Finding a New Normal

Death and I know each other quite well.  We have met on many occasions in my short life and, in the past few years, we have finally come to an understanding.  At least I think we have.  I know that death is never an easy thing, regardless of the length and quality of a life lived.  Death knows that I am not afraid of him.  I don't like death, but I've interacted with death enough to know that it shouldn't be scary.

There's a tricky side to death, though, in that death changes a lot more lives than we think.  Death doesn't just come for the person who is dying, death also comes for their family and for their friends and issues a challenge - find a new normal and keep living, or be consumed by me.  

Finding a new normal isn't easy.  It means doing the difficult work of casting off the sackcloth and ashes and stepping out into the daylight having found a way of honoring grief that helps you keep going each day.  It means that, when the cycle of grief does come around again, we can greet it with the attention and honor it deserves, and then move on with our day or week or month or year (let's be honest, sometimes grief needs to be honored for more than a moment).  It also means carrying a spirit around with you that isn't physically present in this life, a spirit that can often cause us to wonder what would have been if that loved one had not died.  

I wondered, a couple weeks ago, what our life would be like if I hadn't miscarried...would we have chosen to find out the sex of the baby?  would we have finally selected names by now?  what would his/her nursery look like at this moment?  how would we be preparing Ellie to be a big sister?  

Part of the pain surrounding pregnancy loss is that parents can only wonder what could have been.  Our lives and the lives of the children we lost only intersected in this life for a little while, and often in a way that doesn't cause too much disruption in our day to day lives. But they intersected for long enough that hopes and dreams for that child and his/her life had already been formed.  And in death, hopes were dashed and dreams were crushed. Yet, we must still keep on living. Things went back to normal after our miscarriage.  But at the same time, they didn't.  Chris and I found ourselves trying to maneuver into a new normal in which we could honor our grief while continuing to navigate parenting in the midst of toddlerhood.  Like a dear friend said about the loss of his son "I have come to peace with his loss, and life goes on, but I wish he were here."   

As we walk through life,  it is full of new normals, be they a new job, a new life entering the family, a new house, a new routine after a job has been lost or a medical diagnosis has been made, and those new normals shape who we are.  Death is the most permanent of changes that causes a new normal to be necessary.  But we know that it is possible to find life in the midst of death.  That in the midst of death new normals that allow us to not just live, but thrive, are possible.  We know this because we have seen it happen.  Because we have lived it for ourselves.  As a Christian, I know it can be done because I have heard the promises of scripture.  I have heard the scriptural witness of the disciples trying to find a new normal after Christ's death only to find Christ living within that new normal.  I have heard the witness of the of the resurrection and have seen it for myself in little miracles and in big ones, and I believe that the promises of the resurrection are there for you and for me.  

The Ten Commandments, another chapter in God's playbook

Pentecost 17

October 5, 2014

Exodus 20:1-17

Pop Quiz friends!!

Let’s check your knowledge of the Ten Commandments.

1)      Who can name all Ten Commandments in order? (put your bulletins down)

2)      Bonus question – how many versions of the Ten Commandments are there?

a.       3 – Jewish (combines the covet commandments, 1^st commandment is “I am the lord your God who brought you out of the hand of Egypt. 2^nd commandment “you shall have no other gods, no graven images”)

                                                              i.      Roman Catholic and Lutheran and same

                                                            ii.      Reformed (combines covet commandments, 2^nd commandment is graven image)

Congratulations, you “passed” the test. 

Now, before we move on to speak a bit about the commandments, we need to do a bit of catching up on what has happened since the Israelites have arrived at Sinai.  After their arrival at Mount Sinai, God spoke to Moses from the cloud that encompassed the mountain and gave him instructions on what to tell the people before Moses went up the mountain to receive the commandments.  Moses is told that only he and his brother, Aaron, were to go up to the top of the mountain.  If anyone dared to follow him or eavesdrop on their conversation, things would end badly.  The other important thing that occurred when the people reached Mount Sinai is that God consecrated the people, making them a holy people.  God did this as part of entering into a covenant with the people.  But this covenant was not like the one that God had made with Abraham, which placed no conditions that would rely on Abraham’s faithfulness.  Instead, this covenant was dependent on the people listening to God’s voice and keeping up their end of the covenant.  In other words, whereas Abraham couldn’t mess things up, the Israelites could…or, looking at it from another angle, the covenant God entered into with Abraham was focused on the faithfulness of God.  This covenant is focused upon the faithfulness of the people.   

Ok, so there’s that.

What about these commandments in and of themselves.  Surely I could preach a fire and brimstone sermon about the importance of the Ten Commandments and how our world is heading down a path in which the commandments are more and more forgotten.  Certainly it would fit in with what we see in the news and on television.  Murders happening each day, more and more parts of the world entering into the war against Isis, tales of adultery in our newspapers and throughout daytime soaps and prime time dramas, contests teaching folks to cheat each other out of something that someone else has (which is the true definition of covet…to desire something so bad, you are willing to go any lengths to get it), and very few instances in our television landscape of folks going to church on Sunday morning. And, as we near ever closer to election day, we see God being used over and over as a political ploy to get the public on your side.  As if saying “God bless America” enough times will ensure that that senate seat is yours.  But I think, as much as it is appropriate to our times, on some level that would be missing the point. 

It is true that God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments as a way of helping them to live well with one another, which was probably becoming increasingly difficult as they wandered the desert.  It’s like on the first day of football practice when the players sit down with the coach for the first times, some rookies and some veterans and the coach says, ok, if we are going to be successful this season, these are the ground rules.  And like with the ground rules put in place for a football team, these Ten Commandments aren’t just rules, they also help to form an identity.  The identity of the Michigan football team is different than the identity of the Michigan State football team, and not because of win-loss records for the season…but because Brady Hoke and Mark Dantonio do things differently...their ground rules are different, their play books are different.

And so we have, with the giving of the Ten Commandments, the continuation of God’s play book…only this time, we are seeing not what God is promising to provide for the Israelites, what they can expect from God, but rather what God expects in return.  And God set the bar pretty high.  I can almost guarantee that before the day is out, just about all of us will have broken at least one commandment. Maybe you have already broken one this morning.  Maybe you will break one watching the Lions or Tigers games this afternoon. 

But I will argue that the easiest one to break is the one that, in theory, is the easiest to keep.  And that is the first commandment.  You shall have no other Gods. 

“But pastor, that is why we are here” we say.  “But Jen, that is why you serve the church,” I said to myself last night.  And that is true. We are in church this morning to worship God.  To live into the identity we have been given as God’s children. But do our hearts cling firmly to this identity or do we let other things get in the way? Here is what Martin Luther had to say in the Large Catechism, a volume written to help clergy instruct their congregations. 

“Many a one thinks that he has God and everything in abundance when he has money and possessions; he trusts in them and boasts of them with such firmness and assurance as to care for no one. Lo, such a man also has a god, Mammon by name, i.e., money and possessions, on which he sets all his heart, and which is also the most common idol on earth. He who has money and possessions feels secure, and is joyful and undismayed as though he were sitting in the midst of Paradise. On the other hand, he who has none doubts and is despondent, as though he knew of no God. For very few are to be found who are of good cheer, and who neither mourn nor complain if they have not Mammon. This [care and desire for money] sticks and clings to our nature, even to the grave.

So, too, whoever trusts and boasts that he possesses great skill, prudence, power, favor friendship, and honor has also a god, but not this true and only God. This appears again when you notice how presumptuous, secure, and proud people are because of such possessions, and how despondent when they no longer exist or are withdrawn. Therefore I repeat that the chief explanation of this point is that to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts”

It is so easy to fall into a way of living in which other gods have taken ahold of our attention…gods that are easier to please because they require so much less of us.  But the thing is, if we can keep this one commandment, the rest all fall into place.  When we put all of our trust and confidence in God, when we place God firmly in our hearts, when we put God above everything else, our lives are changed in such a way that is visible to our neighbors because when our lives are changed by God’s love, we reflect that love to the world.  It doesn’t matter how much money we have, what car we drive, what clothes we wear, but that we live lives that show radical love to our neighbor while not being afraid to take the time to make sure that we stay healthy in order to keep on loving.  So as we go out into the world this week, go knowing that to keep the first commandment means this – to hold God firmly in our hearts, to trust that he will provide for all of our needs, even if that means some of our prayers receive a no response, and to live into the reality that God’s love is life changing.

Healthy living check-in

I got two notifications on facebook that my cousins had liked a blog post I wrote this past winter/spring in the midst of the grossness that was that this winter/spring were.  

I'm glad they did because they reminded me that I am really bad at this blogging thing.  But I know that it's a good way to hold myself accountable for keeping up with healthy living.  So here's an update.  

On September 12, my new primary care physician (nice guy, good doctor) and I had a chat about BMI.  

Sidebar: I hate the BMI because it doesn't take into account the fact that different people have different body types.  That's not trying to make excuses, it just is.  

I digress.  During the BMI conversation, the doc mentioned that despite my amazing BP and all the other good and healthy stats and blood work, my BMI is in the obese range.  I suddenly had the motivation I needed to get moving.  

And so, on September 15, 2014, I began the mommy edition of what I like to call "operation fabulous."  It sounds silly, but that name helps me stay motivated.  Here's how it works - by giving this "project" a name, I am committing myself to taking better care of myself.  I have been more committed to my appearance in the short term, my health in the long term.  So, I take an extra 5-10 minutes a day to make sure my complexion looks better.  I have been tracking relentlessly what I eat, for better or worse.  I have been walking.  I signed myself up for a 5k, which I will be walking.  I plan to sign myself up for another 5k, which I plan to run (anyone want to do the paczki run with me??? I'm told that there will be paczkis and beer at the finish line).  I put the scale away so I can focus on how I feel and not fall into the trap of defining myself with a number.  

I accomplished a lot in the last 2-ish weeks.  I walked 30 miles.  30.  I'm very proud of that.  I've also tracked my eating for over 30 days straight.  For me, that is an accomplishment in and of itself.  

My goal for October is to walk 60 miles and get to a 16 min/mile split time so that, come thanksgiving, I can have my eyes set on a 15 min/mile.   Let's do it!!

What the Israelites and Stephen Hawking (and you and I) have in common...

Pentecost 16A

September 28, 2014

Exodus 17:1-7

On Wednesday I came across an article in which the author delved into Stephen Hawking’s atheistic belief system.  I found out that Hawking became, with the advent of the Big Bang Theory, science had provided a more convincing explanation of the origin of the universe than religion can provide.  He explained that because science had provided a better understanding of the universe and its origins than theology, or the ways in which think and speak about God, God is no longer necessary.  Now, I respect Professor Hawking and his scientific work greatly…but I would submit that I believe that his atheism is based upon a minimalistic experience of the divine.  For Hawking bases his theology on one moment.  The moment of creation.  And for most theologians, this is quite problematic, but it isn’t a new form of theology…nor is it unique to one of the greatest scientific minds of this era.

Last week we witnessed the congregation of the Israelites in the midst of a bit of a faith crisis.  They were hungry, and their food crisis caused them to question the motives and the means of the one who had supposedly rescued the Israelites from the hand of their oppressors and made them a free people.  We learned that God heard their cries and provided for what they needed. 

This week, however, the crisis has gotten worse.  Now they are back to a situation in which water is low, thirst is high, and frustrations are higher. And so, we have moved from the Israelites grumbling against Moses to actually accusing him of having plotted against them so he could kill every last one of them.  But, more significantly than that, we have moved from the Israelites wondering, who was this God that didn’t think to pack water and sandwiches for a road trip into the desert? To the Israelites now wondering if God is even there at all. 

It seems as if our friends, the Israelites, have found themselves as a part of a similar theology to that of Professor Stephen Hawking.  It is not the same because the Israelites actually believe in God.  At the same time, however, it seems that the basis of the Israelites belief in God is in the moments in which God provides for them by means of unexplainable acts. 

The Israelites grumbled under the oppressive hand of the Egyptians so God set them free by means of 10 unexplainable acts – water turning into blood, invasions of frogs, gnats, and flies, followed by diseased livestock, boils, and storms of fire, then locusts, darkness, and, finally, the death of the first born.  After the plagues, the Israelites believed in God and followed Moses out to the Red Sea…where they grumbled again because there was water in their way.  But God performed an unexplainable act in the parting of the sea.  Then they believed.  Then they got thirsty. 

God heard them and, by another miracle, turned the bitter water at Marah sweet.  And the Israelites believed.  Then they got hungry, and God provided the manna and the quail.  And the Israelites believed.  And now they are thirsty again. 

Have the Israelites placed their faith in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God who rescued them from Egypt and provided for their needs in the middle of the desert? Or have they placed their faith in the acts themselves?

Have you ever noticed that it is much easier to say, “Thank you, God!” on a day in which things have gone you way than on a, in the language of a children’s book “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, day?”  What about on those “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days?” isn’t it easier to wonder why in the world God isn’t listening to you or even, where in the world God is? To get so mad that we just cast God aside altogether because we don’t want anything to do with a deity who would either do this or allow that to happen? 

Do we believe in God because of God’s promises or because of the moments that God’s presence is so palpable there is no other logical explanation?  In other words, is our faith like the faith of the Israelites?

As I’ve been to visit many, I don’t want to say older, more experienced residents of this planet, throughout my life, and particularly in my ministry, I have noticed that a common complaint is that short term memory is becoming shorter.  And as the granddaughter of a woman suffering from severe dementia, I know the stress that this can cause in day to day life.  To some extent, though, I think we all have a memory problem.  I can tell you what Chris was wearing and what we both had for lunch on our first date at Leona’s restaurant in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago in 2007 but the only reason I can tell you what I had for dinner on Friday night is because I recorded it into the myfitnesspal app on my phone.  I can tell you about the day that I decided that God and I need a break when I was 19 and had been told one too many platitudes about the sudden death of one of my dearest childhood friends, I can tell you about being scolded by Roman Catholic friends for having taken communion at Sunday Mass at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, but I don’t remember what it was like to take communion for the first time other than the wafer stuck to the roof of my mouth.  And I have a feeling that I’m not alone.

My friends, we have an amnesia problem.  It is so easy to forget the ways in which God has provided for us when we stand in the midst of things that we cannot understand, things which are out of our control.  The Israelites were still living the reality of God providing them manna in the morning and quail in the evening and they STILL forgot that God was there with them, leading them to the land promised to their ancestors. 

But God is faithful, and even in the midst of the testing of the Israelites, God was faithful and God provided for the needs of the Israelites.  Because, unlike what one of greatest scientific minds believes about God, or the need for God because of one moment in the history of the universe, the God we worship this morning and serve every day of our lives is a God isn’t just about scattered moments here and there, but a who God is about every moment.  Our God is a God of relationships, who journeys with us on the hills and in the valleys, who laughs with us when we laugh and cries with us when we cry, who is there with us when we need when and even when we think we don’t, who walks with us every moment from our birth until our death…and then some. 

Our God is a God who invites us into the process of remembering, which in the world of graduate schools of theology and seminaries is called anamnesis.  Anamnesis is the opposite of amnesia, the opposite of forgetting.  Within the Christian community, this invitation happens whenever we come to the communion table and we hear the words “take and eat” “take and drink” “do this in remembrance of me.”  Remember what I have done for you.  That I saved you from the flood, that I rescued you from Egypt, that I sent you prophets to help you get back on the right path, that I died and conquered sin and death for you so that you could be with me for eternity.  And I require nothing in return because love cannot force anyone to do anything.  But there can be expectations…and I think that my seminary professor put it best when he wrote “While there is no sin so large that God cannot forgive it, God always loves us with the condition, or at least expectation, that God's grace and kindness will lead to transformation in our lives.”

May our lives be so transformed by remembering all that God has done for us that we may see God in every moment of our lives, in the good moments, and in the midst of the not so good ones. 

There will be enough...do you believe it?

Pentecost 15

Exodus 16:2-18

September 21, 2014

There was once an Anglican church in Denmark where a dispute arose within a congregation in regards to the color of the new carpet that was going to go into the sanctuary.  The congregation was split into two camps, the blue camp and the red camp.  Things got so bad that the pastor called the Bishop in to settle the dispute so that he wouldn’t be accused of taking sides.  The Sunday that the Bishop visited with the congregation, they all sat down after worship and each side argued their case for the color of the carpet that they wanted.  An hour later, after both sides had rested their case, the Bishop took some time to think.  Finally, he stood up and said to the entire congregation, “I fear that your mission as a congregation has become lost.  I charge you with the task of raising $100,000 with which you will feed the poor.  If you are not able to do this by the end of the year, I will close the doors to this congregation.”

The second time that the congregation of the Israelites began complaining against Moses and Aaron was three days after they crossed the Red Sea.  They had witnessed Moses raising his arms and God sending a breath of air to part the sea.  They had witnessed the drowning of the Egyptian army who had pursued them into the sea.  They had sang of the deliverance that God had provided for them.  Three days later, they were complaining.  How long our memories last, right? They were complaining because they were thirsty.  God, through Moses, fixed that problem by turning bitter water into sweet water.  

A month and a half later they are at it again.  This time it isn’t thirst, it is hunger…a hunger so extreme that they had forgotten the conditions they were living under in Egypt.  “If only we were back in Egypt where we ate our fill of bread,”(which was about as far from the truth as you could get), “but you have brought us out here to die of hunger.  It would have been better if we had died in Egypt.”

They sound like a bunch of whiny teenagers who haven’t eaten in all of, say, two hours. There is, however, some legitimacy to what they are saying in their complaints to Moses.  The complaint itself is not well placed.  Moses and Aaron are not the ones they should be complaining about.  Rather, it is the content of their complaint that you cannot blame them for.  They have just come out of Egypt, just been made into a new people, “the congregation” of the Israelites, and are learning how to trust and follow this God that brought them out of Egypt and into this new life in the desert.  Likewise, God is learning this new group of people that he created so that he is better able to nurture them so that they can thrive.  Not once in these complaints in the wilderness, not when they were at the other side of the Red Sea, even, does God begrudge them for their complaints.  Rather, God hears what they have to say and provides for what they need.  And right now they need some food.     

God generously and abundantly provides for their needs, providing manna in the morning and quail in the evening.  There will be enough for everyone to get their fill of the bread and of the poultry.  With the generosity comes a test, though, to see if the Israelites are listening to God or just following their stomachs.  Each day, the Israelites are to collect one omer per person, which is approximately 3.5 liters of manna each morning.  No more.  On the sixth day, they are collect two days worth of Manna so they have enough to eat on the Sabbath.  Those were God’s instructions.  And we learn, finally, in verse 18 that when the Israelites went out to gather and what they gathered was measured, what was gathered by those who took too much turned out to weigh in at exactly that omer.  And what was gathered by those to look too little turned out to weigh in at exactly that omer.  Everyone had just enough.  God’s generosity provided for all of the members of the congregation of Israel to have enough.   

What does this have to do with an Anglican congregation in Europe?  We’ll get there.  We need to talk about crises of faith first.  Because that is exactly what is going on here.  The food crisis that the Israelites faced in the desert turned into a crisis of faith.  Who was this God that had led them out of Egypt and into the wilderness but didn’t pack a cooler full of water bottles and lamb on pita sandwiches?  But they soon learned that God would provide for their needs and do so with great generosity. 

Which sounds well and good and all…but how does this “God is going to provide for all your needs with great generosity” thing sound when you’re sitting in the chemo chair?  Or when you go in for that first ultrasound only to hear the words from the doctor “I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat”?  how does it sound when you have spent months going back and forth to the unemployment office because you keep hearing the word “no” when you go to apply for a job?  Or when, in order to pay the bills to keep the roof over your head, all you’ve eaten this month is pasta and eggs? 

Here’s the thing, when we talk about God’s generosity and God’s abundance, we are not talking about it in the same way the Joel Osteen or Creflo Dollar or Kenneth Copeland do.  We are not talking prosperity gospel, where they preach that if you believe hard enough and do all the right things and give enough to the church God will bless you with health and wealth beyond your imagination because God wants you to be happy.  You’ve heard that, right? 

When we talk about God’s generosity and God’s abundance here in this place, that is not what we are talking about.  Because the reality is stuff happens, life happens.  The reality is that bad things happen to good people, try as we might to prevent it.  God didn’t even spare his own son from being crucified, but through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s ultimate act of generosity was shown to us in the promise that we will have life forever in his presence.  As Christians, we trust that God does hear us when we cry out to him and God’s generosity still shines through the bad things that we face in life, in the merciful smile and warm hand of the nurse, in the shared tears of folks who have been through the same hell you have and lived to tell the tale, in the friend who buys your dinner over and over again without asking anything in return, in the faces of the folks at the food bank. 

In the midst of the wildernesses that we find ourselves in throughout our lives, that is our manna, we are each other’s manna.

The test we face now, though, is will we pay it forward?  Will we have the eyes to see the manna waiting for us in the morning and the quail in the evening and trust in God that the omer we have gathered will be enough for the day?

The congregation of Anglicans was faced with a test.  To give $100,000 to feed the poor in their community.  Not only did they meet that challenge, but they exceeded it and their mission and ministry, and their joy is now in not only feeding the poor in their community but to combating poverty. Their benevolence is now the largest in the diocese for they realized that when they opened their eyes and their hearts to see just how generous God had been with them over the many years of their ministry, they gave them the freedom to respond by being generous with each other and their community.  And it all started over some complaining over a carpet. 

 

Jell-o and the Exodus

Pentecost 14

Exodus 14:19-31

September 14, 2014

This December, Ridley Scott’s version of the Exodus story will begin its run in theatres.  It features Christian Bale as Moses and will likely have the best of the best special effects around…special effects that would have made Cecil B. DeMille envious…maybe even covetous.  And really, you cannot blame Ridley Scott for trying to take a stab at directing a film based upon this narrative.  There are burning bushes and plagues, there is a sea that splits in two with dry ground left in the middle.  There is the story of two brothers, by adoption, who were once as close as they could be and now their relationship has been torn apart.  As much as the Genesis stories screamed “soap opera,” the Exodus story screams “epic film franchise.” 

We know it’s been done before.  In 1956, when Cecil B. DeMille won an Academy Award for his rendition of the Ten Commandments, he used Jell-O to create the walls of water after Moses raised up his right hand and the sea was spilt in two.  Clever, huh?  His version of this story has created the image carried by a generation when it comes to this portion of the narrative, Yul Brenner clad in shiny, blue armor with his gold chariots, and stunning horses standing behind a pillar of fire while Charlton Heston stands on a boulder holding his arms up while the breath of God parts the sea, allowing the Israelites to pass safely through to the other side.  Then, when everyone is safely to the other side, Moses lifts up his hands again and the walls of water come crashing down upon Pharaoh’s army while Pharaoh stands safely back watching in awe and disbelief at what has just happened.   

It is, indeed, an epic story…but have you ever thought of it as a creation story? 

Taking a page from our movie making friends, let’s set the scene.

After God has given the Israelites their recipe for roast lamb and instructions on how they are supposed to eat it, the final plague passes over Egypt…the plague that causes the death of the first born of all families, except for the ones in homes that have been marked with the blood of the lambs that that been set aside while preparing their Passover meal.  This final plague finally convinces Pharaoh to let the Israelites go…and go they do.  There’s a problem, however, and I think the conversation went a little something like this:

“Uh, Moses?”

“Yeah”

“Umm….there’s a…umm…well…a sea.” 

“Yeah”

“Last I checked, we can’t walk on water.”

The Red Sea stood in the way of the Israelites getting safely into freedom.  They had nowhere to go.  So, that’s a problem. 

The second problem is that Pharaoh kinda sorta changed his mind and decided to suit up and round up his army to get his slaves back, even if it meant killing them all.  So the Israelites see the Red sea on their right and Pharaoh and his army on their left and they panicked.  Off to Moses they go, convinced that Moses had led them out of Egypt so they could still die at the hands of Pharaoh.  “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you led us out here into the wilderness?”  We told you to leave us alone, we would rather serve the Egyptians than die out here.  Moses’ response, which was not in our reading this morning, but should have been, reveals the central focus of what the Exodus is all about. 

“Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. ¹⁴The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still,” (Ex 14:13-14).

Then at the instruction of the Lord, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord sent an east wind to create a wall of water on their right and on their left as the Israelites passed through the sea on dry ground. 

Well, how is this a creation story? 

Think about Genesis chapter 1.  In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while the “ruach,” the spirit or the breath, of God hovered over the waters.  And God said “let there be light,” and it was so.  Then, God separated the waters from the waters and, later, God gathered together the waters under the sky so that dry ground would appear.  So, again, in this epic narrative we find God makes light appear out of the darkness in the pillar of fire that protects the Israelites from the Egyptians AND it is a “ruach,” a mighty wind or breath that separates the waters from the waters revealing the dry ground on which the Israelites passed from slavery into freedom. 

In doing so, in utilizing nature in this way, God also created a new people.  No longer the slaves of the Egyptians, now the free people of God.  People who took a leap of faith by taking the steps necessary to walk between those walls of water, the destructive nature of the sea on their right and on their left. 

In this creation, God had a human partner, a co-creator, if you will.  As the human representative for God in approaching Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, Moses, with the help of his brother, Aaron, acted in a way that allowed God’s plan to be carried out so that justice could be served.  If we are honest, and this is a whole other sermon entirely, so we will just touch on it briefly, there was a second human partner in this whole Exodus business.  Pharaoh.  And here is why.  Forgetting about the whole heart hardening and all that, again, another sermon, Pharaoh’s role as a persecutor and oppressor of God’s people, acted in opposition to God’s plan for a new and just creation and, as a consequence, his own people lost their lives in the sea.

Well that’s great, and all, but what are the practical implications of all this? 

I’m glad you asked that!

The story of the crossing of the Red Sea and the Exodus isn’t just a story for our Jewish brothers and sisters.  Sadly, it has become all too overlooked except during Holy Week when “The Ten Commandments” is aired on ABC each year, because it is our story too.  God utilizing the power of nature with the help of a human co-creator to create a new people…where have we heard this before? 

In the story of the birth, the baptism, the life, and the death, of God’s own son, Jesus Christ.  100% human.  100% God.  Who points us to our creator God, who created us out of the dust, has washed us in the waters of baptism - where we enter the waters slaves to sin, and exit the waters free people of God joined to Christ as fellow heirs of God’s good gifts.  And as such, we are people able to take leaps of faith by responding to God’s call to be co-creators with God who stand on dry ground with the dangers of the world on our right and on our left.  And we have a choice.  To be the ones who stand for God’s justice and God’s peace, doing the sometimes painful and awkward but always freeing task of forgiving our neighbors at least 77 times, announcing freedom to those who are captive, and seeking justice for those who are oppressed.  Or we can be the ones who stand on the side of those things which benefit ourselves alone, regardless of who suffers as a result, not caring if justice is served as long as we are happy and comfortable.  Which will you choose?  

You can make a difference

Pentecost 11a

August 24, 2014

Exodus 1:8-2:10

We’ve seen this movie before. It doesn’t end well.  In 1830, the congress of the United States of America passed the Indian Removal Act, which decreed that members of the five Native American tribes which did not wish to assimilate into current culture, would be removed from their homeland and relocated to land west of the Mississippi.  The act was passed under pressure from those who wished to settle the lands held by those tribes.  Thousands of Native Americans died on what is now known as the Trail of Tears.   In 1930’s Adolf Hitler rose to power on a platform which would come to include a systematic genocide of the Jewish people.  The Jews, Hitler argued, were the reason that Germany had been unsuccessful in WWI and they were also to blame for the economic collapse of Germany that followed.  It only makes sense to rid the Reich of that enemy. 

If we can only get rid of this group or that group, we can get what we want. If you blame them for long enough, others will think there is something wrong with them and then they will rally with us against them.  They’re lazy, they carry diseases, they are driving the value of homes in our community down, they want to take our jobs, they are ruining this country, if we don’t get rid of them, they will ruin our economy again and we won’t ever get it fixed. 

The movie I am referring to is called Scapegoat…so named for the ancient practice of symbolically placing the sins of a community onto a sheep, but usually a goat, and then sacrificing that goat in order to satisfy the anger of the gods.  We can usually tell scapegoating is going to occur when the us vs. them language occurs…and experience tells us that it usually doesn’t end well.

Those Hebrews are getting too many in number, worried a paranoid Pharaoh in today’s version of the movie.  Forgetting their shared history with Joseph having saved the Egyptians from the famine and the then Pharaoh welcoming Joseph’s family as honored guests in their land about 400 years earlier, this Pharaoh now saw the ancient Israelites as possible terrorists.  If one person caused an uprising, he worried, those Hebrews would outnumber us Egyptians and certainly overtake us. So persecute them…enslave them, he said, but the Hebrews just kept increasing in number.  The more they were persecuted, the more babies they seemed to have. 

Under further stress of a growing Hebrew population, his new solution was simple, kill the male newborns.  A generation without members of the male gender would render this Hebrew threat powerless quickly. 

Little did he know that one act of civil disobedience performed by four women would have the power to change history. 

The midwives, Shiphrah and Puah ignored Pharaoh’s order to kill the male babies, playing off of Pharaoh’s own paranoia and prejudices about those Hebrew women, informing Pharaoh that these women were much different in childbirth than the delicate Egyptian women.  For the Hebrew women were forceful in childbirth and delivered their babies before the midwives even had a chance to arrive.  They just got their too late to carry out Pharaoh’s orders, Shiphrah and Puah said.  And though Pharaoh doesn’t realize it, we know they are lying.

Then we have a young mother, who, upon seeing the beautiful and healthy nature of her son, hides him in her home as long as she can and, when she can no longer hide him, she places him in a basket in the Nile.  Technically she did follow the orders of the Pharaoh to toss the male babies in the river Nile, but her baby had some protection from the pith and bitumen covering the basket.  Finally, we have Pharaoh’s own daughter, who finds this baby in the basket floating among the reeds.  Even though she knows that this little boy is the son of a Hebrew woman, she is moved by pity hearing him cry and spares his life, even taking him into her house…Pharaoh’s house and adopting him as her son after he is weaned by his own mother. 

Little did they know it at the time, but in these seemingly insignificant acts, four women would wind up changing history.

In those acts of civil disobedience, a young man was raised up in the house of Pharaoh who would be called by God to rescue the Hebrews from the hands of the Egyptians and return them to the land that God had promised to Abraham.

We don’t talk about this story much, we prefer the flashier stories in Exodus about the acts of God in bushes on fire but not consumed by fire, in rivers turned to blood, and staffs turned into snakes, in plagues…and we sometimes forget that the beginning of this story had a humbler origin.  It was this beginning, though, that would lead to an ending that turned out differently than what we would expect from the opening credits of the Exodus version of the scapegoat movie.

How are you going to change the world this week?  In what way will your actions change the course of history for the better?  Did you know that you have the power to change the world?

In 2012 when the National Youth Gathering met in New Orleans, each day we heard the theme song for the gathering…the chorus goes like this.

I want my life to make a difference

I want my life to make a change

I want my life to do some good here

I want my life to make a change

You have that power, children of God, to make a difference…to make an impact that could change the course of history.  For with God, nothing is too small or insignificant to have the power to do amazing things. 

Seek out the lost, feed the hungry, heck – smile at the stranger walking down the street.  When school starts, sit next to the kid who is at a table all by themselves.

It took just one person, we really don’t know exactly who, to start the ice bucket challenge that would come to focus on Lou Gehrig’s disease and has so far raised over $40 million dollars for ALS research. 

Your impact may not be as big in the eyes of the world, but it is just as important in the eyes of God. 

So get out there.  Make a change.  

Jesus the jerk

Pentecost 10A

August 17, 2014

Matthew 15:21-28

I received a text this past Tuesday from a friend and fellow pastor which read “why is Jesus such a jerk this week?”  My first reaction was “what?” but then I read the Gospel text for today and my only response to her was “you’re so right, Jesus is a jerk this week.  I have no idea why.”

If what I just said makes you uncomfortable, you are not alone. 

The Jesus we have been brought up being trained to know and to love is the warm and fuzzy Jesus. The one who welcomes sinners and eats with them. The one who invites children to come sit with him so he can bless them.  The one who feeds people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.  I have never seen a picture of an angry Jesus. Even in the paintings of Jesus cleansing the temple, he still has more of a righteous indignation look on his face instead of straight up anger.  Who are you to call Jesus a jerk, pastor?  My Jesus is not a jerk. 

Except, in this case, he is. 

Let’s take a closer look at this story.  Jesus arrives in Tyre and Sidon, gentile territory, and is met by a Canaanite woman, a woman whose people were descendants of Ham, the son whom Noah cursed after the flood. The Canaanites were pagans and had not only been slaves of Israel, but were also considered to be their enemies.  Seeing Jesus and recognizing who he is, this woman pleads with him for help for her daughter but Jesus doesn’t answer her.  He ignores her.  He ignores her until she her cries for help become so annoying to the disciples that they ask him to send her away.  Then, after she once again pleads for help, Jesus speaks in such a way that she is equated with a dog. 

Let that sink in for a second.  The one who we proclaim as the savior of the world, the one who we call on in times of trouble, ignored this women and then called her a dog. 

If this story doesn’t trouble you…it should.

What is going on with Jesus?  Did he wake up on the wrong side of the bed?  Can’t we just go back to the Joseph story?  It’s a little bit warmer and fuzzier than what we are encountering here. 

If, however, we take a look at the news this week, and in the past few weeks, actually, it seems that warm and fuzzy is not what we need right now. 

Having Joseph tell his brothers that their attempt to harm him resulted in something good really doesn’t jive well when the photographs from Ferguson, Missouri look like an active war zone that has been easily compared with photographs from the Middle East and from our own country during the civil rights era.  When a mother and father are grieving the loss of a son whose life was taken by a police officer for a reason we may never really know.  When black parents all across this country are living in constant fear that their children will be treated differently by the police and the media simply because of the color of their skin. 

Having Joseph tell his brothers that their attempt to harm him resulted in something good doesn’t really jive well when commentators are referring to Robin Williams’ death as selfish and cowardly.  When they take no time to consider what it means for someone to be so lost and beaten down be a disease called depression that they become a victim of the demons living inside of them. 

Having Joseph tell his brothers that their attempt to harm him resulted in something good doesn’t jive well when only 0.2% of welfare recipients in Utah tested positive for drug use amidst allegations that welfare recipients are enabled by a government provided safety net which would allow them to use drugs without consequence.   

We don’t need warm and fuzzy right now.  Warm and fuzzy would just lead to complacency and that is the last thing that this world needs in this moment. 

What we do need is a very real and very human Jesus.  Right now we need a Jesus that is so human that even he isn’t immune to expressing a prejudice he was raised up with.  Right now, we need a human Jesus who will shake us awake to see all the terrible things in this world and the fact that, unless we say something, unless we stand up, unless we take action to rid the world of violence and injustice in our state, in our nation, and in our world, we are considered to giving our consent to the massive conflagrations taking place in this very moment in Ferguson, Missouri, in Israel and Palestine, in Iraq, everywhere where peace has been overcome by war. 

We need Jesus to be a jerk, sometimes, if we are going to look in on ourselves and see all of the places in which our prejudices get in the way of us looking like the little Christ’s that I spoke about two weeks ago. 

And so this morning we stand toe to toe with a very real, very human Jesus.  A very real human being who was taught to avoid those pagan Canaanites.  A very real human being whose purpose was to bring salvation to the lost sheep of Israel.  Period.  And we watch as this very real, very human Jesus, who is also very God, do something that happens time and again throughout the biblical witness.  He changes his mind. 

In this exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, we are seeing Jesus changing his mind about the mission that he is on.  It is no longer just to save the house of Israel…now salvation is even available to the pagans.  Jesus changed his mind and his attitude about the Canaanites all because of the faith shown forth by a mother crying out on behalf of her sick daughter.

What if, though, part of the purpose of Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman was to point out to the disciples just where their prejudices lay so that they could see where they are getting in the way of the Kingdom?  What if part of the reason that Matthew didn’t just jump to Jesus healing the Canaanite woman’s daughter is that he wants us to search ourselves and see where we are getting in the way of the Kingdom?  Because if Jesus is just a jerk, whatever the reason may be, it shows us that we very real human beings are much worse.  That we all have prejudices. 

Some come from how we were raised, others come from negative life experiences that we have had, while still others come from negative perceptions expressed in the public forum.  But regardless of where you picked it up, prejudice is not ok.  Prejudice blinds us to seeing the children of God-ness in others and therefore their value in this world.  It is very painful to admit that we are people of prejudice.  It is even more painful to fight our prejudices and rid ourselves of them.  If we do, though, our eyes and our hearts can be open to giving and receiving so much more love that our lives will be changed for the better. 

Because of Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman, salvation was not just limited to the lost sheep of Israel, it became available to the whole world.  When Jesus went to the cross, it wasn’t just for a specific group, but for everyone…for all people. And Jesus’ mission didn’t just stop once he had defeated sin and death. There isn’t a big “the end” after the resurrection.  The mission goes on. The work continues and it will not end until God’s love wins and sometimes that means we have to endure a little bit of discomfort or some mild pain so that our kinks can get worked out so that when we sit at the eternal banquet table, the person sitting next to is someone whose company we can enjoy regardless of the color of their skin, their religious or political affiliation, or who they love.  In the kingdom of heaven, a KKK member will be able to enjoy the company of a black man, an anti-Semite will be able to enjoy the company of a Jewish woman, Trayvon Martin will be able to sit next to George Zimmerman and Michael Brown Jr. will be able to sit next to Officer Wilson in peace, because in the kingdom of heaven there is no prejudice.  There is no hate.  That means, though, that we have work to do getting rid of it all here.  It’s not going to be easy…but it will be worth it.  

What's your name?

August 3, 2014

Genesis 32:22-31

Pentecost 8

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me”

“I’m rubber, you’re glue. Your words bounce off of me and stick to you”

Two of the worst sayings that we are taught as children because they are not true.  Words hurt.  They sting.  They inflict internal wounds that cannot be seen in the day light like the black eye you might wind up with in a fist fight.  The healing time from wounds inflicted by words often takes longer than the black eye, too.  It’s often the names that inflict the most pain.  Bully.  Geek.  Loser.  Four eyes. Brace face.  Tattle tale.  Ugly.  Fat.  Cheat.  If someone gets called a name often enough, they begin to believe that they people calling them by that name are right.  So there are organizations out there that are working to reverse the trend so that if surround people with positive names that describe them, beautiful, smart, funny, etc., folks will believe this about themselves and begin to have a better outlook on who they are.  Because the names that we use to refer to one another are important, they do give us a sense of who we are and what we are about.

In the bible, names carry a great significance.  They still do today, but not in the way they did in ancient times. Today we often pick out babies names before they are born.  We want names that flow, that fit well with a middle and a last name.  Sometimes, out of tradition, we give family names.  We talk about how a name fits a person. Often, though, we forget about the meaning behind names.  This is what differentiates our culture from the Near East cultures of biblical times.

In ancient times, your name described who you were and, often, who you were destined to become.  Adam was the dirt man.  Abraham was the father of many nations.  Esau was the red one.  Eve was the one from whom life was born.  Jacob, we have learned, was the deceiver, along with his mother, Rebecca, whose name means “the snare.”

It is our dear friend, the deceiver, that we find in a moment of stress.  He has fled from his father in law, Laban, taking with him Rachel and Leah and their maids, most of Laban’s flocks and much of Laban’s fortune.  Laban had overtaken the caravan that Jacob fled with, but they wound up coming to a peaceful agreement and Laban agreed to leave them alone.  Now, however, Jacob learns that the brother whom cheated out of a birthright and stole a blessing, and from whom Jacob fled in order to save his life, has assembled 400 men and is planning to meet Jacob at the other side of the River Jabbock.  For a man whose last interaction with his brother involved a death threat, this cannot be good. 

In panic, Jacob divides all that he has in two.  If one half doesn’t make it, he believes the other half will.  He then attempts to appease his brother and sends him a gift of 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milch camels and their colts, 40 cows, 10 bulls 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.  A lovely menagerie of animals if there ever was one. Across the river Jabbock the gift goes, along with Jacob’s entire family where they will be safe until morning when Jacob will join them again.  

The actions that Jacob took to secure what he had and to attempt to make peace with Esau, however, was not enough to keep Jacob from pacing and worrying about what his first interaction with his brother would be like the next day.  He tosses and turns, playing all of the possible scenarios in his head.  The good ones, the bad ones, the ugly ones.  That is when the attack happens.   

The wrestling match between Jacob and his attacker is epic, lasting all night and into day break…until Jacob’s opponent realizes that Jacob is going to win, so his puts Jacob’s hip out of socket, but that doesn’t keep Jacob from continuing to struggle. 

“Let me go” demands the opponent. 

“Bless me first,” demands Jacob, recognizing that his opponent isn’t an ordinary attacker.  Jacob’s request is answered with an unusual response.  It’s not the blessing that Jacob asks for, it is not a denial of the request, but simply “tell me your name.” 

If Jacob is going to exit this wrestling match, he must share his name with his opponent.  So he does, and with the sharing of Jacob’s name, Jacob also shares his confession.  The one who has survived for so long by cheating, deceiving, usurping, and taking what wasn’t his, and therefore living up to his name, confesses all the wrongs he has done to the man who wrestled with him all through the night and into daybreak all in one word…his own name. There is nothing left to hide now.  All the cheating and the lying and the deception are all laid on the table for all to see.  He has been exposed for who he is.

We wait for the attacker to dish out to Jacob what he deserves.  For vengeance.  For punishment.  That’s not what happens, though. 

Instead of dealing out to Jacob what he had coming to him, the man gives him a new name.  Israel.  The one who wrestles with God and with humans and prevails. 

That day the man who paced and worried and wrestled all night long walked away a different man.  He was no longer the deceiver. No longer the cheat.  No longer the one who took what wasn’t his.  With the new name came a new character, a new purpose.  To be the one who would father the twelve tribes of Israel.  To be the one through whom the promise to Abraham was passed down.  To be the one who would reconcile with the brother he so badly wronged on the other side of the river.  Jacob may have walked away from the wrestling match with a limp, but he still walked away victorious, for he had seen God face to face and yet his life was preserved. 

We all have our given names, our nicknames, the “I wish he would never bring that one up again” names, that our family and friends us to identify us.  However, then there are the names that have seemed to define who we are.  Some of those names build us up and others break us down. Parent, spouse, lawyer, runner, writer, softball player, doctor.  Divorced, infertile, exhausted, depressed, broke, broken. Coward, liar, unfaithful.  Lonely. 

God has a different name for us, however.  A name that we were given in baptism.  A name that, once we have been baptized, cannot be taken away from us.  Christ.

In baptism, we put on Christ and we become a part of Christ and so, while we don’t use the word Christening that often, it’s actually a good word to describe what is happening.  We are joined to Christ in the waters of baptism.  We are given a new name and a new destiny, to live lives as children of God, heirs with Christ in all of the blessings that God has to bestow.  We have become little Christs! And though sin and the powers of evil in this world would have us think that we are not worthy to be put into the same category as Christ, God deems us worthy, simply because he loves us and wants us to thrive and have life.  

So as you go out into the world today, remember, you are a little Christ.  You are a child of God, called and claimed and sent into the world to spread the message of God’s love and God’s justice to the world. And you are not doing this alone, for you are surrounded by little Christs.  In the grocery store, at the farmers market, at the Ronald McDonald house and the God’s Works meals.  There are little Christs everywhere.  And we work together as people renewed by water and the Spirit to be Christ for the world.  Let’s get to work.