, the long tearful hug and Jesus saying with a nice baritone voice, “Let’s go and get the others; time to go home. I will never ever leave you.” Cut – and roll the credits.

But this is not Hollywood; this is the first day of the new creation. The Risen One frustrates our desire for closure, and says abruptly, “Do not hold on to me.” This is not the resumption of a former relationship, a turning back of the clock that somehow undoes the reality of suffering, the brutal reality of the crucifixion. There is no going back. This is the beginning of a new relationship between Jesus and his followers.

On this day, we do not cling to the hope that Jesus will take us back to the life we once knew with him. What we do hold on to is the promise that his departure was not a fall into oblivion, leaving us orphaned in a world of our own loveless making, but rather the opening of a window through which the Holy Spirit comes to us to abide with us.

This day is our celebration of the wondrous resilience of God’s purpose, of the faithfulness of our God who will not let us go. The Friday darkness gives way to the light of the new day, and on this day the Spirit gathers us into the intimacy the Son shares with the Father, an intimacy God has willed and desired for us since the beginning of time.

Mary doesn’t cling to the body in which she first encountered the love and grace of God – instead she receives and embraces the commission to speak about God’s will and desire to draw humanity into the communion of the divine life. And so Mary leaves the garden, not as one driven out but as an apostle who is being sent on a mission.

The sad sabbath of loss and grief did not end while she was groping for a way through the dark, nor when she saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Not even a vision of angels had the power to change her lament, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

But then she recognized the voice that called her by name. Mary left the garden confessing, “I have seen the Lord,” and everywhere she went, everywhere we go, proclaiming the Risen One, the dead wood of the cross leaves, blossoms, and bears fruit. Thanks be to God.

The Lord Needs It

2009-04-06T11:59:00.007-05:00

Passover is an annual celebration, a spring festival whose date is determined by the lunar calendar. This year it begins this Wednesday at sun-down, and Easter, as always, follows soon after.

Before the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70, Passover was one of the great pilgrimage festivals that brought together God’s people from near and far. Those who lived in Judea may have made the trip every year; for others it was a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. They went up to Jerusalem, up to the Temple, to remember how the Lord had brought them out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and had led them to the land of promise.

I like to imagine how in the days leading up to the festival, the roads around the city were full of people, young and old, most of them on foot, some on donkeys – slow-moving traffic, but nevertheless a cheerful throng on the way to a joyous feast. They chattered and laughed, helped each other find the children that got lost in the crowd, shared food and water, ointment for their sore feet – and on the last few miles, when they could already see the city on the hill, they sang the songs of Zion, songs of longing and fulfillment.

Among the crowd were those who knew they would never make this journey again – who knows how many years they had been saving every little copper coin to be able to be in Jerusalem for Passover just once. You know they had tears running down their smiling faces as they climbed up the dusty roads; you know they laughed when they explained, apologizingly, “O everything’s OK, thank you for asking, I’m just so happy to be here.”

The little ones were watching, and while they may not have known all the stories of God’s mighty acts, they learned lessons about God and faith every step of the way. This was the journey of their people with their God.

For Jesus, according to Mark, this was the first and only trip to Jerusalem. He had told his disciples repeatedly what awaited him in the city, but they were unable to hear and grasp what he said when he spoke of rejection, betrayal, torture, and death, let alone resurrection.

James and John heard him talk about his humiliation at the hands of the religious and civil authorities, but all they could think about were seats of honor at Jesus’ right hand and his left. One more time Jesus taught them about servanthood and service as standards for greatness, but who knows if his words ever made it from his lips to their hearts.

Now they were approaching Jerusalem, and something very curious happened.

Jesus sent two of his disciples to go and get him a donkey. His instructions were very clear and detailed: where to go, what kind of colt to look for, to untie it, even what to say should anybody ask them what they were doing and why.

And then everything unfolded just as Jesus had said it would: they went away, found the colt tied near a door, began to untie it; bystanders asked, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” and they told them what Jesus had told them to say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately.”

Now what would you say if a couple of guys showed up in your neighbor’s driveway, opened the door to the car, and looked for the keys behind the visor?

“What are you doing? Can I help you find something?”

I’m sure you would find the answer entirely satisfying, “The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately.”

This is a strange conversation, isn’t it? Perhaps the strangest thing about it is that Jesus has so much to say about where and how to get the little donkey, and then he is silent until the next morning; doesn’t speak a word. They bring the donkey, he sits on it, people spread cloaks and leafy branches on the road, they sing and shout, and Jesus doesn’t say anything. He enters the city, goes to the Temple, looks around, and then he and the disciples go back to Bethany for the night.

“Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” says the header in our Bible, but the whole scene is a lot less triumphal than what Matthew, Luke and John describe, and more than half of the passage deals with fetching a donkey.

We know Mark knows how to be brief. Mark doesn’t waste any words. Why then is so much attention given to the instructions to the disciples and to the unfolding of the unusual scene in the village?

We like the pageantry and drama of Palm Sunday. We love the palms, the parade, the children singing and the crowds pouring through the city gates to welcome the king. We love it so much, we add a little trumpet to the song, and it sounds almost like Easter.

Mark’s little story is very different, very restrained in comparison. Yes, today we welcome God’s Messiah to the city, and the trumpet and the palms and the shouting are the least we can do. But I believe Mark wants to make sure we remember that we are disciples, and not the royal welcome committee. The curious details about where and how to obtain the donkey are all for our sake.

Jesus taught compassion and service; he spoke of God’s faithfulness in the presence of human rejection, betrayal, torture and condemnation; he told his friends what would happen, but they couldn’t hear it – they were preoccupied arguing about greatness, jockeying for positions of influence and prestige, dreaming of glory.

Had they known about “the triumphal entry” they would have wanted to walk in at Jesus’ right hand and his left, or perhaps ten paces ahead of him manifesting their self-importance and controlling the crowds with serious looks and officious statements.

Jesus sent only two of them, but they went on behalf of all of us. They listened, they did as they were told, and they found everything just as Jesus had said.

Were they surprised at the positive response they received when they said, “The Lord needs it”? No doubt in my mind.

Did they begin to understand that this wasn’t just about a donkey but about all the events of that final week?

Did they begin to trust that everything would occur as foreseen and foretold by Jesus ever since they left Galilee?

Did they begin to grasp that rejection and suffering were not the failure of Jesus but the very consequence of Jesus being God’s Messiah?

I don’t know – on Thursday night, all of them deserted him and fled (Mark 14:50). He was alone.

The more important question is, do we understand that we are on the way with the Son of God and that all that happens this week is not just a series of unfortunate events?

The gospel according to Mark begins with the call to prepare the way of the Lord(Mark 1:3), but that preparation does not translate into chairing the messianic party committee or writing choreography for the Son of David cheerleaders.

In Mark, preparation of the Lord’s way translates into “the arrangements people make for the ministry of Jesus” (Joel Markus) – things like finding him a boat and have it ready (Mark 3:9), gathering people in groups for a miraculous meal in the wilderness (Mark 6:39), fetching a donkey for the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem, and getting a room ready for the Passover meal (Mark 14:13-16).

Thomas Long came up with the lovely phrase describing disciples as “donkey fetchers.” What we are asked to do may seem mundane and routine, and on days when the donkey is particularly balky, pushing and dragging it to the Mount of Olives can be utterly exhausting. But our efforts have a place in the redeeming work of Christ.

We may think that a convertible or at least a white horse would be a more appropriate ride for a king, but Jesus knows what he’s doing.

We may think that leading an army of sword-wielding heavenly warriors would be the most promising way of dealing with humanity’s rebellious tendencies and the presence of evil in creation, but Jesus knows where he’s going.

We may think that what we do in response to Christ’s call and obedient to his teachings doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but it does: because to be a disciple is to make arrangements for the ministry of Jesus the Messiah.

Mark’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem has another intriguing detail. In no other gospel do the songs and shouts end so abruptly. Verse 10 ends, “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” and verse 11 continues, “Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.”

He is alone and all is quiet. He looks around. He knows where he is going. He knows that before the week is over he will enter the deepest loneliness.

One last word. When Jesus gave instructions to the two disciples for how to respond should anyone ask why they were untying the colt, he told them, “Just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” Mark doesn’t tell us, though, who took back the colt or if it was taken back at all.

I wonder if it stayed. I wonder if the donkey stayed when all others fled. I got the thought from a line in the book of Isaiah, where God declares,

“I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand (Isaiah 1:2-3).”

I wonder if the donkey stayed, a silent witness watching as the love of God for God’s people – Israel, you and me and all the others – went farther than any human being could have ever imagined.

This is the week when we remember that love prevailed against rejection, betrayal, torture, and death. This is the way of Christ. This is the journey of our God with us.

Audio of this post is available.

Nouvelle Alliance

2009-04-06T10:39:00.005-05:00

On Palm Sunday, Nouvelle Alliance Christian Church gathered for their first Sunday worship service in the chapel at Vine Street Christian Church.

The members are all recent immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo and their children. The worship languages are French and Lingala, and the sermon is also translated into English. Celet Nkobe is the leader of the new church, and we pray that Nouvelle Alliance will thrive and become a home for French-speaking Christians in Nashville.

On Good Friday our congregations will worship together, and on Easter the youth will serve pancakes for both congregations.

The Book

2009-03-24T16:21:00.006-05:00

Yes, Polar Star Press published a sermon series I preached in the summer of 2008, "Affirmations."

The book is a collection of reflections on the Disciples' affirmation of faith - it's a beautiful confession, but we call it, somewhat over-cautiously, the Preamble to the Design.

This We Believe would be such a lovely statement, but we're a long way from anything like that ...

Anyway, your purchase of the book will support the work of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. Thank you!

Baptism

2009-03-23T14:16:00.006-05:00

On Easter Sunday we baptize new disciples.

Following their confession of faith in Jesus Christ, they are lowered into the deep water to die and rise with Christ, to be washed and renewed, to cross the sea and the river and enter the land of God's promise.

Baptism is nothing less than the whole story of God and the people of God condensed into one moment:

It is the sea through which God’s people escape to freedom and in which the powers that oppress and enslave them drown.

It is the river God’s people cross to enter the promised land.

It is the flood from which a renewed creation emerges.

It is the call of John in the wilderness and the obedience of Jesus.

It is the water that breaks at the birth of a new humanity.

It is the washing of feet at the end of a long journey and the bath on the eve of the great sabbath.

It is the river of life that runs from the throne of God.

We discover the whole story of God and God’s people in the sacrament of baptism – not because water ties it all together so beautifully, but because Jesus does. In his whole life we find God’s purposes revealed and God’s promises fulfilled. Those who answer Christ's call to discipleship and kingdom mission leave their old life behind and live in newness of life, live in Christ.

In baptism, God acts by embracing us as God’s own, making us part of the body of Christ, and giving us the Holy Spirit;

the church acts by obeying the command of Christ and welcoming new disciples as brothers and sisters and equipping them for ministry;

and the individual believer acts by responding to God’s call in Christ, renouncing the false gods of this world, and committing to a life as a follower of Jesus Christ.

At Vine Street, we will have a retreat on Good Friday for all candidates for baptism, and the retreat will conclude with an evening pilgrimage through the church, in the tradition of the Stations of the Cross. More information about this concluding worship will be in our newsletter; we welcome guests to this and any worship service.

The Ten Commandments of Email

2009-03-18T14:40:00.003-05:00

according to Thomas

1. I keep my messages brief and to the point. Sometimes what I need to say is more than three or four brief paragraphs. That’s when I write a letter or ask for an appointment.

2. I don't discuss multiple subjects in a single message. This helps with keeping them brief. If multiple subjects need to be addressed, multiple messages with clear subject lines make life easier for the recipients. It also makes it more likely that I get a response to each of my questions or requests.

3. I never put in an e-mail message anything that I wouldn't put on a postcard. Email can be forwarded, and I have no control over that. I do have control over the content of what I write in my email, though.

4. I send group e-mail only when it's useful to every recipient. I use TO: for the people I expect a response from. I use CC: for people who need to know, but from whom I don’t expect a response. I use BCC: for large groups (primarily to keep all the unnecessary “reply all” messages out of their mailboxes and my own), and I keep my mailing lists up to date.

5. I try to remember that email is a very limited communication device. Those who read my email messages don’t have the benefit of my pitch, tone, inflection, or other non-verbal cues. When in doubt, I make a phone call.

6. I don’t write in ALL CAPS, unless it’s AWESOME or GREAT. Other than praise, nothing should be shouted. The same applies to ?????? or !!!!!!!

7. When I’m angry, I take a walk before I reply. Firing back only creates more heat. If I reply at all, I keep in mind the postcard rule.

8. I use spell-checker.

9. I read my e-mail before I send it. I have created great nonsense by editing parts of a sentence without reading the rest. I have created great nonsense by using cut and paste clumsily. I have created great nonsense by dropping essential letters or entire words. I read my email before I send it.

10. I use “reply all” only when “all” need to know. When Bob sends the minutes of the last meeting to the 15 members of the Board of Directors, I send my “Thanks for the minutes, Bob. Brief and precise as always. thomas” to Bob.

11. I have broken every single one of these ten, but I keep trying.

I have gathered these from multiple sources (google "email etiquette") and modified them for my own use.

The Big Ten

2009-03-16T11:29:00.005-05:00

Sermon titles can be deceiving. It’s the middle of March, conference tournaments are in full swing, and the sermon title is The Big Ten – but you wouldn’t really expect me to talk about Illinois, Northwestern, Michigan, Ohio or Purdue, would you?

And it’s not just sermon titles that can be deceiving – I counted the Big Ten, and there are actually eleven schools in that conference.

Today’s sermon title refers to the words spoken by God in the wilderness of Sinai and written on tablets of stone, ten commandments for the life of God’s people. They are not ten heavy, finger-wagging Thou shalt not’s that quickly add some severe restrictions to the freedom of these run-away slaves, but rather words of life that protect their freedom, words to help them live in covenant community with God and with each other – and not in the deadly systems of Egypt.

The big ten are the constitutional text of God’s people, if you will, a text that characteristically doesn’t begin with “We, the people” but with “I the Lord.”

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

It all begins with this memory of liberation and the God whose name was revealed in it.
You raise one finger, and it’s easy – even without looking at it – to say “I”, but our freedom in the land of God’s promise depends on our ability to remember the name of the One who brought us out. Who we are is forever determined not by what we make of ourselves or of each other, but by who this Holy One is for us:

I. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out.
II. You don’t need any other gods.
III. You don’t need to manufacture images or dream up ideas to capture who I am, for I am who I am, the Lord your God, who brought you out.
IV. Remember my name.

The big ten are written on two tablets; one with particular attention to our relationship with God, the other with particular attention to our relationship with one another. The two are not separate, though, because together they serve a single purpose: to help God’s people live as God’s people, to help us remember the name of our God.

To me, the fourth commandment is something like a hinge holding the two tablets together.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Ed Hallowell wrote a book a couple of years ago, CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, And About To Snap. Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life. USA Today praised it, “Valuable advice… Too busy to read this book? Then you really need to.”

I wonder when ‘crazy-busy’ became part of our vocabulary; I suspect it wasn’t too long ago. The more time-saving devices we introduce to our daily lives, the less time we have, it seems.

“Too busy to read this book? Then you really need to.” That’s cute, isn’t it? You know what they’re going to suggest next: No time to read? Get the 3 hour audio book and listen to it while racing to get there – work, school, soccer, doctor’s appointment, whatever it is you’re racing to get to next.

Add church to that. Programs, committees, task groups, luncheons, surveys, and meeting after meeting.

Sorry, I can’t meet with you, I’m already booked on Tuesday.
No, next week I’m in Indianapolis.
Yes, Friday would work, but not before 7.
Is that am or pm?

No, I’m not kidding. We work as if the next sunrise depended on us. There’s so much to do, it seems, and so little time to do it; earn a living; get the kids ready for school and before you know it through college; take care of family members; nurture friendships; clean the house; cut the grass; paint the shutters; get some exercise – and don’t forget to become a better parent, a smarter investor, a more attentive lover, and last but not least a well-rounded human being.

We’re not just racing to get there; we’re racing to get there without knowing where “there” is anymore. We raise our finger and say “I” and what follows is usually some version of “just don’t have enough time” or “am constantly trying to catch up” or “don’t know where the years went.”

We live forgetful lives where “I” is no longer followed by “am the Lord your God who brought you out” or “am the One who created and delights in you” or “am the Lord your Redeemer.”

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Valuable advice, somebody quips at USA Today. Too busy to remember? Then you really need to.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.

The very first story in our scriptures climaxes on the seventh day: life is complete not when the work is done on day six but when it is enjoyed on the seventh day. God rests and takes pleasure in life as it unfolds – no need to tweak this or improve that, no need to go back to Research & Development and create an even better world, Creation 2.0. - just rest and pleasure.

Of the big ten, the commandment to remember the sabbath is the longest; not because it requires lengthy explanations or sub-clauses with additional thou-shalt-not’s – it is the longest because it has to have a taste of wondrous fullness: on that day, you shall not work, you, your son or your daughter, the men and women who work for you, your livestock, or the immigrant in your towns – do your work in six days, and on the seventh day join God in taking pleasure in life as it simply and wondrously unfolds, all of you.

Working and resting, laboring and letting life be, in the rhythm of life that has been since the beginning of time, human beings are in the image of God. Crazy-busy is always racing to get there without even knowing where “there” is anymore; living with a sabbath rhythm is getting a taste of “being there,” a taste of wondrous fullness every week.

Kentucky farmer and writer, Wendell Berry, wrote a book of Sabbath poems; one of them, No. X from 1979, speaks beautifully of how the sabbath shapes our daily work.

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

In the wilderness of Sinai, God made a covenant with Israel, and remembering the sabbath is at the heart of this covenant. We know God’s name most fully through Jesus Christ, and through him we stand in spiritual and historical kinship with the Jewish people.

As Christians, we affirm the grateful relationship to the Creator that Jews celebrate each Sabbath, and we share the joyful liberation from oppressive labor first experienced by the slaves who left Egypt. But we add to these celebrations our weekly festival for the source of our greatest joy: Christ’s victory over sin and his resurrection from the dead. Every Sunday is a little Easter, that first day that is also the eigth day of creation, new beginning and fulfillment.

We need Sabbath time not just to stay sane – and we certainly need it for that – but to become fully human, to be transformed and grow into the image of Christ.

Dorothy Bass writes, “to act as if the world cannot get along without our work for one day in seven is a startling display of pride that denies the sufficiency of our generous Maker.”

For most of us, Sunday will continue to be our sabbath day when we gather in worship with fellow-Christians. We don’t do it because we can’t think of anything better to do on our day off; keeping sabbath is not about taking a day off. Keeping sabbath is about being recalled to the memory that is the source of our freedom and our humanity: not “I” but the One who says “I am the Lord your God who brought you out; I am your God who knit you together in your mother’s womb and delights in you; I am the Lord your redeemer.”

Without that memory we’re back in the crazy-busy brickyards of Egypt.

“After worship, what many of us need most,” writes Dorothy Bass, “is time with loved ones—not useful time, for planning next week’s schedules, but time ‘wasted’ on the pleasure of being together,” perhaps watching the men’s finals in basketball between Purdue and the Buckeyes.

Next Sunday, after worship, we’ll be wasting some time on the pleasure of being together by having a Wii bowling tournament in the fellowship hall. God’s people at play, young and old together. Worship and rest and play.

One day a week—not much, in a sense, but a good beginning.

One day to resist the tyranny of too much or too little.

One day to remember who we really are and what is really important.

One day that, week after week, anchors our life in the promises and purposes of God.

One day – not just for our sanity but for our very humanity.

Audio of this post is available.

Heart of the Desert

2009-03-13T19:08:00.004-05:00

I'm reading In the Heart of the Desert by John Chryssavgis. It's an introduction to the world of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, a world that is gone, historically speaking; I am moved by their complete embrace of imperfection and their deep compassion. Abba Arsenius, Abba Poemen, Amma Syncletica, Abba Moses the Robber, Abba Macarius, and others whose sayings have been passed down through the centuries were men and women seeking to be fully alive by doing the work of the soul unflinchingly. This deep commitment to honesty makes them great teachers. Their world is the world of human beings who know that "forgetfulness of who we are is the ultimate tragedy (p. 47)." I'm enjoying this book immensely.

Longlife vs. good life?

2009-03-12T12:24:00.005-05:00

This is a longlife bulb. There were six of them in the recessed light fixtures in my office. Each of these turns 200 watts of electrical power into light and heat every hour. So for six of them, that's 1.2 kwh. On an average day these lights were on for five hours - that adds up to 6lbs of coal. Somebody please tell me my math is wrong!

Today I got the tall ladder from the basement and replaced all six with six CFLs. Same lumen output, i.e. the room is just as bright as before. Each of these bulbs turns 18 watts of electrical power into light and a whole lot less heat. Same formula: 6x18x5=540 - that's the equivalent of .54lbs of coal.
That's a nice pile of coal that won't get burned this year.

Carbon or Coal Sludge?

2009-03-10T16:59:00.006-05:00

I have watched Jeff Barrie's Kilowatt Ours twice, and the one bit of information that sticks in my memory is a simple equation:

1kwh of electricity=1lb of coal

Running a 500 watt space heater for a couple of hours is not just "like" burning a pound of coal. It actually does burn it - releasing CO2 and other chemicals, and leaving behind wounds in the landscape. Carbon footprint sounds way too friendly, though, when the results also include spills of coal ash sludge like the most recent one in Kingston, TN.

Part of my spiritual disciplines for Lent is teaching myself to really see what is coming through the outlet. Today three simple power meters arrived in the mail. I plugged in my little office fridge, and I'll soon see how much coal it takes every day to have cold sodas easily available. I want to be able to see through the smoke of convenience and habit.

The Hard Teaching

2009-03-09T14:48:00.002-05:00

Audio of this post is available.

About half-way through the gospel, Jesus asks the big question. For eight chapters, the good news of God has been proclaimed, demons have been driven out, many sick have been healed, lepers touched and declared clean, sins forgiven, authorities baffled, stories told, the wind rebuked, a girl restored to life, and thousands fed.

We have come this far with him. Following him we have watched and listened, wondered, questioned – and now he turns around and asks the twelve trying to keep up with him, “Who do people say that I am?”

They tell him what they have heard along the way, “Some say, the Baptist, others, Elijah or one of the prophets.” Easy answers for them, there’s plenty of speculation coming through the grapevine.

Then Jesus asks the big question, “Who do you say that I am?”
And Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.”

Half-way through the gospel, the disciples think they know who this man is they are following. But then a curious sequence of conversations begins. Three times Jesus speaks of his impending suffering and death, and three times the disciples completely miss the point.

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

They didn’t want to hear about suffering. Having called Jesus God’s Messiah – and Jesus didn’t object – Peter and the others had begun to map out the rest of the journey to Jerusalem, and the death of a suffering messiah apparently didn’t fit in the picture. Wasn’t the Messiah supposed to save God’s people from suffering? That thought may well have been the moment when Peter quit following, came up beside Jesus, and gave voice to Satan.

It is no subtle irony that the one who just confessed Jesus to be God’s Messiah now opposed the coming of God’s reign in the person of Jesus. It doesn’t matter if his motivation was concern for his friend’s well-being or if he thought there was a better, simpler way from the hills of Galilee to the throne in Jerusalem. Like all of us, Peter wanted a messiah who would fulfill his hopes and expectations. He thought he knew who Jesus was and wanted to make sure the Messiah stayed on the path to triumphant fulfillment.

Half-way through the gospel, we begin to learn that to call Jesus God’s Messiah means to let go of our wonderfully detailed job descriptions for him. When we call Jesus God’s Messiah and follow him, we don’t press him into the mold of our hopes for a good life; instead we let him shape our expectations.

The second conversation took place a little further down the road to Jerusalem, when Jesus again taught the disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again (Mark 9:31).” They didn’t understand what he was saying; instead they argued with one another who was the greatest.

Again a little further down the road, Jesus took aside the twelve and again told them what was to happen to him in Jerusalem; and two of them, James and John, who had been with him from the first days on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory (Mark 10:33-37).”

Three times Jesus talks about being rejected, condemned, and killed, but the disciples only dream about triumph, greatness, and seats of honor.

What is so hard for us to hear and understand is that to say to Jesus, ‘You are the Christ’ is to let Jesus define what ‘Christ’ means. Jesus is not the fulfillment of our kingdom dreams; he himself is the kingdom in whom our dreams are renewed. He is not the fulfillment of our visions of salvation; he himself is God’s salvation who transforms our vision. He is not the fulfillment of our desire for this and that and the other; he is the body given to God’s desire for us, he is the one who goes ahead of us that we might follow him.

Half-way through the gospel, we come to a fork in the road and hear the hard teaching. We are utterly free to say yes or no.

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who will lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

You know this had to be the moment when the numbers of followers started to decline drastically. Self-denial has never been terribly attractive, and the only loss most of us want to hear about has to do with weight. Jesus tells us to let go not only of our ideas what a proper messiah is supposed to be and do, but also of our notions of ourselves. He calls us to let go of what we think we know and need and what we fear – and to find life with him.

C.S. Lewis wrote, in the last paragraph of his book Mere Christianity, “The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (…) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for [Christ]. (…) Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.”

The call to self-denial is not a call to pious exercises of denying oneself the pleasures of life. The call to discipleship is the call to let go completely of our concern with ourselves and our obsessive compulsion to secure our own life, prominence, likability, and even afterlife. The call to discipleship is the call to turn our eyes and attention away from ourselves and toward the One who is going ahead of us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his beautiful reflection on the life of discipleship,

“Self-denial means knowing only Christ, no longer knowing oneself. It means no longer seeing oneself, only him who is going ahead (…). Self-denial says only: he is going ahead; hold fast to him (p. 86).”

But self-denial has nothing to do with blending into the background so as to become invisible. Bonhoeffer knew very well that as a disciple of Jesus Christ he had to oppose the Nazi government and resist its murderous campaign against the Jews of Germany and Europe. He knew that love of God and neighbor meant speaking the truth without fear and even conspiring to murder the tyrant – but he didn’t know that from his own experience yet when he wrote,

“The cross is neither misfortune nor harsh fate. Instead, it is that suffering which comes from our allegiance to Jesus Christ (p. 86).”

When Jesus calls you to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him, he may be talking about the possibility of your losing your life as a martyr. But the cross is never just the exceptional end to an otherwise quiet life of discipleship. The cross is the reality at the heart of discipleship; it marks the place where your old life comes to an end and your new life begins.

Again Bonhoeffer,
“The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. (…) The cross is not the terrible end of a pious, happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death (p. 87). (…) Jesus’ every command calls us to die with all our wishes and desires (p. 88).”

Half-way between Galilee and Jerusalem, we are faced with the hard teaching that Jesus is not our kind of Messiah and that the life we work so hard to protect and secure is the life we will lose. But in this very place we also begin to see, as in a sketch, the way of the cross as the way to life in fullness. Following Jesus, we are set free from anxious self-absorption, free to acknowledge and rejoice in the covenant of love God has established with us and between us.

A few years ago I heard a song about a disciple’s new identity, a song created by slaves, men and women from Africa, robbed of their freedom, their homes, their land, their families, their language – and eventually their names. No longer free, they were given new names by their masters who lived with the idolatrous illusion that they were their owners. But then these men and women, far away from home, far away from hope, encountered Jesus and they began to talk about the life their masters could not touch – and in freedom they made that life their own, refusing to surrender to the religion of their masters. This is their song:

I tol’ Jesus it would be all right
If he changed my name
Jesus tol’ me I would have to live humble
If he changed my name
But I tol’ Jesus it would be all right
If he changed my name
Jesus tol’ me that the world would be ‘gainst me
If he changed my name
But I tol’ Jesus it would be all right
If he changed my name

Certainly not a song of rebellion, but a revolutionary song nevertheless. The dignity of their new identity, their new name, gave these men and women the courage to hope. They knew that Jesus was no stranger to the depth of their suffering and that God had heard their cries. They were no longer prisoners of their broken past, but disciples of Jesus, God’s people.

They entered the new life on a vastly different path than most of us – but we do indeed all sing this song,

I tol’ Jesus it would be all right,
if he changed my name.
It is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me.
Jesus told me that the world would be ‘gainst me
if he changed my name.
But I tol’ Jesus it would be all right
if he changed my name.
It is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me.

Good News from the Wilderness

2009-03-02T16:02:00.002-06:00

Audio of this post is available.

He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Alone in the wilderness – sounds like a PBS show, doesn’t it? Well, it is one; it’s the story of Dick Proenekke who retired at age fifty, built a cabin on the shores of Twin Lakes in Alaska, and lived there for over thirty years. He kept a journal, both in written form and with a small film camera, a chronicle of a life with only wild beasts for company and the occasional bush pilot dropping in to bring supplies and the mail.

Jesus didn’t go into the wilderness at the end of his career or seeking a break from it on a sabbatical of quiet solitude. His career, if you want to call it that, hadn’t even begun yet. He had just come down from Nazareth in Galilee and had been baptized by John in the Jordan.

Jesus didn’t choose to go away for a while; the Spirit immediately drove him out – the word has connotations of force and compulsion. The Spirit, having descended like a dove on Jesus at his baptism, quickly revealed another, less gentle side; if you want to stay in the metaphorical realm of birds, imagine some talon-armed raptor with powerful wings.

The way Mark tells the story, the sequence of scenes is cut faster than a car chase in an action movie. One moment there’s a heavenly voice calling Jesus Son and Beloved, and before he can draw another breath, the Spirit drives him out, still wet, into the silence of the desert. Dripping water in one scene, rocks and sand and dry brush in the next.

Forty days. Mark narrates at a break-neck speed, but this scene of very few words nevertheless lingers.

Mark doesn’t tell us any details like Luke and Matthew do, where Satan talks sweetly and quotes Scripture, and the devil’s agenda is obvious, and Jesus emerges victorious like a hero who has passed the wilderness exam.

Mark doesn’t give us any details, and we fill in the blanks. We know that Satan is nothing and nobody – nothing but the voice that speaks solely to drown out the voice and word of God.

Forty days of the devil whispering, arguing, shouting, and questioning in a million ways – all to make this human being forget or doubt the heavenly voice that spoke above the waters, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Forty days with no company but the wild beasts, and Mark leaves it to our imagination to determine if they were friendly like wolf and bear in the prophet’s vision of creation at peace, where the wolf lives with the lamb, or if they were hyenas laughing in expectation of a meal, lions prowling around the solitary man in ever closer circles (Isaiah 11:6ff; 65:25).

Forty days in the wilderness, and the angels waited on him. This is where Elijah comes to mind. Elijah who went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And there he asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep (1 Kings 19:4-5).

Elijah went into the wilderness because the evil queen Jezebel was furious and wanted him dead, and he was afraid and fled for his life. He was tired of fighting, tired of being the lone voice of resistance in a culture that preferred idols over the living God, tired of pushing and pulling without a moment’s rest.

“It is enough,” he said, exhausted in body and soul, and he fell asleep. He slept until an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” There was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and went back to sleep, and the angel of the Lord came a second time and waited on him, saying, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” And Elijah got up, he ate and drank, and in the strength of that food he went to the mountain of God, a journey of forty days. His body and soul were exhausted, but he found the strength to continue because the angels waited on him; he found the strength to live and to answer God’s call once again.

None of these details are spelled out in Mark’s brief description, but they are all there, layer upon layer, showing the story of Jesus to be the story of God’s people. The wilderness may be a place of solitude, but it is at the same time the place where all have been.

Remember Hagar, Sarah’s servant? She was driven into exile by her jealous mistress; her child, Abraham’s son, Ishmael, was about to die of thirst, when an angel of God showed her a spring in the desert. Hagar is there.

And Jacob, who received God’s promise in a dream in the wilderness with the angels of the Lord ascending and descending between earth and heaven.

Moses and Miriam and Aaron and the other Hebrew slaves who crossed the wilderness on the long journey from Egypt to the promised land.

Elijah, Hosea and Isaiah – the prophets who knew the beauty and the terror of the wilderness and who taught us to see it as the vast place between the life that was and the life that shall be.
The wilderness has written in its sand and rocks the stories and songs of all who have been there. Jesus lingers for forty days to take it all in, and we linger just long enough to draw some of the lines that connect his journey with the journey of God’s people.

In the wilderness Jesus faces all that we have ever faced or will ever face in our loneliest, hungriest, and most exhausted moments; days when we cannot hear the heavenly voice, and other voices fight for our attention; times when the promises of God sound like idle tales and all we seem to remember are the fleshpots of Egypt. The wilderness is that forty-day-place, sometimes that forty-year- or-forty-generations-place where life is at stake and nothing and no one can save us but the One whose Spirit hovers over the face of the waters and who speaks words of creation, delight, and redemption.

Mark paints this wilderness scene with just five strokes and two short sentences. And there’s no neat resolution about how Jesus defeated Satan and got him to stop chattering, whispering, or asking questions. But in the very next sentence Jesus shows up in Galilee; he comes proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” He emerges from the forty-day-place with the good news that God’s promises are trustworthy and that God’s reign has come near. Jesus’ journey from baptism, through the wilderness, and to the proclamation of God’s reign recapitulates the journey of God’s people in a new exodus: from slavery, through the wilderness, to freedom in the promised land; from exile, through the wilderness, to the new Jerusalem; from sin and alienation, through the wilderness, to creation at peace.

The reason that Mark doesn’t end the wilderness scene with a neat conclusion, I suspect, is that Jesus still has to walk through the lonesome wilderness of the cross and enter the night of God-forsakenness with nothing to hold onto but the promises of God.

Lent is an opportunity for us to enter the forty-day-place by leaving the familiar pattern of our days behind for a while. We strip away perhaps only a couple of routines in hope that a little disorientation will help us re-orient our lives on the path of Christ.

Some of us seek to enter the silence of prayer more frequently, so that it doesn’t frighten us when silence comes to us un-announced.

Others eat less and read scripture more regularly, so as to give our lives a different rhythm, one more in sync with God’s desire.

Again others write and answer our email only once a day, and instead spend a little time every day journaling about the voices of temptation that fill our heads and hearts with noise.

Lent is an invitation to us to sharpen our senses so we can taste the difference between the bread of Pharao and the bread of heaven; see the difference between a holy vision and an unholy illusion; and hear the difference between the whisperings of the devil and the still, small voice of God who calls us to a future not bound by the past.

Silence, of course, is not easy to find, and when you find it, it’s not necessarily easy to stand. The husband of a friend went on a camping trip in the badlands of South Dakota near the Rosebud Indian reservation. The first night he could not sleep, he said, for the beating of native drums, the sound traveling far in the night air. The second night he discovered that the drum was inside his own chest.

The sound of your heartbeat is nothing, though, compared to the noise of your own thoughts, the twitter, jabber and chatter inside your head that sounds like a jungle come to life as soon as you turn off all your electronic devices and decide to spend a little time with nobody but God and yourself.

Lent is the church’s invitation to all of us to sit with the noise and let it be until it dies down and to do nothing but listen for the voice of God; to walk around Radnor lake and do nothing but listen for the voice of God; to follow Jesus on the way to Jerusalem and do nothing but listen for the voice of God, steady as a drum, the heartbeat of the universe, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Word Is Out

2009-02-16T11:02:00.003-06:00

Audio of this post is available.

2 Kings 5:1-14
Mark 1:40-45

It could have been a scaly rash on his hand that wouldn’t go away, or an itchy dry spot on his leg. Any change in the appearance of the skin, any blemish, blotch or sore, meant a visit to the priest who would take a look and declare the person unclean, “Stay away from people, don’t touch anyone or anything, and come back in a week.”

Seven days later the priest would take another look, and if the spot had healed or shrunk, he would declare the person clean. But if the spot was still there or had grown larger, the purity code was clear: You had to be isolated. You had to wear torn clothing and let your hair go unkempt; whenever you encountered people, you had to cover your mouth and cry, “Unclean, unclean,” to warn them of your presence; you had to live alone, banished from the community, in a hut or a cave in the wilderness, or in one of the empty graves on the edge of town.

The tragedy was that you may not have been very sick physically, but in terms of human social intercourse your life was over. You were dead. You would not be touched by anyone again – not your wife or your husband, not your children or your parents, not your best friend, not even the stranger on the sidewalk whose hand brushes against yours in passing. You were untouchable, for even if your skin condition wasn’t contagious, your unclean status was. Whoever touched you or was touched by you crossed the line from life in community to almost complete social isolation.

Given that cultural context, it is remarkable that the man in our story had the audacity to approach Jesus without shouting, “Unclean, unclean.” Perhaps word had spread among the untouchables that Jesus taught with authority and drove out demons. Perhaps it wasn’t desperation that drove the man to ignore the law, but hope: if this Jesus could heal the sick and command demons into obedience, he could also bring wholeness to entire communities, and bring back to life those who had been banished and excluded from it.

Now when he came to Jesus he didn’t say, “Take care of this nasty rash for me, will you?” He didn’t ask for treatment for his skin condition. He declared that Jesus had the power to restore him to life, and dared him to do it, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”

And Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand – across the vast divide that separates unclean from clean, profane from holy, life in fullness from an existence in empty tombs – Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. Touched his hands, pushed back the torn rags and touched his arms, touched his face, reached around his shoulders and held him, the Holy One of God holding a human being who had been excluded from all things human, a human being who could barely remember what life was.

“I do choose. Be made clean,” and it was so.

Are you holding your breath? You should, because Jesus just rendered the entire purity code obsolete. An entire system, carefully built to protect the holy by defining and excluding the unclean and profane – the entire system is suddenly out-of-date. Holiness no longer needs protection from the polluting potential of blemishes, irregularities and other imperfections, because the Holy One of God is playing offense, taking life in fullness that is contagious and unstoppable deep into the opponents’ territory.

Jesus hugs the leper and declares, “You’re in. You belong.”

According to the code, Jesus now is unclean. According to the code, Jesus now bears the man’s condition and belongs outside the camp. Jesus brings life, but that very act pushes him one step closer to isolation, one step closer to the empty tomb on the edge of town. The man deprived of life in fullness and the One who embodies it, are trading places.

If you want to protect orderly life by excluding the irregular, difference on the surface becomes a prime target. Pimples, blotches, blemishes – the trouble with skin conditions is their visibility. Visible difference makes social exclusion so easy.

You may laugh or cry at the thought that something as common as a rash could lead to exclusion, but we exclude people for reasons just as laughable or sad all the time. First we determine what’s regular, and then we begin to exclude the irregular. We define what’s normal, and then we push out what’s deviant.

But the truth is, all of us are frail. All of us are wounded. All of us live outside of some carefully maintained circle of insiders. All of us live with the curse of perfection.

The real affliction is under the skin where we hide our failures and our jealousies, our contempt for others and our deceptions. We hide them because we are afraid that once they become visible, no one will want to look at us, let alone touch us anymore.

The good news comes to us in a simple line: “If you choose, you can make me clean,” and Jesus said, “I do choose.”

Jesus has chosen to touch us and declare us clean, and not a single imperfection could keep him away. Now we know that our healing and wholeness are not only our desire, but also God’s will.

“See that you say nothing to anyone,” Jesus sternly warned the man, but he went out and proclaimed it freely. I don’t think he willingly ignored Jesus’ urgent instruction; I’m convinced he couldn’t help it. He had been a dead man walking, and now he was alive – how on earth could he have kept that a secret? Go back and quietly sit in the empty tomb? No way.

The word was out, traveling on the lips of witnesses and in their hands: because now some were no longer afraid to cross lines and touch the untouchables. They were not afraid to walk on the bridge Jesus had built when he reached across the deep divide between God’s holiness and the world disfigured by sin.

Moved with pity, the text says, moved with compassion Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. Once he’s touched us, we too reach out; moved with compassion, we walk across to the other side and touch those whom life has pushed to the margins.

Amy Gopp, Executive Director of Week of Compassion, reminds us that just this past week there were ice storms in Kentucky, tornadoes in Oklahoma, bushfires in Australia, floods in Costa Rica, continuing violence and suffering in Gaza, Orissa, and Sudan; and just this past week we were able, through Week of Compassion, to respond with gestures of support and solidarity, certainly not meeting all the needs, but letting people know that they are not alone, not forgotten. We call our ministries of disaster response and development Week of Compassion, but we know the real transformation comes from our daily walk of compassion.

Moved with pity, our translation says, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. Some Bibles, including those in our pews, have a footnote here that says, "Other ancient authorities read anger." What this means is that some of the ancient manuscripts of this gospel contain a different version of this verse, one that reads, “Moved with anger, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.”

The scholars have been exchanging learned arguments why which version should be preferred as original, and the question is not easily settled. If it was anger, at what or whom was Jesus angry?

Psychiatrist Scott M. Peck tells of a breakfast conversation with his wife during the time Peck was working on a book dealing with evil. Suddenly their young son spoke up saying, “I know what evil is.”

Of course the grown-ups were mildly amused at their child’s naivete, but decided to indulge him for a moment. “What is evil?” his father asked.

“Evil,” responded the boy, “is live spelled backwards.”

His father was impressed enough to write it down. Wisdom from the lips of a child. Evil is whatever gets life backwards, against the will and desire of the creator of life.

So perhaps Jesus was angry that religion could get life backwards with the best of intentions, and that the guardians of God’s holiness could become prison guards of outcasts.

Perhaps he was angry at rules and systems that add to a person’s sickness the additional burdens of exclusion and the pain of isolation.

Perhaps he was angry because we spend so much of our energy on keeping out those who are different, those who don’t measure up to our standards of purity or truth.

Perhaps he was angry because he could already see that his path could only lead to growing conflict with the line drawers and boundary keepers of the world.

I am grateful that we have two traditions of what it was that moved Jesus to stretch out his hand and touch the untouchable – anger and compassion. The two are not mutually exclusive, but go hand in hand. Anger at the powers that get life backwards, and compassion for human beings who in our weakness, fall victim to those powers.

I am grateful that in Jesus Christ the very holiness of God has invaded the unholiest moments in creation, not with coercive force, but with the power to redeem and embrace and restore.

Now the word is out: whomever we consider a threat to the perfect beauty of God’s holiness or the integrity of God’s people, Jesus is not afraid to touch. Whatever we hide from one another with fear and shame, whatever it may be we try so hard to hide even from ourselves, Jesus is not afraid to touch us. No matter how the powers that spell live backwards assail us, Jesus has come to touch us and hold us, and in his embrace our lives become whole.

The word is out: God’s word is not confined to the walls and gates of the boundary keepers; God’s word is free and at work in the world. The word is out through the words and actions of witnesses whose lips and hands proclaim the compassion of God. May we be among them.

Power to the Faint

2009-02-09T13:22:00.002-06:00

Audio of this post is available.

Isaiah 40:21-31

Mark 1:29-39

When the Gospel according to Mark was composed, nobody remembered her name. Everybody knew her solely as Simon’s mother-in-law.

The first disciples have names, Simon and Andrew, James and John, they will be remembered. Even Zebedee, whom his sons left behind in the boat – and that’s all we know about him – has a name, and his sons will always be remembered as the sons of Zebedee. Was it because it was a men’s world, that this woman’s name went unrecorded?

Some say that she remained unnamed because she serves as an example, as a representative for an entire group. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus first drove out a demon from a man in the synagogue, a very public place – and that man remains unnamed – and then he healed a woman in the intimacy of a friend’s home. They say that for Mark it was important to show us right at the beginning, that Jesus brought liberation and healing to both men and women, in public and in private. Perhaps that’s the case, but I still wish we could remember her by name.

Let me tell you why. Last Sunday we had a Deacons’ meeting after church. Lise had made lunch for us, and after we had eaten we learned about the role of deacons in the church – in the New Testament, in church history, and here at Vine Street.

Deacon is a title, but long before it became identified with a particular church office, it was the greek word for servant. In English translations of the New Testament, the word diakonos is translated in a variety of ways as servant, minister, or deacon, but perhaps most simply and beautifully as one who serves. In Luke 22:27, Jesus says to the disciples, “Who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

A deacon is a woman or a man who learns from Jesus how to be great. A deacon is a leader who models Christian service and a servant who models Christian leadership.

When Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew, Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. The next verse is made up of plain, unadorned words, nothing printed in red, just simple descriptive terms for simple actions. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.

When you have lots of words on a page it’s so easy to keep reading, to find out what happened next, that evening, at sundown, or the next morning. But when you just keep reading you miss a beautiful detail; this scene by the woman’s bed reflects the whole work of Christ: He came to visit us in our need, to take us by the hand, and to lift us up.

And he lifts you up not just to make you feel better or to let you return to whatever you were doing before the fever tied you to the bed. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

Some say that Jesus restored her to her place in the household and the community, a place of dignity and purpose. Others say, not without a hint of cynicism, that all he did was make her better so she could go back to the kitchen and fix supper for them and then wait on them. Real healing, they say, would include her liberation from oppressive norms. Gender expectations may not tie her to her bed like a fever, but tie her nevertheless to a place defined for her by others. When he took her hand, the fever left her, but her place as a woman in a men’s world hadn’t changed. It’s a legitimate concern.

I was pondering this gospel passage when I heard a report from Pakistan. Militant groups in the tribal areas on the border to Afghanistan had started moving further inland under pressure from increased attacks by U.S. military. They took control of a strategically important valley in the Northwest of Pakistan, one of the most developed areas of the country, with literacy rates in the 90’s; among the first things they did there was to blow up all the girls schools. In their vision of life, education is for men only; power is for men only; and only men have names. In such a world, healing that is only concerned with reducing the fever, doesn’t address the real sickness.

I believe Mark chooses his words very carefully. I believe it is no coincidence that after the fever left her, Simon’s mother-in-law didn’t go and do the laundry or scrub the kitchen floor or go to the market to get groceries. Mark writes, she began to serve them.

Jesus didn’t make her feel better so she could work harder. He lifted her up and enabled her to serve; he enabled her to participate in his ministry of loving service. He lifted her up so her actions would make God’s coming rule concrete and tangible in the lives of others. Jesus lifted her up, and she became the first deacon.

Do you know who serves in the Gospel according to Mark? The word is used in only four verses, and, like I said, I believe Mark chooses his words very carefully. It first appears in verse 13 of chapter one: Jesus was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and the angels waited on him. Serving is something angels do.

Then the word is used in the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, and again in chapter 10 where Jesus says, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Serving is something Jesus does.

The last time the word is used in the Gospel according to Mark is immediately after the account of Jesus’ death.

There were also women looking from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem

Mark 15:40-41

Apparently many women had not only left the kitchen but followed Jesus all the way to the cross, and they served him on the way. Provided for him sounds a little like they were just writing the checks to pay the bills, but they served him and learned from him how to serve. They were with him on the way, they ran and did not grow weary, they walked and did not faint, staying with him all the way to the cross. Serving is something faithful followers of Jesus do, and Simon’s mother-in-law was the first who got it; that’s why I wish we knew her name.

He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. These two brief lines not only describe the whole work of Christ, but also the work of those who follow him: we learn from him how to serve.

Lawrence Wood (Living by the Word, February 8, Christian Century January 27, 2009, p. 19) tells a story about some remarkable women whose names may never be written large in church history, but he names them for us.

Every summer, Sharon, Muggs, Wanda, and Joretta would help to put on a church dinner. Another woman couldn’t help out one year, having just had a hip replacement. He doesn’t tell us her name, only what she said when he went to check on her a day before the dinner.

“They’re not using boxed potatoes, are they? The people who come expect potatoes made from scratch.”

“They’re planning to peel potatoes all morning,” he assured her.

“And the ham? Did they get a good dry ham, or the watery kind?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and then he asked her if she had always enjoyed cooking. To his surprise, she adamantly said no, that cooking was a big chore.

“Really, I thought you enjoyed doing this.”

“I don’t love the potatoes,” she said. “Really, young man, you should know I love Christ, and there are only so many ways a body can do that.”

Spoken like a true deacon. When Jesus has lifted you up, and you have begun to learn from him how to serve, it’s not about loving the potatoes, the ham, or even the cooking, but about the people who eat the meal.

Jesus, on the night before he died, didn’t give the disciples one last sermon, something to think about when he was gone. He gave them something to do by washing their feet and sharing a meal.

“I love Christ,” she said, “and there are only so many ways a body can do that.” Washing tired and dirty feet, preparing a meal for twelve homeless men, or setting the table for disciples wearied by the long road – all these actions make the promise of God’s coming rule tangible. Do this in remembrance of me, he said. Simon’s mother-in-law got it before anyone else did, especially Simon and his fellow disciples.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. The need for healing in Capernaum was still great, but the disciples didn’t know what to do – and so they ran and hunted for Jesus. “Everyone is searching for you,” they said when they found him, no doubt out of breath.

Do you remember what he said in reply?

“Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

He didn’t move on because one day in Capernaum was enough. He knew he could move on because in that town there was one woman who got it – and we don’t even know her name.

Whose Voice? Whose Authority?

2009-02-02T11:48:00.002-06:00

Audio of this post is available.

In case you want to read Mark 1:21-28 first.

Authority. Authority is a big word.

Authority speaks with confidence. Authority doesn’t end its sentences with a question mark but with a full stop – this is it, period. Authority speaks with the expectation of being heard and recognized and obeyed. But authority has fallen on hard times.

Just the other night, Nancy and I picked up a rather heavy countertop, about six feet long; we needed to figure out how to move it around the room and over and around various pieces of furniture to place it on top of a cabinet.

Having done this kind of thing a few times before, I confidently declared, “I’ll tell you what to do and you just do it.” Her reply? “Don’t make me laugh, or I’ll drop it.”

Clearly, authority isn’t what it used to be anymore. We know its abuses too well to simply let its voice or demeanor compel us to jump. Where authority puts a period, we immediately add a question mark.

The rabbis have a beautiful story about religious authority. Many rabbis of Europe were known for boasting distinguished rabbinical genealogies – the farther back one could trace his lineage, the more weight his teaching carried. Once they had a gathering, and soon each began to boast of his eminent rabbinical ancestors. Then came Rabbi Yechiel of Ostrowce’s turn. There was no famous rabbi among his ancestors and his father was a baker. He rose and said, “In my family, I’m the first eminent ancestor.”

His colleagues were shocked by his lack of respect and humility, but said nothing. The conversation quickly turned to matters of interpretation of Scripture, and each was asked to discuss a saying of one of his distinguished rabbinical ancestors. One after another they delivered their learned dissertations, steeped in venerable tradition.

At last it came time for Rabbi Yechiel to speak. He arose and said, “My masters, my father was a baker. He taught me that only fresh bread was appetizing and that I must avoid the stale. This can also apply to learning.” And with that Rabbi Yechiel sat down.

The wisdom of our ancestors, come down to us in trusted tradition,deserves our attention and respect – but any teaching that derives its authority solely from tradition is in danger of becoming stale like old bread.

When Jesus taught, people were astounded, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

The scribes, of course, had the authority to teach; they had the proper training, they had passed the necessary ordination exams, and they had been duly installed. But when they taught, the place didn’t exactly smell like a bakery.

With Jesus, there’s not the usual stale slices from a time‐honored bag, but a fresh, fragrant loaf, still warm. He could rise and say, “In my family, I am the first eminent ancestor,” but he doesn’t – he leaves that for us to discover.

Jesus’ authority doesn’t come from tradition, but directly from the Author of life. Jesus doesn’t heat up yesterday’s bread, he makes his own and freely shares it.

One fascinating detail about Mark’s account of the synagogue scene is that we’re not told one word of what Jesus actually said. The emphasis is not on what he taught, but how. Our attention is drawn not to the teachings, but to the teacher.

And we already know this is no ordinary teacher. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and he returned proclaiming the kingdom of God. He came not to edify or enlighten his audience, but to free us.

"No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered," he would soon teach his disciples.

Jesus has entered the strong man’s house, and now he’s plundering his property. The Son of God is in the house, ready to redeem all who were under the power of sin and evil. It smells like fresh bread and freedom.

Jesus is in the house, and the anxiety level among demons and evil spirits is at an all‐time high. They know him, and they know his mission: to tie them up and throw them out.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” they shriek. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

Jesus is in the house, their time’s up, and they know it. No matter how much they cry and whimper, trying to resist, they cannot stand against the word and authority of Christ. “Be still, and come out of him.” Period. And the unclean spirit comes out; the man is free.

This brief scene represents Jesus’ whole mission: he doesn’t just teach about the kingdom, he brings it, he embodies it. He frees human beings from the power of all the forces opposed to God’s reign.

In Psalm 33 we find words to describe such authority:

Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

Jesus is not just another teacher or scribe, nor even first among all teachers of all times – he speaks and acts with the authority of God.

The evil spirits know that, and the people encountering Jesus are beginning to see it: “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

He speaks, and it comes to be; he is the author of a new reality. He speaks, and the oppressed go free; the possessed are redeemed; the wounded are healed; and sinners are forgiven.

Jesus is in the house, the kingdom of God has come near, and the whole place smells like fresh bread and new life.

I used to think that demons were little more than an imaginative way to explain mental illness in ancient times. I used to think that talk of demons was outdated after the arrival of medical science and pharmacology.

But then I watched with horror as ancient hatred exploded in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as violence shredded the fabric of life in Darfur and the Congo – oh yes, there are historical factors and political reasons and economic circumstances, but only if you keep your distance. The closer you get, the less the learned academic explanations will do.

We live in a world where powers are at work that shape us against our will, against our best intentions, and against our own best interest. There are powers at work that laugh at the authority of our knowledge and our technology.

I got to a point where I realized that talk of demons is not only appropriate but an accurate assessment of our bondage. We need to know what we are up against, and we need to know that we are not alone.

There are people who make us feel small and powerless. There are systems that take away our names and reduce us to numbers in a data base. There are voices, many voices that tell us that to be acceptable we must be somebody else.

But Jesus has entered the house of the strong one and bound him. The demons are shrieking for they know who he is and why he has come. The reign of sin is over and the kingdom of God is near. Now the door is open and the captives are returning home, an endless stream of former slaves.

Jesus is in the house, with fresh, fragrant bread and the power to redeem, and a man in Capernaum goes home free. All around the world, communities of disciples are called, equipped, and sent to proclaim Christ in word and deed, and God’s love and truth set people free, one at a time.

It was on the sabbath that Jesus came to Capernaum. It was on the day of fullfilment when all things are made whole that Jesus came to the synagogue. Jesus didn’t tell the man who was possessed by an unclean spirit that he didn’t belong in that holy place on that holy day, and that he should leave; he told the evil spirit to leave the man. He didn’t exclude the man, but restored him to life in God’s sabbath community.

The church hasn’t always been faithful to this way of holiness. We have a long and sad history of demonizing and excluding others who did not measure up to our standards of holiness, not realizing that we had fallen victim to the evil spirits of arrogance and self‐righteousness. But through the gospel, again and again, God convicts us of our sin, frees us and calls us anew to live as brothers and sisters of Christ.

We are here together, in this holy place on this holy day, to meet Jesus, and he comes to us as judge and redeemer, as teacher and savior, as friend and Lord. He comes with the authority to call evil out of us and set us free.

The battle takes place wherever the living Christ confronts the demonic forces; it’s his battle, not ours, and he’s already won. We remember that, and no authority on earth can convince us that our struggle for peace and wholeness is hopeless. We rember that, and we speak and live with confidence, with authority. We remember that, and people will come drawn by the aroma of fresh bread.

Come and See

2009-02-02T11:19:00.003-06:00

This post refers to John 1:43-51.

Sometime last year I started wearing reading glasses. I had noticed that the letters on the pages were doing interesting things like losing their edges and turning into greyish pixel patterns.
I went to the optometrist and complained, “I can no longer read in bed unless I try to hold the book between my toes. What’s wrong with my eyes?”

He just laughed, “Nothing that being under 45 wouldn’t fix.”

Some of you have already told me that when it comes to reading glasses, I’m a baby. Apparently +1.25 is nothing compared to what I have to look forward to from here on out, and eventually I may just have to get me a pair of binoculars.

I did OK in worship, with the bulletin and the hymnal, until Christmas Eve when I noticed – with the lights dimmed just a little – that the words I was singing didn’t always match what you all sang. Within a year, seeing, for me, changed from something I pretty much took for granted, to the daily miracle it actually is.

One afternoon last year, I learned another lesson about vision. It was a simple test: watch a video clip of two basketball teams and count how many times the team in dark jerseys pass the ball to each other. They were a fast-passing team, but I can be very focused when I have to, and I had my new reading glasses that didn’t give blur a chance. I watched that ball like a hawk eyes a rabbit, followed its every move, and counted, 1‐2‐3‐4…

The clip ended, I had counted sixteen passes, and I was eager to have my count confirmed. Instead, I was asked if I had seen the guy in the gorilla suit.

Gorilla suit? No, I hadn’t, but there’s no way I’d miss a guy in a gorilla suit showing up in the middle of a basketball game – I thought. I played the clip again, and there he was, in plain view, casually walking among the players, big, tall, hairy, turning to the camera and waving, and slowly walking off the scene. I was so busy counting passes, I would have missed just about anything in that clip that didn’t announce its coming with a bang or a flash.

I have to assume that this is how I see things not just in funny little experiments; this is how I look at the world, this is how my attention can be so absorbed by some things, that I literally fail to notice the gorilla in the room. They don’t make glasses for that.

The first thing Jesus says in the gospel according to John is a question, “What are you looking for?” In the flow of the story, the question is addressed to a couple of disciples who used to follow John the Baptist, but now follow Jesus. In the flow of my reading, the question slows me down to a complete stop, and I ask myself, “What am I looking for?”

I am looking for peace and joy; I am looking for truth, for a sense of fulfillment, for a way out of some of the messes we have made. I am also looking for a job for my friend who couldn’t make his mortgage payment in three months; I am looking for a future without fear for him and his family.

But I’m also the guy who needs glasses to see clearly what’s within arm’s reach; I’m the guy who’s so good at keeping his eye on the ball that he misses the gorilla – I wonder if somehow the things that I’m looking for keep me from seeing things that are obvious to others, more important things, perhaps?

What are you looking for? You have your own responses to that question, just like Jesus’ first disciples, and Jesus simply says to all of us, “Come and see.”

His words are an invitation to look at the world from the perspective of his path, an invitation to seek in his company whatever it is we are looking for; but his words are also a challenge to leave, a challenge to walk away from familiar ideas, expectations, and preoccupations, a challenge to have our vision adjusted by him. Come and see, because until you come there’s nothing to see.
Warner Sallman has done a number of religious paintings, and one of his most famous ones shows Jesus standing at a heavy wooden door, knocking.

The frame of the doorway and other elements of the composition create a heart‐shape so obvious that you don’t need to know the title of the painting, Christ at Heart’s Door.

The message is clear: Christ is at the door, knocking, open your heart and let him in.

Here at the beginning of the gospel of John, the message is almost the opposite: open the door and come out; leave the confines of your familiar world and see. You cannot have one foot on the threshold and the other on the way, stretching your neck to catch a glimpse of what may lie ahead. You gotta come in order to see.

In Sallman’s painting, it’s only Jesus outside the door, but in John’s opening chapter the scene looks different: it’s pretty crowded. There’s Andrew and Peter, Philip and Nathanael – it’s like John drilled a little peephole in Sallman’s door so we can see some of the disciples who are on the way with Jesus and overhear what they say.

“We have found the Messiah,” Andrew tells his brother.

And Philip says to Nathanael, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

They have found something, someone, and we don’t know if what they found is what they were looking for, or if whom they found forever changed what they were looking for.

Nathanael hesitates, he is suspicious. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Martin Luther thought the question impertinent and Nathanael a dunce and called him “a silly old sheep.” Others, however, including Augustine, suggested that Nathanael was a much better student of Scripture and prophecy than Philip and therefore knew that the Messiah long expected would be neither the son of Joseph nor a native of Nazareth.

Peter Gomes, Expository Articles, Interpretation 1989, p. 283

I’d say, if you don’t expect anything good to come out of Nazareth, you don’t pay attention to what’s coming out of Nazareth, and you’re likely to miss the best thing ever to come out of Nazareth.

Philip’s response is marvelous. He doesn’t argue with Nathanael; he doesn’t call him prejudiced or “a silly old sheep;” he doesn’t pile up theological assertions loud enough to silence any doubt or dissent; instead he quotes Jesus in the most inviting way possible, saying, “Come and see.”

On Christmas Eve, when the heavens opened and shepherds heard the good news of great joy and angels singing, “Glory to God!” – what did they do? They said to one another, “Let us go now and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us (Luke 2:8‐15)."

And the wise men in the East, who saw a star announcing the birth of a king – what did they do? They set out and followed it until it stopped over the place where the child was (Matthew 2:1‐12).

The good news of Jesus Christ doesn’t begin with a set of doctrines about the Messiah, the Son of God, or the king of Israel, but with a word that sets people in motion.

In John’s gospel there are no angel choirs in the fields or bright shining stars that attract exotic people from far away. In John’s gospel there is Andrew who talks about what he has found in Jesus, and Philip who talks about Jesus who found him, and we can see them through the peephole in the door, and they say, “Come and see.”

The first thing Nathanael discovers in his encounter with Jesus, is that Jesus knows him, and that he saw him long before Philip called him.

The scene resonates with lines from Psalm 139,

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.

Nathanael has his eyes opened when he realizes that Jesus has seen him and known him all along, that searching and finding is not just a one‐sided quest of people looking for answers, but God’s mission long before we begin to ask.

Nathanael has his vision adjusted and his outlook changed, and we overhear his confession, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel!”

In John’s opening chapter, the cup of testimony overflows with names and titles, each adding new dimensions to the identity of Jesus the Savior: Word become flesh, true light, Lamb of God, Rabbi, Messiah, king of Israel, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth, Son of God ‐ but as long as we remain behind the door, peeping through the spy hole, we are just watching religious theater, spiritually uplifting theater perhaps, but theater nonetheless. The key line is, “Come and see.”

The promise to those who open the door and step out is the fulfillment of an ancient dream.

Jacob, son of Isaac, and ancestor of Israel, was on his way to Haran to find a wife for himself. He spent the night in the field, “and he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

The Lord renewed to him the promises made to his ancestor Abraham, and said, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go; I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:10‐17

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus promises to those who come that they will awake as from a sleep and they will see what God’s people had been looking for since the days of Abraham and Sarah. Come and see.

Beloved

2009-01-12T11:45:00.007-06:00

This post refers to Genesis 1:1-31 and Mark 1:4-11

Audio of this post is available.

In a prayer of thanksgiving we say at every baptism, we tell the story of life. It is a story with water running through it.

We give you thanks, Eternal God,
for you nourish and sustain all living things
by the gift of water.
In the beginning of time,
your Spirit moved over the watery chaos,
calling forth order and life.
In the time of Noah,
you destroyed evil by the waters of the flood,
giving righteousness a new beginning.
You led Israel out of slavery,
through the waters of the sea,
into the freedom of the promised land.
In the waters of Jordan Jesus was baptized by John
and anointed with your Spirit.
By the baptism of his own death and resurrection,
Christ set us free from sin and death,
and opened the way to eternal life.
We thank you, O God, for the water of baptism.
In it we are buried with Christ in his death;
from it we are raised to share in his resurrection;
through it we are reborn
by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Water is powerful. Water is chaotic, threatening, and destructive; and water nourishes, sustains, and protects life – in the womb, and the sea, and all over the earth.

I hear the story of Jesus’ baptism by John in the chilly waters of the river Jordan, and a scene emerges in my mind. Blue sky with puffy, white clouds; a horizon defined by green mountains and hills; a shoreline – you can’t tell if it’s a lake, a river, or the sea, but there’s water, lots of water, deep, dark-blue water with little whitecaps.

In it stand two figures, two men, dark-skinned, bearded, one slightly bald, the other dressed in a white robe, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Both of them look directly at you with a penetrating gaze, the bald one pointing to the one dressed in white as if introducing him to us.

The scene was painted on the baptistery wall of a little church in New Orleans, in the Lower Ninth Ward. The Greater New Jerusalem Baptist Church was built by its pastor, Howard Washington, Jr. over forty years ago. His nine children helped pour the concrete, the entire extended family lent a hand. One of Pastor Washington’s many cousins painted the mural of John and Jesus in the water.

For decades, they worshiped in that church, listened for the word of God, responded to God’s call, baptized new believers by lowering them into the deep, dark-blue water with little whitecaps, safely contained between the walls of the baptistery. They made sure that the last thing you saw before you went under and the first thing when you emerged was Jesus in the water.

Jesus is in the water, and that is why old ways come to an end in it and a new way begins; life as you know it disappears in the deep and you rise to walk in newness of life – in the way of Christ.
When Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Water, Spirit, and a voice. As in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth: darkness covered the face of the deep and a wind from God – the spirit of God – swept over the face of the waters, and God spoke light into being: Let there be light! And there was light. And God saw that the light was good and called it Day.

Genuine newness doesn’t just happen, or isn’t somehow derived from what was before, not in all of creation, nor in this new creation that begins with Jesus. Genuine newness is called forth by God.

Water, Spirit, and the voice of the One who creates, beholds, evaluates, and names. God saw that the light was good. Earth and sea were good. Plants and trees were good. Sun and moon and stars were good. Fish and birds, cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of every kind were good. God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good. God was delighted.

And when Jesus emerged from below the face of the deep, God was delighted. For Jesus, it was the inaugural moment of his ministry, and for the world it was a new beginning, a new day.

Mark doesn’t tell us a Christmas story of Jesus’ birth; there’s no genealogy and very little biographical detail; all he tells us is, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”

Everything is pared down to the essentials: Jesus, the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, enters the water and is himself baptized – acting in radical solidarity with all human beings, disappearing in the deep, not to be washed, but to drown and rise.

This is how he loves; this is how he is beloved. This is where he comes from and where earth and heaven meet.

Creation is good, very good, but it isn’t complete until human beings know themselves and one another as God’s beloved. The Son is born that we might know one thing: yes, you have a history, you live in a particular time and place, you do things and you fail to do others, you have relationships that give you joy and others that break your heart, you have times when you love your life and times when you wonder if the life you’re living is really yours—all of that shapes you, but it isn’t what defines you in God’s eyes. The Son is born that you might hear one word and know that it is spoken to you: Beloved. That is who you are. That love is what frames your identity as a human being in God’s creation. That relationship is where life begins and finds its fulfillment.

The Son is born that we might know that God’s love for us is neither episodic nor conditional – it is there at the beginning and at the end. In all our beginnings and our ends we are held in the love and delight of God.

On the morning of Monday, August 29, 2005, hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, causing severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas. The storm surge overwhelmed the levee system of New Orleans, and 80% of the city were flooded – the Lower Ninth Ward was hit hardest, with some parts of it under 15 feet of water.

At the Greater New Jerusalem Baptist Church the muddy waters rose way above the windows, swallowing pews and pulpit, table, hymnals, piano, everything – including the baptistery.

Pastor Washington didn’t wait until people were allowed back. As soon as the waters had dropped enough for specially equipped all-weel trucks to drive on the soggy ground, he managed to catch a ride on one of them – not to check on his house, but on the church. What he found was a scene of complete devastation; his neighborhood looked like a war zone as far as the eye could see.

There were many who told him to dig through the debris and perhaps save a few little things to help him remember a lifetime of ministry, but to not even think about rebuilding. They didn’t say it to discourage him; they loved him, they were concerned for his wellbeing: there was no insurance to help with the effort, no government grant or Hollywood money. The task was overwhelming.

But he went to work, all by himself, 78 or 79 years old at the time; he started cleaning and gutting the sanctuary and he didn’t stop. He rebuilt the church the way he had built it: little by little, step by step, with faith and determination. Sometime last year he recalled,

When Brother Vance met me and said he would bring groups [of Disciples] to be God’s arms and legs, I knew God was leading the way! I am just stepping aside and not getting in the way. God brought them and God will lead them.
DisciplesWorld October 2008

The work was completed and the sanctuary of the Greater New Jerusalem Baptist Church was rededicated on Sunday, August 10, 2008; its congregation is once again a witness to God’s love and faithfulness in a neighborhood where life is slowly returning.

There’s a part of the story I haven’t told you yet. When the flood waters covered everything, they also swallowed the mural above the baptistery. It was as if Jesus, God’s beloved, disappeared in the deep never to be seen again; for many long days, the waters didn’t subside. The land was gone; plants and trees, animals and birds were gone. The sun still rose, but there was little light.

And when the water dropped, inch by inch, revealing a landscape covered in mud, the wall above the baptistery slowly emerged, slowly dried. The colors were dull, the green hills looked like piles of mud, but the mural was there: John pointing to Jesus as if to introduce us, who have come looking for the promise of life after the flood, to him. Up to his hips in the water, Jesus reminds us that it is divine love that holds us, creative, almighty, faithful love.

Last summer, when work in the sanctuary was almost finished, Eleanor, a member of First Christian Church in Meridian, Mississippi, stepped into the baptistery with a six-foot ladder. With her she brought small cans of paint, green and blue and brilliant white, warm, sunny brown and cheerful yellow. And she went to work. Quietly and reverently she repaired and touched up the mural, every brush stroke a prayer and a confession of faith:

When the raging waters of chaos swallow up light and life, all things come to an end – but love remains. Love remains.

Remember who you are, sister in Christ: God’s beloved daughter. Remember whose you are, brother in Christ: God’s beloved son. Though the waters roar and foam, they cannot quench God’s love for you. God calls you by name, and your middle name is not Abandoned, or Forgotten, but Beloved in whom God delights. Remember this.

Let it be

2008-12-22T10:27:00.007-06:00

You may want to read Luke 1:26-55 before reading this post.

Audio of this post is available.

You may not think of yourself as an artist, but if a little boy asked you to draw him a picture of Mary, you wouldn’t refuse, would you? You’d find a piece of paper and a pencil and start drawing.

What scene would you choose? A young woman kneeling beside a baby with lots of hay and barn animals around? Or a woman standing at the foot of the cross, bent by grief? Or a young woman in conversation with an angel?

When you draw a picture of Mary, you don’t start from scratch; for centuries, artists have developed scenes from the gospels, and the annunciation – Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel – has long been a favorite. The angel usually stands or kneels on the left, facing Mary who is standing or sitting on the right. Often there’s a white lily in the picture, and Mary is shown with a book in her hand, one finger between the pages, as if the angel interrupted her while reading. Of course we don’t know what Mary was doing when Gabriel came to her, Luke doesn’t tell us – she may have been doing the laundry or playing with a little lamb; we don’t know.

What clothes does she wear in your drawing? Do you go through the junk drawer in the kitchen to find red for her rose-colored dress, blue for her royal robe, and yellow for a touch of gold here and there? Or do you stick with your No. 2 pencil and give her a simple long dress with some sort of veil over her head?

When you draw a picture of Mary, you don’t start from scratch because your head is full of pictures of her. If all you had were Luke’s story, perhaps you would draw a picture of a teenage girl sitting on her bed, in a room with clothes on the floor and empty cereal bowls on the desk.

What look do you see on her face? The old masters show her with expressions ranging from wide-eyed fear to questioning curiosity and unruffeled serenity. You may decide that facial expressions and drawing an angel that doesn’t look like another girl only with wings, add too many difficult details to your picture – and you end up drawing a young mother gazing lovingly at her newborn baby, which is probably what the little boy wanted to watch you draw anyway.

The annunciation is a scene in an unfolding story that begins in the days of King Herod of Judea, or rather a story as old as time that is about to begin anew. The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a small town in Galilee no one had ever heard of, to take a message to a young woman named Mary. The angel’s words sound very matter of fact: The Lord is with you. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and you will bear a son. You will name him Jesus. The Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

This is the moment where I see Mary raise a hand in a gesture of hesitation, like saying, “Hold on, wait a minute, you lost me when you said I would conceive – how exactly is this supposed to come about? I am a virgin.” The angel tells her that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and the power of the Most High will overshadow her – a response that certainly raises more questions than it answers.

How long will she ponder the angel’s words? The atmosphere between them is charged with the history of God and God’s people: the promise to Abraham, the promises to Moses and David, the promises to the people in exile. There is fear in the room, perhaps a flicker of hope and a sense of expectation that is almost too much to bear. Mary is much perplexed, but the angel isn’t a picture of calmness either, at least in Frederick Buechner’s imagination:

She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with the message to give her, and he gave it … As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl. Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 39

The promises of old, the whole future of creation hanging on the answer of a girl. What was it about her that God chose her? We don’t know. All we do know about her is that she was a young woman, engaged to a man named Joseph, living in the rural backwater of Galilee. Not a person of privilege or power, but nevertheless one favored by God. God chose her to be part of the drama of salvation and she could have said no, but she didn’t: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

In my late teens and twenties, I traveled to Florence in Italy several times. I stayed with a friend who had her studio there, and I enjoyed walking through the city, visiting plazas, gardens, churches, and museums. I was in love with the renaissance, you might say. No matter what else I did on a visit – borrow a car to drive to San Gimigniano or tour a winery in Montalcino – I always spent a couple of hours at the monastery of San Marco.

The cells on the second floor still look very much the same as they did in the 15th century when Fra Angelico painted the walls with amazing frescoes of biblical scenes, most famous among them The Annunciation.

In one of the cells, there's another, remarkably simple rendition of that scene: you see Gabriel on the left looking at Mary on the right, who is kneeling on a wooden bench. Nothing in the painting clearly indicates what has or hasn’t been said between the two; they look at one another, both holding their arms close to their chests, both with apprehensive expressions in their faces. I like to think of the picture as a snapshot taken at the moment right after the angel has spoken: this angel didn’t just come to deliver a message and return to heaven. This angel is waiting for Mary’s answer. The promises of old, the whole future of creation hanging on the answer of a girl. It is easy to imagine sun and moon and stars standing still and all the angels in heaven waiting in breathless suspense. God had chosen her, an ordinary girl in an ordinary town, for reasons she didn’t understand, to be the mother of one who would be called the Son of God – what would she say? And Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

When Fra Angelico painted The Annunciation on the wall of a cell at San Marco, he used perspective and the layout of the room to make it look as if the scene was happening then and there in that very room. The person who prayed and slept in that cell didn’t just have a religious painting on the wall. The painting served and continues to serve as a vivid reminder that we live and pray, work and sleep between God’s promise and call and our own willing response to be part of the drama of salvation.

The Gospel opens with this story not just to tell us something about the miraculous circumstances of Christ’s conception. Luke invites us to read the gospel, listen for the word of God, and respond – with Mary as our model: her receptiveness for the promise of Christ and her courage to follow the divine lead make her the first disciple.

With the birth of Jesus, God has initiated the redemption of humanity and the salvation of the world: the rule of God in Christ is transforming the world into God’s realm. Through the proclamation of the Gospel, God invites us, like Mary to receive the word and be part of God’s mission in the world.

Growing up, I had a part in the annual Christmas pageant for years. I was a sheep and a shepherd, I was an angel and one of the wee three kings, one year I got to play Joseph, a lantern in one hand, a staff in the other – but I never was Mary. I appreciate that the casting directors didn’t ask a little boy to play a girl – the other kids probably would have called me Mary for a few weeks, and I don’t think I would have liked that.

But Luke gives us Mary because he wants us to play her part; he wants us to listen attentively and respond with courage to the call, making room in our lives for the promise of Christ.

The angel says, “Do not be afraid.” The angels know we respond with fear and apprehension to God’s call to give the Word room to grow in us. Mary shows us how to say yes to a life we did not necessarily intend to lead and how to live by a script we didn’t write ourselves.

When you draw a picture of Mary, I suggest that you draw an ordinary young woman from your neighborhood. Everything else is hard to render in a drawing: you can show her surprise, her fear, her hesitation, or her courage, but not all at once. Perhaps you draw her just after she said, “Let it be with me according to your word,” and then you tell the little boy the story of an ordinary girl in an ordinary town who received the word with faith and gave birth to Christ.

Whenever the good news of Jesus Christ is proclaimed, a message from God comes to ordinary people in ordinary towns: you have found favor with God, you have been graced with the word that calls forth life out of nothing, you have been called to carry Christ in and for the world – and now God and all the host of heaven are waiting, and the world longing for the fullness of God’s realm is waiting, they stand in breathless suspense – waiting for your response.

What will you say? What will you do with this life God is offering you? Will you say, “I’m sorry, I already had other plans for Christmas…”? Or will you say to the angel, not really knowing the script for your part but trusting this word that a world ruled by no other power but the love of God is not only possible but near, will you say to the angel, with courage and humility, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

This is our joy

2008-12-15T11:51:00.005-06:00

You may want to read Isaiah 61 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 before you read this post.

Audio of this post is available.

Good news for the oppressed.
Comfort for the brokenhearted.
Liberty for the captives.
Release for the prisoners.
A garland instead of ashes.
Oil of gladness and a mantle of praise.
You will be called oaks of righteousness—

Like pearls on a string the promises roll from the prophet’s lips, and the oppressed lift up their heads, the brokenhearted dare to hope, and the captives imagine the prison doors flung wide open.

There have been years when I heard those words primarily as good news for others: for exiles far from home, for refugees and political prisoners, for slaves and sweatshop workers. This year, without hesitation, I join the ranks of those who long to hear a beautiful word amid the bad news, who crave a true word amid the lies, and who need a reliable word amid the broken promises of our own making.

“When life is good, our prayers for the kingdom get a little faint,” Cornelius Plantinga wrote a few years back, and I clipped his words from the magazine.

We whisper our prayers for the kingdom so that God can’t quite hear them. “Thy kingdom come,” we pray, and hope it won’t. “Thy kingdom come,” we pray, “but not right away.” When our own kingdom has had a good year we aren’t necessarily looking for God’s kingdom.

This year, our own kingdom has not had a good year. Confidently we had put block upon block, like children on the floor of the playroom, building a house, a city, a castle, and a tower, higher and higher, as if up was the only way things could go.

Now we sit on the floor and the playroom is a mess because the whole thing collapsed. We want to know who pulled the block from the foundation or who added the block that tipped the precarious balance—but we are also beginning to see that this wasn’t somebody else’s fault. One way or another, we all played along: this isn’t somebody else’s kingdom but our own, and it hasn’t had a good year.

Again we overhear the prophet’s words, and it’s like we are hearing them for the first time:

They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

“About whom does the prophet say this?” we ask, hoping that the promise is not just for a group of people long ago, but also for us and the devastations we are facing. The very fact that we ask with hope tells us that the promise has touched us; that the words of the prophet have become God’s word for us. We are willing to consider God’s alternative to the boom and bust cycles of our own kingdom. We are willing to trust the promise and look for the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10).

At the beginning of his ministry in Galilee, Jesus came to Nazareth and went to the synagogue (see Luke 4:16-21). He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled it and read,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. He said to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus teaches us how to read Isaiah. The words of the prophet are for us today, but not because our historical situation is comparable to that of Isaiah’s first audience or some such thing. The promise is for us because God will not rest until it is fulfilled for all of creation. Our own kingdom has not had a good year, but Jesus comes to proclaim the nearness of God’s reign and the year of the Lord’s favor.

We look around the playroom, and it’s a mess, blocks all over the place. It’s a rather discouraging view. Some of us are angry that we let it come to this. Others are disappointed that God didn’t somehow intervene more forcefully. Again others are ashamed for our part in systems that in some ways are so productive, and so destructive in others.

But God is faithful, and as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

We hear the good word of God’s faithfulness, and if we listen well, we recognize ourselves among the oppressed in need of liberation, the brokenhearted thirsting for comfort, and the prisoners longing for the doors of our cells to be opened from the outside. The good word of God’s faithfulness is for us, for you and me, and against the fears that paralyze us, against the idols that hold us in thrall, and against guilt’s iron grip. We will be called oaks of righteousness, planted to display the Lord’s glory, because God is faithful – and God has sown righteousness.

When we decide to give ourselves to building up the ancient ruins and repairing the ruined cities, we don’t pretend that somehow we are better able to live in God-pleasing ways than previous generations of God’s people. Perhaps we will go to work with the humility of those who know how sometimes even the best of intentions will not prevent us from making terrible mistakes.

We will go to work with joy, though, because God’s promises are solid ground to stand on and have sustained generations of God’s people. Take Paul, for instance. Joy may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of him; he was a rather serious man whose writings were notoriously difficult (2 Peter 3:16). He was beaten for the gospel he proclaimed, he was imprisoned, he was shipwrecked three times, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked (see 2 Corinthians 11:24-27).

But Paul had found something to sing about and even the darkest prison cell couldn’t silence him. “Rejoice always,” he wrote to the Thessalonians, “pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.”

There is no indication in any of Paul’s writings that he was blissfully unaware of the conflicts within and between the churches in Jerusalem, Syria, Asia Minor and Greece—on the contrary. Paul was no pollyanna; he knew well the difficulties Christians faced every day, but his joy wasn’t determined by circumstances. Whatever conditions he found himself in, he looked at them from the perspective of God’s promises and gave thanks. Earlier in his letter he wrote,

We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!
How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3; 2:19-20; 3:9)

The source of Paul’s joy were the promises of God and the community of brothers and sisters who lived faithfully in the light of these promises. Paul sang because in cities across the known world men and women responded to the good news of Jesus Christ with the work of faith, the labor of love, and with steadfastness of hope.

We are sitting on the floor and we may not feel like singing at all with homes being foreclosed, jobs being cut, and companies going out of business. But Paul urges us to reach for our deepest joy and to let it determine our response to changing circumstances—not the other way round, never the other way round. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances.

Both Paul and Isaiah knew that what we need are not more detailed construction drawings for the city of God or more comprehensive job desriptions for kingdom workers; what we need is oil of gladness instead of mourning and a mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

What we need is the promise that gives us the courage to align our lives with God’s purpose and work in our time.

What we need is a call to get up from the floor and give ourselves to building up, raising up, and repairing.

What we need is to know one thing, and to know it with our whole being: The one who calls you is faithful. This is our joy.

Repentant and expectant

2008-12-08T12:49:00.005-06:00

You may want to read 2 Peter 3:8-15a and Mark 1:1-8 before you read this post.

Audio of this post is available.

It’s an old story. People were leaving the church because their expectations were not being met. In this case, they had come to faith in Christ expecting that his return was imminent; that soon, very soon he would come to judge the living and the dead, and reign in peace forever. They had come to faith in Christ with a sense of urgency, and that urgency began to dissolve when months of red-alert expectation turned into years of waiting, and years into generations.

Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation! (2 Peter 3:4)

Nothing has changed! Where is the promise of his coming? It’s a fair question, and most of 2 Peter is a response to it. The main argument in the letter is not new, because waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled is something God’s people have always struggled with. The writer quotes a verse from Psalm 90, With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. In other words, our sense of time and God’s are vastly different.

More importantly, though, what we perceive to be a delay is not an indication of God’s slowness, but rather points to the character of God as patient and merciful: The day has not come yet, because God does not want any to perish, not even one. And so Advent is as much our time of waiting as it is God’s: we are waiting for the coming of God’s reign in glory, while God is waiting for all of us to come to repentance.

With frustration we occasionally raise our voices and our hands to the heavens, “Where are you? What is taking you so long? Nothing has changed!” And the voice from heaven sounds almost like an echo, without the exasperation; it is a voice of great kindness, forbearance, and patience: “Where are you? What is taking you so long? Everything has changed – when will you repent?”

What we perceive as absence, is the very presence of God’s mercy. The passage from 2 Peter we heard this morning ends with the remarkable statement, “Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” What we perceive to be a delay of God’s salvation, is our salvation, the gift of time for us to practice true repentance. We are being saved by a God who waits patiently.

Only days after gunmen killed more than 170 men and women im Mumbai, we know the temptation to ask God for the final cosmic showdown in which the wicked are destroyed and the righteous rewarded.

Bring an end to the violence and the hatred – where is the promise of your coming?

I have prayed like that, only to realize that I didn’t consider my own hatred and violence, but conveniently projected them on the bad guys. Phantasies of a Hollywood-style day of vengeance tell us more about ourselves and our thirst for retribution than about God’s justice. God’s forbearance allows us to recognize our own deep need for healing grace and repentance, and God’s patience with all helps us to resist our own impatience with each other.

In accordance with God’s promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

We wait, noting and lamenting the distance between our world and one where righteousness isn’t homeless anymore. We wait, not passively, sitting back and expecting others to take care of our problems, but rather patiently, actively, and expectantly. We wait, because waiting prepares us for God’s coming.

The writer of 2 Peter encourages us, “Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.”

The things for which we wait shape who we are becoming. Awaiting a world where righteousness is at home, we strive to live in righteousness. In every dimension of our lives, we turn away from complicity with the old world and turn to embrace the coming realm. The old age is marked by idolatry, sin, injustice, and violence; but the coming realm of God is faithfulness, forgiveness, righteousness, and peace.

We live in a world that aches under the weight of sin, but also echoes with the promises of God. We know how hard it is to live in the borderlands between what is and what shall be, between the promise and the coming true. We know the temptation to lower our sights to more manageable hopes, small things within our reach.

But today we are reminded that the dimensions of our hope determine the dimensions of our lives. Diminished hope results in a much smaller life. The writer of 2 Peter encourages us to resist the temptation and lead lives of holiness and godliness, lives shaped entirely within the horizon of God’s promise and future, lives of bold hope.

In the wilderness of these days, when peace is hard to find and systems built on more manageable hopes and old-fashioned greed are collapsing around us, a familiar figure shows up. Clothed with camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and living on a diet of locusts and wild honey, he speaks of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

His lifestyle embodies complete dependence on God: he only eats what the earth produces on its own, without the work of human hands. His message also directs our attention to complete dependence on God: confess your sins and be baptized. Look at yourselves and your world with open eyes and honesty, and embrace who you shall be in the world to come. He is the voice in the wilderness calling us to prepare the way of the Lord by becoming an Avent community, a community of the repentant and expectant.

The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

And just a surely as he came then, he will come again. And just as his people waited then, we wait now. And just as time was a gift then for all people to ready themselves for the inbreaking of God’s time, so it is now.

We repent: We turn from what we have made of ourselves and the world, from the dead ends where we find ourselves, to the way of the Lord and the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness is at home. We turn from self-serving phantasies, delusions of grandeur and illusions of control to the mercy of God.

Mark’s gospel begins with what sounds like a title, The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Scholars long have wondered why he didn’t just call it The good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God, instead of its beginning. Nowadays they are debating whether this should be read as the headline for the opening verses, after which, in verse 9, Jesus of Nazareth steps onto the narrative stage; or if it should be read as the headline for the Galilean ministry of Jesus as opposed to his passion; or as the headline for the whole of Mark’s book and what it recounts. I’m leaning toward the latter: the story Mark tells is the beginning of the good news that is meant to unfold in the lives of its hearers and readers. He tells the beginning of a story whose final chapter will open with the return of Christ.

As hearers of Mark’s gospel and followers of Jesus, we are all characters in this story, living toward the grand finale. At the beginning of the church year we go back to the beginning of the gospel not out of historical curiosity, but to find a new beginning for ourselves: to find direction and purpose amid the chaos of this economic crisis; to grow the roots of peace in the barren landscape of terrorist violence, war, and our own violent phantasies; to start over with new courage in the wilderness of faith that has lost its urgency and passion.

Uncertain whether we can be among those who carry the story forward, we return to the beginning, to the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, the baptizer who speaks of repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and announces the coming one. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ is the beginning of God’s future in the midst of this old world. For us, it all begins again as we hear the words again, and this time we are a bit less self-assured and a bit more aware that God’s patience is indeed our salvation.

Peace enters our hearts as we encounter John again who reminds us that we need not be tied to our fears, our guilt, or our shame, but are free to embrace God’s forgiveness. Peace takes root in our hearts as we remember what we await: a world where righteousness is at home. That peace shapes our thoughts, words, and deeds as we begin again to live into the future God has prepared for us.

I Don't Care

2008-12-01T10:53:00.007-06:00

You may want to read Isaiah 64:1-12 before you read this.

Audio of the post is also available.

Thomas Merton, back in the sixties, somewhere in Kentucky went into a drugstore to get some toothpaste. When the clerk asked him which brand he preferred, he replied, “I don’t care.”

“He almost dropped dead,” Merton later wrote. “I was supposed to feel strongly about Colgate or Pepsodent or Crest. … the worst thing you can do now is not care about these things.”

Kathleen Norris called Merton a prophet for saying “I don’t care” in one of the temples for the brand-conscious consumer.

These days, of course, it’s a lot harder to not care about these things since they tend to be everywhere. TV, radio, billboards, busses, racecars, flashing banners at every other website, glossy ads in every magazine or journal. And since all that is not enough, somebody somewhere works hard so you notice that the young hero on your favorite show drives a Ford and the villain an import. You’re told to ask your doctor if Aplex, Beplex, or Ceplex is for you, and you better make sure you get some over the counter Dementex to fight off insanity as you try to jot down all the things you need to remember for your next doctor’s appointment.

The paper on Thursday resembled the Metro phonebook in volume and weight. Most of it were high-gloss inserts with coupons for the opening of the bargain-hunting season on Friday. As a brand and price conscious consumer you are expected to spend your Thanksgiving morning reading all that information carefully to determine in front of which big box store you will spend the night, and then mapping out the rest of your Black Friday shopping trip.

On the other hand, you could just take another sip of your coffee, get up and baste the turkey, sit down again and declare with prophetic clarity, “I don’t care.”

Retail marketing and faith are both about the cultivation of desire. But where marketing is all about annual sales, brand loyalty, and the promise of fulfillment, faith leads us to question the noise and to bring our own desires in tune with God’s. During Advent this difference and tension becomes clearer than during any other time of the year.

Many voices invite us to think of this as the holiday season of santas, angels, trees and lights, shopping mixed with warm childhood memories, and all of it bathed in a nostalgic glow.

In the church, this is new year’s day, and we are invited to begin the new year preparing joyfully for the coming of God in a child and preparing humbly and penitently for his coming again to judge the living and the dead. The latter, of course, doesn’t lend itself to red-nosed holiday cheer, which is why the merchants won’t touch it.

In the church, Advent doesn’t begin with carols and pageants, but with the tears and prayers of an old man (Isaiah 63:15).

Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and glorious habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The yearning of your heart and your compassion?

The voice of Isaiah had been with the people of Jerusalem and Judah through the unimaginable loss of the city and the temple to Babylon’s armies; his voice was an essential part of the long reflection that followed that devastating experience in exile:

The loss was God’s judgment on a people who made a mockery of righteousness, Isaiah declared. They would return to Zion, though, and their return would be glorious. The Lord would lead them on a highway through the wilderness to the land of their ancestors and the city of David, he proclaimed.

But when they returned, the shouts of joy and songs of freedom soon died down among the silent ruins of the city and the temple. Worst of all was the silence of God.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake and the nations might tremble at your presence (Isaiah 64:1).

The old prophet gave voice to a people’s longing. They wanted to see some sign of God’s presence, some unmistakable indication that their suffering did not go unnoticed.

Advent begins with that silence. Have you ever prayed and felt like you were talking to yourself? Have you ever knelt under a blanket of silence and pleaded and all you could sense was your own yearning? Have you ever let go of all respectful restraint and cried out, “O tear open the heavens and come! Come like fire on brushwood! Do something unexpected nobody can ignore!”

The wonder of the old prophet’s prayer is that he doesn’t quit praying. He meditates on the character of God recalled and praised in the stories of God’s people. He reflects on his people’s situation in light of those stories. He admits in what sounds like a confession (Isaiah 64:7), There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you, but he sees responsibility also on God’s side, saying, You have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. He keeps praying. He doesn’t turn away from the silence. He doesn’t let go of the relationship that has shaped his entire life.

And he says (Isaiah 64:8), Yet, O Lord.

In one little word he wraps up his people’s anguish and his own, the hopelessness of their circumstance, and their only hope:

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are the work of your hand.

It is a prayer of surrender and trust. The little word yet opens the window to a future determined no longer by human failure but by the unlimited possibilities of God’s creative power.

Advent begins with the silence that makes room for us to be honest about ourselves and the condition of our world.

Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation, Isaiah prays (64:10-11), our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins.

And at the end his old voice turns into a whisper (Isaiah 64:12), After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?

The question lingers between earth and heaven, and now everything depends on that little yet. Will you hide your face forever or turn to us with mercy? Will you keep silent or speak the word of peace? Will you remember that we are your people, and that without you we are nothing but dust?

Thomas Merton spent much time in silence, Advent silence, waiting for the revealing of God’s word and face. In silence he remembered what is worth caring about and what is not. It was silence that taught him so say “I don’t care” to the clerk’s question about his preferred brand of toothpaste. It was silence that taught him to care about the suffering of others and to desire truth and peace. Silence can make you turn away from God and toward the noise of other promises, or it can make you lean more attentively toward God.

Isaiah spoke for all of God’s people who at least occasionally wish that God would tear open the veil between earth and heaven and do something big, something that would undeniably manifest the divine presence among us, so that all of us, from the first to the last, would confess that the Lord is God and no other.

We live in a world of constant noise, and so we expect a voice loud enough to drown out all the others. We live in a world of constant distractions, and so we expect a vision bright enough to outshine all the others. We live in a world of constant advertising, and so we expect a product that promises and delivers fulfillment in an instant.

But God doesn’t shout people into belief. God doesn’t bend people into obedience or manipulate them into relationship. God calls and waits.

Will Willimon once said, “Sometimes, God speaks, but we need to be leaning toward [God] to hear. What kind of ear do you bring to the hearing?”

The same can be said for our other senses. What kind of eye do you bring to the seeing? We need to be leaning toward God to perceive. We must sit in the dark with nothing but a small candle of hope in order to see the light of Christ. We must enter the great silence and wait there in order to hear the songs of angels. We must pray patiently with Isaiah and lean toward the fullness of life in God’s new creation in order to perceive the new thing God is doing now.

One of our carols reminds us,

How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is giv’n;
so God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive Him still,
the dear Christ enters in.

One of the great dangers in this world of sin is that we get absorbed in the noise. We see a child without food, and we say, “I don’t care, it’s not my child.” And the noise keeps getting louder.

We see a woman who can’t pay her rent, and we say, “I don’t care, she’s not my sister.” And the noise keeps getting louder.

We see a man sitting on the same bench at the mall, always by himself, day after day, and we say, “I don’t care, he’s not my father.” And the noise keeps getting louder.

And we see a baby, born between animals in a barn, and we say, “I don’t care, they shouldn’t have babies in the first place.”

Yet those who have kept the little flame of hope, those who have leaned intently into the silence and toward the fullness of God’s reign, see the baby and welcome the dear Christ.

And they tell the story of how God tore open the heavens.