“Carry on my wayward son, there’ll be peace when you are done”

Pentecost 11

August 12, 2012

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

It’s a pretty well-known story, the tale of the prodigal son.  In the Gospel of Luke, it is a story about a son who thought that he knew better than his father, so he set off on his own with his share of the inheritance and eventually comes to his sense while sitting in a pig stall getting ready to fight the pigs for their food. 

The story of Absalom and David found in 2 Samuel is not that story of the prodigal son.  I hesitate to even call Absalom prodigal…wayward probably works a lot better.

Here’s what the lectionary has caused us to miss:  Shortly after the power play that David pulled to take Bathsheba as his own, which resulted in her husband Uriah’s death, David’s oldest son, Amnon, raped David’s daughter, Tamar.  David was furious with Amnon for what he had done, but we are never told that David took any action to punish his son for what he had done.  Infuriated by the incident and David’s lack of action, David’s third son, Absalom, took matters into his own hands and killed Amnon two years later on an evening when Amnon had had a little too much to drink.  After killing his brother, Absalom fled from Jerusalem and remained away for three years, during which time David began to yearn for him.  Upon Absalom’s return, David forgives him…but Absalom wasn’t quite done with his mischief making just yet.  Absalom returned to Jerusalem with a plan to take over for his father, and he worked for four years to usurp his father’s throne.  Eventually, he was successful, being crowned King at Hebron and forcing David to flee Jerusalem to preserve his own life.  Then, as a visible sign to the people that Absalom was now in charge of things, Absalom made it a regular practice of laying with David’s concubines in public. 

Sounds like a really great kid, doesn’t he? The son that every man dreams of having one day, right?  Not so much….

After Absalom usurped the throne, David sent one of his trusted friends into serve on Absalom’s court and spy on him, but otherwise, David took a pretty passive stance on the whole thing, trusting that the Lord would take care of him in the future, regardless of whether he was on the throne or not. Eventually, however, David does muster an army together to go in and take back David’s place on the throne…and this is where our reading from this morning comes in.  David’s army has requested that for his safety, David not be allowed to go into battle.  They reasoned that if people didn’t know who they were and things didn’t go according to plan, they could slip out easier than if David was with them.  David agrees to this, but makes one plea in the presence of his men…and that was to deal gently with his son Absalom.  That’s his only request before sending the troops to battle.

It’s a very interesting request that David makes…for the troops to deal gently with his son.  A son who killed his brother, usurped his father’s throne and attempted to murder his father in the process, slept with his father’s concubines and did everything he could to make a mockery out of his father to prove that he was the one in charge now.  Absalom had not only become a political and military enemy, he had become a threat to David’s very life.  And yet, in this moment of preparation before battle, David chose to be a father before he was a king and to request that the life of his son be spared. 

As a person who is not a parent of a human child, I don’t know that I get it 100%. I know that throughout my entire life I have been reminded by my own parents time and time again that there could never be a reason for them to stop loving me.  But I also am aware of family situations where parent/child relationships have been broken and estranged for reasons that are nowhere near as severe as throne usurping, attempted murder…even though the betrayal felt in those broken relationships may feel that severe in the moment, or even years down the road.

So, in the aftermath of the great betrayal and rebellion of Absalom, I see vast amounts of grace in David’s request that his son be treated gently by David’s army.  But as it turns out, it was the forest that first dealt harshly with Absalom, followed by David’s disobedient men.  Joab disobeys David’s orders and has Absalom killed after finding him stuck in a tree by his hair, and when David is informed of this by the second runner, we see in the end of our text not the joy of a king whose enemy has been vanquished, but the grief of a father who loved his son dearly and without condition.  David was not a perfect man, he was actually a bigger scoundrel than we call him on.  There were times in his life, especially after the incident with Bathsheba where David was anything but a man after God’s heart…but here we see a man who gets it, who put down his crown to cry out in lament for his son.     

But there is also a glimpse of something bigger, as if the story of David and Absalom were to serve as a parable for readers of the Hebrew Scriptures in the same way the parable of the prodigal son reached Gospel readers.  I see in the story of David and Absalom, a representation of the story of God and God’s people. 

All throughout scripture and beyond, we have seen a relationship between God and God’s people that has been rocky, to say the least.  Time after time we have rebelled against God and betrayed God. 

We have fought ill-gotten religious wars in God’s name,

We have murdered our brothers and sisters and treated others like they were less than human,

We have replaced our heavenly father by placing our trust in money, in our jobs, and in ourselves,

We are fighting a culture war brandishing weapons of fried chicken sandwiches and waffle fries while 1 in 5 children in this nation go to bed hungry at night. 

Over and over we have done things as acts of rebellion against our heavenly father that we never should have done and have caused great damage to our relationship with our creator.  And the great irony of the whole thing is that in the midst of the great amounts of pain that we humans have caused each other and our heavenly father throughout the years, God’s love and faithfulness remain steady and unwavering.  Despite all the ways that we have been God’s wayward children, God’s love for us has been so deep…God’s desire for us to be protected from all the wrongs in the world so great, that God took a huge barrier out of our way by sending Jesus to come among us, show us the love of God in the most tangible of ways, cause some holy trouble by eating with the so called “wrong” people, and went to the cross so through that act we could be freed from our sin to have the boldness and confidence to call out to our heavenly parent and know that we will be heard. 

David was an imperfect man with a rebellious son, but in a story of a father’s love for his wayward son, we see God’s love for us, God’s wayward children and a faithfulness that is unwavering. 

So, carry on God’s wayward daughters and sons, there’ll be peace when we are done, lay your weary heads to rest, don’t you cry no more. Amen 

Thankful Thursday - rainy day edition

Yes, that's right, it's a rainy day!!!

At 4:00am I awoke to a loud clap of thunder.  Normally this would bug me, but I was so excited for rain that I was thankful to the thunder for letting me know rain was on its way.

Today I am thankful for:
- Rain
- Thunder and lightning
- The National Youth Gathering
- An opportunity to visit family
- Great conversations with congregation members
- Earl Grey tea
- Gluten free labels at the grocery store
- The freedom to have an opinion and to share that opinion with someone else with out either of us saying "you're wrong"
- Grace
- County and local fairs
- Community

God is Good all the time!
All the time God is good! Amen

An Open Letter to Dan Cathy

Dear Mr. Cathy,

I have struggled for the last week to discern my feelings on the fiasco that has surrounded your company in the past weeks.  I would like to share some of these thoughts with you.

I approach this from the perspective of a Lutheran minister.  As such I view scripture as a living document through which the Holy Spirit breathes the Gospel into the world through both the narratives of the Old Testament and the witness of Jesus Christ and the early church.  I take the witness of the Gospel and it's message of grace, justice, and mercy very seriously.  It is this witness that has informed my outlook.  With this in mind, I want you to know that I respect your views and your right to free speech in regards to those views on marriage.  I do not agree with you, but I respect your opinion.

My reading of scripture has presented me with a variety of different definitions of marriage, from Mary and Joseph; to Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar; to Jacob and his wives and concubines; to Solomon and his 700 wives (yikes!).   There is no black and white definition of marriage in scripture, though I do understand the argument citing Jesus' quotation of Genesis 2 where it is written that a man shall leave his family and cling to his wife as being a basis for a definition of marriage.  So I get it if you do not agree with me on this issue. That's is ok. The world would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything.

Here is where the rub comes in - While I respect your opinion, I am very uncomfortable with the fact that some of the money that I have spent on food at chick-fil-a has been used to support organizations that promote discrimination and hate.  I am also uncomfortable with the fact that you wish to speak on behalf of God and, in essence put yourself in the judgment seat. We hear too much of this negative and hateful talk from  folks. My reading of scripture, specifically my reading of the witness of Jesus Christ in the Gospels does not fit in with a reading of scripture that shows a God ready to tear us limb from limb because we choose to love and show mercy to all people regardless of who they are.  The God I have read about in scripture is one who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  Jesus Christ routinely ate with the outcast, the poor, and the so-called "unclean," much to the chagrin of those who thought they knew who was "in" and who was "out." In fact, it was because of this that Jesus went to the cross.  As Christians, we are called to follow in the steps of Christ, to love our neighbors as God in Christ first loved us.  In my understanding, that means being people of grace and love to seek justice and equality for our neighbors just as Christ sought equality for those that his society deemed to be unworthy.

In essence, Mr. Cathy, I support your right to your own opinion and your right to free speech, but I do not support your actions on behalf of the chick-fil-a name.  My reading of scripture speaks of a God who broke down barriers and, through the death and resurrection of Christ destroyed the walls that separate us, making us to be one body to be the hands and feet of God in the world.  As Christians, we do work against the work of Christ when we support hate and inequality.  So, it not because of your opinion on what defines marriage, but rather your actions on behalf of chick-fil-a which support the building up of walls that divide that has moved me to decide that I cannot in good conscience continue to be a patron of your chain of restaurants.

In God's peace,
Pastor Jen Kiefer  

Radically Loving God - A sermon of the festival of St. James the Greater

This past Sunday, I was blessed to have the honor to preach at St. James Lutheran Church in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI.  St. James is my home congregation.  They sponsored my throughout seminary and were home to both my ordination and my wedding.  They are a loving and welcoming congregation and I could not ask for a better congregation to call home.  Below is the sermon I preached for the celebration of their Saint Day.   

Pentecost 9 - July 29, 2012

2 Samuel 11:1-15

St. James Lutheran, GPF

Have you ever known someone that you thought the world of and believed that they would go far and do all these great things only to have them fall into a self-destruct cycle leaving you watching and silently screaming “no!”? 

That’s how I feel when I read this story about David.  You see, I am fan of David, the underdog who went far, the psalmist and musician described as being after God’s own heart even though he was far from perfect. 

At the beginning of David’s story, he’s got a lot going for him.  He is anointed by Samuel to be the person who would follow Saul on the throne even though he was the youngest, and probably the most insignificant, of Jesse’s sons.  Through the power and wisdom God gave him, David defeated Goliath and was victorious on many fields of battle.  David showed mercy to Saul, his nemesis, when he had the opportunity to kill him and when Saul and Jonathan died on the field of battle, David showed the people what it meant to truly lament a great loss…but it gets a little rocky after that.

When David was having the Ark of the Lord brought into Jerusalem, there’s a snafu when he decided to have the Ark carried on a cart instead of the poles that God said the ark had to be carried on and a priest ends up dead after getting zapped while trying to steady the ark on the cart.  So this delayed the arrival of the Ark into Jerusalem for three months.  Once it got there, David danced with great joy…much to the dismay of one of his wives.  Then David decided that it was time to build God a house to replace the tent that God had been dwelling in with the Ark of the Covenant since Sinai, a tent that allowed God to go where the people went.  And while his intentions were great, in a way…the timing wasn’t right and it seemed to be more about David than about God. 

And after this, it seems that David gets back on the straight and narrow.  He was victorious in battle over the Philistines and showed compassion to Jonathan’s last remaining son, who had crippled feet.

And then we get to this mornings reading and as we watch the scene play out reactions range from “bad move, David,” to “really?”  to “no! don’t do it!”  to “sigh” while David slides further and further into self destruct mode.  And then we sweep the story under the rug and jump right to Nathan reading David the riot act and David repenting. 

But it’s not that easy

It’s not that easy because then we ignore the sins of David…First, David took advantage of Bathsheba, possibly raped her, when he should have been on the field of battle fighting with his men.  Then, when Bathsheba became pregnant with David’s child, he tried to cover it up by doing everything he could to force Uriah to go home and sleep with his wife…ignoring the fact that when the Ark of the Lord was present on the field of battle, soldiers were forbidden to have sex…and when Uriah proved himself to be faithful to his requirements as a soldier, David did the most despicable thing he could think of, he had Uriah killed so he could take Bathsheba as his own wife and save both he and Bathsheba from being stoned to death for their adultery.

And in all of this, the only two words that Bathsheba voices are “I’m pregnant.”  She has no voice when David lays with her, she has no voice when her husband is killed and David takes her as his wife…she has no voice when the child she bore as a result of the adultery with David died.  She only gets those two words. 

So, we’re faced with a story of power and privilege and what can happen when those two things are taken advantage of. 

Last week in New Orleans, the youth that I serve in Lawrence saw the reality of power and privilege as we drove through the 9^th ward, and as we walked down Bourbon Street.  In the lower 9^th ward, we were witness to the neglect facing the Vietnamese neighborhood we served in, whose homes still bear the scars of Katrina, whose doors still bear the X and codes indicating how many people were found in the house and the condition of those people while in more affluent parts of town you couldn’t even tell a hurricane had hit.  And on Bourbon Street, we encountered women who make their living in so called Gentleman’s clubs.  Reactions to these two experiences were completely different.  In the 9^th ward, there was silence as we passed homes with mold on the exterior siding and others without roofs.  On Bourbon street, there were gasps and one of the youth even instructed the others not to look, inadvertently insulting the strippers we passed.  In both cases we talked about power and privilege.  We talked about how a lot of people had left New Orleans after Katrina to restart their lives, but others had no choice but to stay in those moldy, damaged homes.  We talked about how some women do choose to make their living by taking off their clothes for men, but that others are trapped in the sex industry and to get out would be to risk their lives. 

It is the same power and privilege that fuels this story about David, who though he was originally described as a man after God’s own heart, was no man after God’s heart in these destructive acts. 

But here is the thing that makes totally no sense…probably because it’s not supposed to make sense…while God did not let David off the hook for his sins and indiscretions, God still remained faithful to the promises that God had already made to David.  When God revealed to David that he would not be the one to build God a house, God also promised to give David honor, to give him a house…a dynasty, to give him an heir who would take the throne after him.  And God was faithful to these promises to a very imperfect man.  In fact, God was so faithful to these promises that God made David to be the ancestor of one born to an insignificant peasant girl in first century Palestine….one who would be full of grace and truth and would truly be after God’s heart all the while causing trouble left and right.  One who would eat with the strippers and the tax collectors, touch the unclean and heal them on the Sabbath.  One who was not afraid to call folks out for their abuses of power and privilege and who went to the cross so that the debts created by our sin would be forgiven and expunged from our records.

David was an imperfect person.  He was a much bigger scoundrel than we call him on.  But God showed love and faithfulness to David and used both his gifts and his failings to bring about something better for this world…a savior.  If you take a look at scripture, the people who God works through the most are most often the biggest screw ups, the most broken, and the least perfect.  And it doesn’t make sense…but, if you think about it, God doesn’t really make sense.  God’s best and most fruitful works have come from the most broken and most insignificant people, from poor widows and dirty fisherman, from former persecutors of the church and crooked tax collectors, from womanizing kings and unknown peasant women.  Our God is a God who takes people who are flawed and broken and uses both our gifts and our failings and makes beautiful and amazing things grow from them.  He’s done it with you, and he’s done it with me and God will continue to work in ways that don’t make sense to us which leaves us with only one option, to throw our hands up in the air, to stop rationalizing and to accept God’s amazing and radical love for us, we saints and sinners, we broken and flawed people.  We children of an amazingly radical loving God.

To NOLA and back: Reflections on the National Youth Gathering

I've been trying to put my thoughts together about our trip to the National Youth Gathering these past couple days...but for some reason, my mind just keeps going back to the statistics
- walls for 3 homes built
- over $400,000 donated to build wells around the world (that's 160 wells!)
- 1193 pints of blood and 509 heads of hair donated
- 400 service projects completed

When 33,309 youth get together to be little Christs for the world, a LOT can happen. 

The 2009 National Youth Gathering had a positive economic impact of over $42 million on the city of New Orleans.  I'm guess this gathering will have a similar impact. 

Beyond all the stats we do know is one we will never know...and that it how many lives were changed during the ELCA National Youth Gathering.  Sure there are the lives of the participants and the adult leaders who were behind all these statistics...but what about the lives of the people we met in the streets of New Orleans, the lives of the children we played with and read to, the lives of the people whose schools now have a brand new coat of paint on the walls, the lives of the families who homes we built, the lives of those who will receive the blood that was donated or the wigs created out of the hair donated. 

There was a lot of love in New Orleans last week as thousands upon thousands of ELCA Lutherans descended upon that great city and got to work breaking down walls and making a difference in the lives of people we met and in the lives of people we will never meet.  We were truly God's hands and feet in the City of New Orleans. 

But the most poignant moment of the gathering, for me, was the moment that those 33,309 youth plus adult leaders and volunteers stopped for a moment to pray for the victims of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado and for the shooter.  In that moment, that out pouring of love and the echos of the Amen that rang throughout the Superdome (...sorry, the Lutherdome) was so powerful that it could have only come from God. 

I boarded the bus for the trip home on Sunday afternoon very proud to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  It was a blessing to see so much love poured out on the city of New Orleans, so much hospitality showered upon us, and to see how visible God was in changing the youth that attended, filling them with the Holy Spirit who gathered us together for this event and then scattered us to our hometowns to begin the work the needs to be done there...to be done here. 

I am very much looking forward to the next gathering in Detroit in 2015.  It is a city of resilient people who are fighting to keep their hometown alive and vibrant.  There have been great strides in this with the increase in community gardens that were once vacant homes, in young adults moving into the city to revitalize it, and in people who believe in the spark that Detroit has always had within it.  There is a lot of need in Detroit, though, and I look forward to the impact that 35,000 teenagers can have on what I believe is the greatest city in the US.

Rainy Day Reflections

It's been a while since I have been blessed to wake up on a rainy day.  In fact, it's been a while since it has really rained here so that in itself is something to celebrate. 

As we near our departure for the National Youth Gathering, I have been thinking more and more about what I would like to see happen on this trip.  Having experienced two other mission trips (but never ever having been to the Gathering before) I have come to learn that God always exceeds my expectations because God is pretty cool like that.  To see how youth can be so changed after only one week continues to amaze me and it is big reason why all the details and the planning are worth it...to see how God has worked in the life of a youth or an adult and changed them forever for the better. 

So my hope and prayer for the Gathering is that the youth will be open to God's work in them and through them to be God's hands and feet in the world and that they will experience something that they never expected. 

If you're interested in following our journey in New Orleans next week, you can follow me on twitter @pstrinrbyslprs or you can follow the gathering #cwts12

Thankful Thursday

Recently, I had my annual staff evaluation.  I really appreciate evaluation time because it gives me the opportunity to get honest feedback which I know is given with love and from the perspective of folks who want me to continue to grow and mature in the gifts that God has given me.  One part of the evaluation is a self-evaluation, which is the hardest part of the evaluation process because it means that I need to be honest with myself about my growth areas.  This is normally a good thing, but if you know me really well, you know that I am already pretty hard on myself (which is, in itself, a big growth area) which makes self care a struggle when you toss and turn at night over very minor things which no one else is going to remember in a couple hours...except for me, of course.  I'm getting better at this.  Having a life-partner who constantly reminds you how great he thinks you are, and yet is willing to call you out when that is necessary, is a very helpful thing for someone like me.

So I've been thinking of ways that I am good at self-care.  Or ways that I am getting better.

One way is in the wellness quest.  I'm getting better every day at getting exercise in and keeping better track of what I eat (though, honestly, the monthly work day is a free for all lunch day because you simply cannot turn down any of the delicious food that the church ladies have made...and that's all there is to it. ). 

Another way is in my attempts to take time every day to be thankful.  I'm not the best at weekly thankful Thursday posts, but God knows when I thank her for the gifts she has given me and I continue to strive to make sure that folks around me know how thankful I am that God has placed them in my life...and that's what matters.

But since it's Thursday, here are some things I am thankful for that I wish to share with you:
- For Lutheran's singing in harmony (I may be biased, but we do it the best)
- For Legos
- For Workday lunches
- For the Communion Coffee and Workday folks
- For folks unafraid to dole out hugs during the passing of the peace
- For being reminded that God loves me
- For being reminded of how precious life is and how God is present in each moment of life
- For exercise and for rest