Fourth Sunday in Advent

Joseph and the dilemma

Joseph was a law-abiding righteous man, we are told. He had a fiancé, Mary. And he learns she is pregnant. Under the law, this was a bad, bad thing for Mary.

Some background information about early Jewish marriages helps the setting of this text. In the first place, engagement in this culture was a formal contractual matter, usually decided on by the two fathers in question (i.e., it was an arranged marriage), and was, in fact, the first stage of the marriage itself, to be complete some months hence by the formal wedding ceremony. The reason Matthew says that Joseph had resolved to “divorce” a woman he was only engaged to, is because engagement then was a legally binding contract, unlike engagement in the West today.

Secondly, we need to understand in that patriarchal culture, the birth of the first born son was all important and crucial to the family line and property transfer. The fact Joseph is prepared to give up the right to sire his own first-born son and accept and even name Jesus (Yeshua/Joshua means “Yahweh saves”) says a lot about the character of Joseph. It leads to the oddest genealogy ever in Matthew 1:1-17 in which Jesus is shoehorned into Joseph’s genealogy by putting Mary into that genealogy despite the fact that it is a patrilineal genealogy (x begat y…).

Unless he claimed the baby as his own, Mary (and Jesus) might die.  He had to let Love overpower Law, and accept Mary’s baby as his own. This decision came to him in a dream. I myself have doubts about the whole angel part of the story, but I am ok with it, too.

Worth noting here are the Angel’s words “don’t be afraid”. Fear not. Because our best decisions are not made in fear, are they. Joseph’s decision changed our lives here, roughly 2000 years later. No giant discovery, just a very personal decision by Joseph, who was not anyone special.  And today we tell this story. It seems like a good time to reflect where we could be kinder and more forgiving and make the world better in some small way.   We cannot see the future that flows from our actions today, actions either done or not done.

I have a real problem with verse 22. This I think is a nod to contemporary Judaism and from our perspective seems strange. Joseph and Mary had a child and THAT was God’s purpose (in my mind). There is another often missed piece of this story. The name of the child. Jesus is a Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, which means “the Lord saves”.  The community would have known this. Yet Joseph raised his son to be a carpenter and not a spiritual leader. He did not appear to expect a Messiah.

But he took a chance, and we are forever grateful.

— Don Medal

Third Sunday in Advent

Gaudete Sunday

Happy Gaudete - Rejoice. I had to look this up (including the pronunciation) but Gaudete is Latin for Rejoice which is what the 3rd Sunday of Advent represents. Like many who are lay people (not anywhere close to being an expert or even really a novice on scripture) I did a fair amount of research for today. Rather fun actually. I read sermons on Matthew 11:2-11 by deep thinking and learned ministers. I appreciated all their insights. Then I thought, as an amateur, I better tread lightly here.  A quote I did find on the subject of Gaudete is this though: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land.” In many respects we choose to be part of a faith community “to have no anxiety about anything” and to give “thanksgiving” and to experience the wonders of Christ. Rejoice!

That sets the stage rather well. “…have no anxiety about anything…let your requests be known to God.” In Matthew, Christ says “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” That is fairly vivid and powerful imagery. All of those acts cited in Matthew we want to believe in them – and whether actual and tangible or not, they represent or symbolize faith, the opportunity for renewal, the advent for our own rebirth by believing in the teachings of Christ.  Rejoice.

I think overall the Advent period, while leading up to the birth of Christ and then eventually the Resurrection, is certainly within a faith context, all about rejoicing. But as we all know even outside of our Christian faith rejoicing happens in a very secular way too. This time of year, is all about rejoicing. I am struck every December how everything changes: we are encouraged through advertising, events, and just simple one-on-one interactions to be positive, be happy, rejoice. People bust out in good cheer. Some even come to your door and force singing on you (whether invited or not). Our attitudes are reshaped, or are supposed to be, at least for the final four weeks of the year. Then we creep back into our regular lives in January. We are to be UP, UP, and UP. We know Christmas is about giving, about receiving, about some sense of renewal and rejoicing. However, we need to recognize that this is not a rejoicing period for all people. I am not being as critical as I sound, but I find it interesting whether a person is a Christian or an atheist -Santa has been watching. Be careful. Be happy. You will “rejoice” whether you want to or not. 

Don’t worry I will get to more actual rejoicing in this paragraph. However, remember I am an academic and a researcher so before I get to my main point, I have to analyze all angles, provide an inordinate amount of context, along with an acceptable number of digressions. It is in my UND faculty contract. Thus a part of rejoicing is also understanding that rejoicing is actually hard for many people. People sometimes contemplate loss at this time of year. I remember some years ago my mother died four days before Christmas. That definitely clouds things. We all have losses that come into focus at this time of year. One hope when that happens people can contemplate their loss, go to the loss and all the feelings intertwined, to struggle with it -yes; but ultimately to come out the other side with some degree of clarity, healing, and that ability to stay connected – to find the opportunities and renewal in spite of how hard life is at times, to find the way forward. That is rejoicing.  For many of us with a faith stance -that is the purpose and one I find from Christ or with Christ. That is what Christ is to me- a medium, a passage to find opportunity and to rejoice in Christ-like acts to make a difference and to impact the lives of others. I think of it as opportunity through meaning; opportunity through action, and opportunity through “light signs.” Every week we recount numerous “light signs.” We, as we often say “are the little church that does big things.” Asked what we do we proudly say “we feed people, we help to house people, we make quilts as gifts, we plant and care for a community garden (a very concrete example of renewal and rejoicing), we knit hats and scarves, we restart a community PFLAG, we initiate a new community process called ‘Connections,’ we are ‘Reconciled in Christ,’ we are ‘open and affirming’” -in short we are here to help people, particularly the most vulnerable. And we do this beyond our size. We are the “little church that does big things!” Rejoice! As a UCC member I have been encouraged to struggle with my faith, to question it, to question teachings, to tug and pull at it, and not accept others' definition of faith without first considering my questions and the answers that I find. I have had various UCC ministers explain that aspect of the need for struggle and not blind acceptance. The UCC national motto has been “God is still speaking,” It ends with a comma not a period as it implies that conversation between God and humans is an ongoing dialogue. Some feel it starts and ends with the Bible but in my tradition the Bible is part of the discussion but we carry it forward every day in our quest to understand our faith. Rejoice in that struggle.  

I am going to close with a quote. David Letterman once said always begin with a quote or end with one. I tend to listen to Dave, a significant influence on my life. 

I do not believe the quote was made during an Advent service; however, it is rather all encompassing and embracing. I read this (out loud) every week when I come here to do my prayers. It is, for me, an example of living our lives by providing light to others, by rejoicing, and how we can find that within ourselves.

This is a quote from a sermon given by Gretchen Graf. 

“Forgiveness welcomes us all into God’s way of living, but when we ourselves refuse to forgive, we fall back into the world’s way. Entering the empire of Heaven is a process. We get there when we live like we are there. When we love. When we forgive. When we extend compassion and mercy. We create the empire with God when we live like the empire is already here. Forgive and you will be forgiven because when you forgive you understand the forgiveness that’s already, always there waiting for you to receive.”

Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!

- Brad Gibbens

First Sunday in Advent

Reflection

inspired by Cheryl Lindsay, a United Church of Christ writer and editor

Matthew makes the coming of the Son of Man sound like an ominous disaster in this scripture! “Stay Awake – you don’t know when your Lord is coming – and it doesn’t sound good!”

Imagine living your life, going about your daily routine, and being unaware that a seismic change was imminent. That never happens to any of us does it? Well, yes, kind of, all the time! Loved ones die or have manic episodes, or go to jail. My house floods, and floods again, and an entirely different house floods 20 years later!

And speaking of Floods… Matthew has name-dropped Noah in this scripture passage. Noah’s flood had actually happened decades earlier, but would still in the memories of those present. Matthew speaks to an audience who are experiencing a different disaster in their lives. The folks listening to this scripture for the first time had just experienced the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman soldiers.  So, the audience just had their city destroyed – not an easy thing, right? Matthew uses the story of Noah to link that past, to the future coming of the Son of Man, through the present, which was a political mess then, and let’s face it, usually is!  Maybe Matthew was trying to  relate to his audience. He has this great news, but his audience has just experienced the destruction of their city, so they may not be focused on the future. Maybe he makes the coming of the Son of Man sound scary so they will pay more attention.

Jerusalem’s devastation made an example out of Jewish people. It reminded the rest of the empire that Roman power was not to be challenged. It also made folks question their way of life, and the future of Jewish communities in the Roman empire. What was God doing? Was this destruction a punishment? If so, was there forgiveness? How should they live so as to prevent such a terrible thing happening again?
This military-political event was especially difficult for Jesus-followers. They followed one who had been executed on a cross, had been compared to local bandits.  In telling the story of Jesus, Matthew asks: How did followers of one crucified by Rome, like a thief, make their way in a world ruled by Roman power? The present is always difficult to navigate, so let’s set aside the disasters of the past and present for a moment.

Advent invites us to remember and anticipate. It is a season that holds the certainty of the past, and the unknown future, linked together by choices of the present. Your choices of the present moment. Have you ever kayaked, or sailed? There isn’t much cruise control. The waves will push you  one way; the wind will push you another – and then suddenly stop. You have to be alert constantly to those changes – literally, which way the wind is blowing. The decisions of the immediate present – constant course corrections – help you steer your boat. Trying to find the best way forward – while surrounded by swirling wind and conflict – kind of recalls the anticipation of Advent for me. Hope that’s OK to say.

Another, more literal, Advent analogy is preparing for company. Whatever the state of your home at the present moment, when you know company is coming, you see your surroundings with different eyes. You are suddenly alert not only to YOUR needs – and messes -  but what your company may need in the immediate future.  Preparing for someone else’s arrival by putting your own house in order – that sounds like Advent, too, right?

The vision Matthew talks is harsh, but it’s the promise of a reset, a restoration of God’s good creation. Unlike those folks in the days of Noah, or the residents of the destroyed Jerusalem, we do have more power and freedom to participate in creating the future end of our own story.

What if we lived our lives holding past remembrances and future visions in mind as we choose our present actions? What if we believed we could eliminate gun violence? What if we welcomed everyone who has lost a home, or a meal, or family – into our homes? What if we practice to eradicate every unfairness by staying alert to community actions – making as many course corrections as we can? What if we choose to make the possible – probable - by our own actions? Maybe that’s Advent.

BENEDICTION
Go forth with the gift of hope, Guiding you toward the path of peace.
Go forth with the gift of joy, Guiding you toward the path of love.
Go forth with anticipation – being alert for ways to make the possible, the probable.

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 19:11-27

Often we think the parables of Jesus are about how the world ought to be.  Today’s parable is more about how the world is – or at least how it was in the first century.  There was a harsh and selfish ruler that nobody liked.  He had control over vast land and wealth and many slaves.  When he went on a long trip, he put his slaves in charge.  Some of them did well as managers and some didn’t.  The people of the land wanted a different ruler.  In that day, expressing their displeasure got them executed.

Let’s start with the issue of rulers.  First century folks had no control over who was in charge of their land or lives.  The issue was settled by warfare and the conquering army took control of everything, including enslaving the defeated people.  They maintained control by violence and used it to enrich themselves.  This sounds very different from our own times, especially as we’re in the midst of midterm elections.  We like to think that our vote determines the direction of our country.  We try to match candidates to our values and vote to influence what happens next.  There’s no story in scripture about how a vote matters because in those days there was no vote.  Instead we see in this story what can happen when the people have no say.  We can use that to remind ourselves that we have a great privilege in participating in our government.  Even today not all people have that opportunity.  That’s why churches encourage everyone to vote.  If you haven’t yet, please do.

Then let’s look at the issue of being put in charge of parts of the estate management and wealth.  This story always comes in the lectionary in the fall when churches are doing their stewardship campaigns and asking for pledges for next year.  In our tiny church we’ve left that practice behind and count on our members and supporters to do what they can in financial gifts.  On the other hand, we focus year round on people doing projects that matter to them as the heart of our church life.  In earlier translations instead of speaking of “pounds” left in the hands of the managers the text used the world “talents.”  A talent was a unit of money.  Because we use the word in a different way, understanding it to mean abilities, we often talk about how we put our personal gifts to use when we talk about this parable.  Let’s follow that custom today.

First of all this parable tells us that what we do matters.  The managers who did their best to get a return on investment were rewarded and the one who played it safe was punished.  Is the message to us that faith encourages risks?  There was danger in investing the money the ruler gave his slaves because he was indeed a hard man and his anger was life-threatening.  I suspect that the ones who did well enjoyed the opportunity to use their knowledge and skills and make a profit.  They had no wealth of their own and this was their chance to show what they could do.  Maybe the “lesson” is that we keep trying even in difficult circumstances.

We’re living in a time in our own country when there are at least two very difference visions of what life should be.  We disagree about whether we should look out for ourselves or function as a caring community.  Should people of wealth have all the advantages or should we try to level the economic playing field?  Should education and health care be a right or is it a privilege of success?  Should we welcome people coming from other countries looking for safety and a chance at a better life or should we close our borders and keep what we’ve got for those who are already here?  Should we value diversity and celebrate our variety or is there privilege in being white and straight?  Should we try to overcome the inequities of our past or are those principles inherent in our founding?  These differences are sharp and increasingly threatening violence as we work out who we will be and how we’ll live together.  It’s a great temptation to keep our mouths shut and our heads down and hope that we’ll get by.

Our Justice Conversations group has been reading the book Necessary Risks by Teri McDowell Ott.  Rev. Ott describes the temptation for people of privilege – that’s us -  to enjoy life just the way it is without taking a look at the struggles other face.  She tells stories of her work with incarcerated persons, students of color, and those dealing with gender discrimination.  In each case she encourages us to take the risk to know more about people whose lives differ from ours so that we can use our influence to support a more equitable world.  For most of us taking a risk is uncomfortable.  Unless we’re willing to face into that discomfort, we can’t grow and we can’t be part of creating a better life for everyone.

In our time when we disagree about how society should work, we take a risk by living out our vision and putting our values into action.  We risk alienating some of our friends by the work that we do.  Not everyone understands why these things matter to us.  When we learn about being incarcerated or homeless or hungry, that knowledge leads us to advocate for new policies and programs that get at the root of those problems.  Those positions aren’t always popular, but they are important if we’re going to treat all people with respect – like Jesus did.

This little congregation puts a lot of money where our mouth is.  You are incredibly generous with your gifts to others.  You help with emergency aid to people you’ll never meet.  You reach out to minority communities with aid to make repairs, which is a gift of both money and love in the face of hatred.  We feed people – lots of people in many places.  LaGrave, North Country Food Bank, Christus Rex, Northlands Rescue Mission, Ukraine. 

Sometimes I get discouraged that the need is so great and my effort is pretty small.  I called my Senators and they didn’t reinstate free lunch for all students this year.  I asked them to continue the child tax credit and they didn’t – so we had to help a family this week to make a rent deposit.  It’s hard to keep doing work that matters when the larger system doesn’t seem to care in the same way we do.  Maybe this parable, with all its first century oddness, is meant to encourage us in the twenty-first century.  Not all rulers are just and caring.  But we can take a risk and try to make a difference anyway.  The parable says that those who have something will get more.  I hear that today telling me that those who try hard and do what they can will have some success. When you make a small effort, the results multiply.  This fall I asked for apples and tomatoes and the response was slow coming, but when it came it filled up my garage and my dining room table.  It translated into 23 gallons of spaghetti sauce, 25 gallons of applesauce and 35 apple crisps – which many of you helped make.  That’s not enough to feed everyone who’s hungry in the Grand Cities, but it feeds quite a few.

Maybe this is the message from this story for us today:

You can’t fix the whole world but what you do matters.  Keep up the good work

Reformation Sunday

Luke 19:1-10

Folks who grew up in Sunday School find an old favorite in the story of Zacchaeus – the wee little man who climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus.  Zacchaeus was a tax collector and so not a favorite with his neighbors in Jericho.  He heard that the new rabbi Jesus was passing through town and went to see what would have been a parade because Jesus traveled with a large group of people.  Others from the village were already there taking the front row places along the route.  Zacchaeus was short, but because he worked for Rome and collected taxes and fees, no one wanted to welcome him or even show him common decency.  He simply couldn’t see over the crowd.  Being somewhat resourceful and very determined, he climbed a tree so he could see over their heads.  And Jesus saw him and invited himself home with Zacchaeus for lunch.

What is the moral of this story? Often it’s phrased something like “even tax collectors and sinners can be saved because of Jesus.”  Or God loves everyone, even the scum of the earth.  We all hear the story and nod our heads over how kind and loving Jesus can be.  We share it as the “good news of the gospel” – Jesus loves even folks as bad as Zacchaeus.

It’s helpful to remind ourselves that when we’re reading Bible stories it’s unlikely that we are the good guys in the story.  We aren’t the ones welcoming even Zacchaeus into the reign of God.  Most of the time I fear we show up in this story as the people of Jericho – astonished that Zacchaeus was worthy of Jesus’ attention.  I was trying to read this story with an open mind this week and noticed some things I hadn’t seen before.  Let’s start with the fact that he hero of this story isn’t Jesus who “saves” Zacchaeus by paying attention to him and encouraging reform.  This story’s hero is Zacchaeus.  He’s the one who had heard about Jesus and wanted to see for himself this reformer.  He’s the one who didn’t push and shove when he was shut out by his neighbors but just climbed a tree.  And he’s the one who turns out to be kind and generous.  Even before Jesus stops, he has a plan that he’s eager to share when he gets a chance.  He’s heard Jesus’ message about caring for others and has decided he can give away half his assets to help those who are poor.  We all assume that because he’s a tax collector, Zacchaeus is a cheat, but the story doesn’t say that.  He says, “IF I’ve cheated anyone I’ll make reparations – returning the overage with interest.”  It’s possible he’s been honest, even though his job gave him a chance to enrich himself by cheating.  He’s willing to double check his records and be sure he’s charged folks fairly.  If there’s an error, he’s going to make it right.  Zacchaeus doesn’t deserve his bad reputation but is a leader in the new movement Jesus is promoting.  He’s going to help the community that’s rejected him.

This story gives us a chance to take a look at assumptions we make about other people and ways that we rush to judgment without cause.   There’s a lot being written these days about how those of us who come from a position of relative privilege are blind to the assumptions we make about how the world works and who has value in it. The people of Jericho missed the kind-hearted neighbor in their midst because he was labeled by his job.  He used the good pay his job gave him to help others – including those who had been mean to him.  Where does that happen in our lives.

This week I was picking up my granddaughter from school and watching the students heading for home while I waited for her.  I noticed that I was surprised by the children of color who were walking home.  “These people live in my neighborhood?” I thought.  I caught myself, realizing that I assumed “they” wouldn’t live near “me”!  I work hard at overcoming racism and negative assumptions, but they work just as hard at sticking in my brain.  I needed to think differently!

This time of year all of our neighborhoods are sprouting political yard signs.  It’s tempting to drive down the street and think that one house belongs to sensible folks voting for great candidates while their neighbors are uniformed and supporting others.  We can’t make judgments about whether or not these are good folks based on their politics – but we do.

When we first started cooking at LaGrave, I was a little intimidated by the fact that these neighbors had lived hard lives and been homeless for a long time.  They seemed rough and sometimes scary.  We were cautioned not to take children to help, and at first that was good advice because there were some bugs needing to be worked out in behaviors.  Now I take my grandkids along to serve and everybody welcomes them.  Folks are healthier and I think of them as friends.  When we were talking with leadership there about menus and budgets, getting ready for them to hire a cook, one top official said to me, “What can it cost to buy a little white bread and bologna?”  I was horrified!  I don’t feed bologna sandwiches to friends who visit for supper and I’m not about to serve them to my friends at LaGrave.  It was a sign of how much we’ve learned in our time there.

Our Tuesday morning book group is reading a Inner Anarchy right now.  Jim Palmer, the author, suggests that the message of Jesus isn’t “God can fix you if you believe in me” but “God has given you the ability to create heaven on earth right now.”  Zacchaeus is a good example of the difference.  Instead of thinking “Jesus made even Zacchaeus okay”  we can think “Zacchaeus had a lot to offer and Jesus helped the community recognize that.”  We’re not waiting for Jesus to fix everything that’s wrong with folks and so create a better world.  Jesus is calling us into community where we can see what everyone has to offer and work together to realize the vision of a better life for all. 

If we’re going to work together to make God’s dream for life real, we’re going to have to start with the way we see each other.  It’s an opportunity to recognize unhelpful assumptions that are getting in the way.  We all have old tapes playing in our heads that tell us people are different or dangerous.  That not everyone can be trusted and not everyone has value.  Those old messages are wrong and the first step in forming a Jesus community is learning to recognize them and set them aside.  Every person has worth.  Jesus helped Zacchaeus make a plan and act on it, bringing his value to light.  The people who follow Jesus today do that same work – treating everyone with respect and dignity and finding ways to let each person shine in his or her own way.  It takes some re-training and lots of practice, but we can do it.  I’d like to think that the next time something important happened in town, people stepped aside and moved Zacchaeus to the front row.  I’d like to think we’d do the same.  Together, we can make it happen.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18:9-14

The Pharisee in today’s scripture reminds me of the old song that starts “Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.”  The Pharisee lists off all the good things that he does – fasting, tithing, keeping all the rules.  Those are good things and he should be proud of them.  But he spoils it by saying, “unlike all those nasty folks who…”  It’s not enough for him to do what’s good, he has to be sure we know he’s better than others who aren’t as compliant with the law.

I think it’s consensus that humility is a good thing and Christians are supposed to be humble.  Sometimes we take that too far – that humility requires that we never take credit for good things we do.  Or even beyond that, that we never admit we CAN do good things.  As kids that meant we were taught not to brag.  There’s a difference between bragging and acknowledging our talents.  Every one of us is good at some things.  It’s not helpful to anyone if we pretend we have no skills or natural abilities.  Ask a group to introduce themselves by naming one of their gifts.  There will be a lot of hemming and hawing as we try to overcome that “don’t brag” rule.  We’re a small enough group that we can try that out.  Each one of you can name something you do well.  [If you’re reading this, stop right now and say something you do well out loud.]

How does it feel to speak truth about your gifts?  In the best of all possible worlds, it would feel great.  Hiding our talents doesn’t serve anyone well.  In a group we need folks to own up to what they can do to help.  It gets the right people in the right jobs.  It also keeps the wrong people from having to take on jobs outside their comfort zone.  Everyone benefits when we’re honest about what we like to do and what we do well.  Humility doesn’t require us to pretend we’re incompetent in order to be nice.

The Pharisee in our story isn’t criticized for doing good things.  He’s taken down a notch because he thinks he’s better than everyone else.  This story isn’t about honesty, it’s about judging others as inferior.  That doesn’t help anyone.  If the Pharisee had said, “God I thank you for the opportunity to practice my faith” we wouldn’t be talking about him centuries later.  He’s still getting a bad rap after all these years because he thought what he did well made him better than those who did other things well.  Difference is important to make our community whole.  Some gifts aren’t more valuable than others.  All of them matter.

If you want someone to help you organize a dinner, you want to ask me.  I’m your girl.  If you want art for your wall, you don’t want me anywhere near that project.  It would be a disaster.  But both dinner and art are good parts of life.  One isn’t better than the other.

It’s hard in a time when our country is polarized to remember that each person has important gifts to contribute to the whole.  Even in a conversation when we are coming at an issue in vastly different ways, we get to a better end result if we hear from everyone and consider all angles.  It’s hard to think of those who disagree with our whole view of the world as important, but they have an equally difficult task when they think of us. 

Yesterday we had the first meeting of what may become the Connections group – folks who came together to think about how to make our community and our world better.  We talked about issues that matter to us and problems we’d like to solve.  There were lots of dreams that you’d recognize.  What I heard most often was the hope that we could talk and listen with more open minds.  That we could be in conversation with everyone, not just the folks who agree with us on everything.  It would make community better if we all felt like we mattered, even if we don’t see everything exactly the same way.

Being able to hear each other starts with setting aside the assumption that we’re right and others are wrong.  The Pharisee was a spiritual leader in his town.  What would have happened if he’d stepped up to the tax collector and introduced himself?  What if he’d said, “You have a really hard job.  How is it to be a tax collector?”  Or how about if he’d asked, “I spend a lot of time keeping the rules of our faith.  Do you?  Do they matter to you?  Or do they make your life harder?”  Would the tax collector have felt like he could be honest?  Would he have asked the same questions back, trying to learn about the struggles of being a Pharisee?

Every person has successes and struggles.  It’s easy for us to agree that “walking a mile in someone’s shoes” is a good idea.  But it’s hard to set aside the judgments that come naturally as we look at folks who seem different from us.  Learning to recognize that we view life through a narrow lens and trying to widen the scope of understanding takes practice.

Jesus was always telling people that everyone mattered – rich and poor, employed and beggar, men, women and children.  Maybe the most important thing he’s teaching us is that all people have value.  Before we see what’s wrong or even just what’s different in each other, we need to look for the value.  It’s okay to admit our own value.  It’s great to see the gifts in others.  We can be grateful for what we can contribute and even more grateful for what we receive from friends and even strangers.  Humility isn’t saying we have no worth or nor skills.  It’s realizing that the worth and skills of others is just as important as our own.  That it takes all of us to make the community complete.  And that we have so much to gain from seeing one another with eyes of acceptance and gratitude.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18:1-10

Today’s story is called “the persistent widow.”  I’m thinking about the traditional interpretation of this story:  if you pray long enough and hard enough, God will give in and give you what you want.  There’s an unspoken corollary to that interpretation which says:  if you don’t get what you want, you didn’t pray long enough or hard enough.  I don’t know about you, but my “pray into existence” average isn’t so great.  There are a lot of times I ask for something that doesn’t happen – world peace, the end to addiction, everyone to be healed.  That may be true for you.

Many years ago an older woman was tired of being sick and tired and asked for me to pray for her to die. I did the best I could in a round about way.  The next day I went to see her and she was furious that I had prayed and she was still alive.  Overall, I think that’s probably a good thing.  None of us has a win/lose prayer record that’s perfect.

Overall, I don’t think this interpretation of the story is very helpful and I generally think that Jesus meant to BE helpful, so I wonder if there’s more to the story.  What else might it mean that gives us hope?

I mentioned that this is the story of the persistent widow – a woman who needed an unjust situation fixed and pestered the local judge until he relented and did the right thing.  In her honor today I’m wearing my “persistent” t-shirt.  It’s a reminder of when Elizabeth Warren got in trouble on the floor of the Senate for reading from Coretta Scott King and challenge to the status quo.  Eventually the powers made her stop, but she didn’t stop talking about it and she inspired a lot of folks who want more justice in our country.  I’m not wearing this as a political statement but because I’ve been inspired to be more persistent myself.

I think this story is telling us a couple of things about persistence.  First of all, this woman isn’t pestering God with prayers, she’s pestering the judge who’s supposed to be acting lawfully and isn’t bothered.  She’s dealing with a situation in her life by sticking with her request for justice to the people who have the power to do something about it.  Jesus says her persistence paid off.  I wonder if he’s telling us to keep pestering about things that need to be changed until they are rectified.  The story tells us that persistence is a virtue that can have real life results.

When has that been true for us?  When we’re ill, persistence can lead to healing.  We keep on taking the medicines and doing the PT and putting one foot in front of another and eventually we feel well again.  Not always, but often.

When we’re trying to learn a new skill, persistence leads us to keep practicing.  We through a football or turn a cartwheel or knit a row over and over again until it comes more easily.  Eventually we become good at something that matters to us.

When we want something to be changed, persistence wears down the opposition and inspires the supporters.  When we started cooking for LaGrave on First, we realized that two meals a week wasn’t going to do the trick.  So I asked everyone I could once, twice, over and over until we found enough partners to fill seven nights each week.  When the volunteers got tired, Taylor went to the last legislative session week after week testifying, and they funded a part-time cook to relieve the load.  Persistence paid off and the program is making a difference.

Persistence is why we write school board members and legislators about things that need fixing.  It’s why we complain about potholes and neighborhood weeds.  It’s why we repost on facebook messages that support positive change.  The noisy wheel gets the grease because it squeaks persistently.  We can be noisy wheels when we care enough to keep at it.  Jesus encourages us to do just that.

But being persistent can be discouraging.  There are lots of times when our good vision for the world doesn’t match what’s really happening.  This is election season and folks on all sides of many issues are determined to elect people who think and act like they do.  We’re all going to vote and results aren’t going to be even close to unanimous – because we don’t all see things the same way.  What we think is important differs.  That’s part of living in human community.

I think this story is also telling us that God/faith/hope can give us the strength to keep going when the going is hard.  Certainly Jesus and his disciples were trying to make hard changes in their day.  Clearly Jesus was sustained by prayer.  How?  I wish there was a clear and easy answer.  But he kept at it, so there must be something to it.

If we believe that God is a being, a force, or an energy that is benevolent – that wants what is good for life and the creatures who live it – then when we are working for good, we can believe that God is on our side.  That the lifeforce of the universe wants good things to happen and will lend support and encouragement to them.

We find that support when we work together to accomplish something important.  When we feel good about making a difference.  We find that support when we’re surprised by a word of encouragement.  When someone says “thank you” or “I noticed you cared.”  We find that support when deep within us we pull up a strength we weren’t sure would be there and keep going.  We find that support when a friend or even a stranger gives us a hug.  We find that support when we’re convinced that we’re working in partnership with God and God’s people – even if we don’t all define that in the same way.

Think about the times when persistence has paid off in your life.  When did you do something hard?  When did you accomplish a task that took time and effort?  When did you win a victory that was in doubt?

This story about persistence is telling us at least two things:
Persistence matters
Persistence is possible

When you persist, you never do so alone.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16: 1-13

This scripture lesson is difficult!  How do we make sense of Jesus seeming to tell us to cheat the folks we work for to ensure our own advantage?

This gives us a good chance to review what we know about the gospels and their historical accuracy.  Because these stories were written down decades after they happened and because they depend on the memory of people who weren’t there for the action but only heard those who were there tell about it later, it’s impossible for us to know exactly what Jesus said.  He made no you-tube or tik-tok videos as it happened.  We all remember important events accurately, but no two people remember them exactly the same way.

Scholars then are given the job of figuring out “what really happened” and that’s not actually possible to do.  There are some general rules for thinking about what’s probably original to Jesus and what’s been re-interpreted as the stories were told and retold over the years.  One of those rules is that the most accurate story is the most difficult.  People aren’t likely to make up or re-imagine stories that are hard to understand or exceptionally challenging to the way things work in the world.  This story qualifies on that account.  We aren’t sure what Jesus really meant by praising the employee who seems to have cheated his employer out of debts owed to him and for doing so in order to protect his own future.  The middle part of the reading explains what Jesus meant by talking about being faithful in small matters and large ones.  In the whole scheme of things the explanation is more likely added by folks remembering the teaching than original.  When you’re retelling a confusing tale, you try to make it easier for folks by telling them what you think it means.  The core of this teaching is the story about the employee and debts forgiven and then the final bit “you can’t serve God and wealth.”

If we’re going to understand this story centuries later, we have to remember what we know about wealth (and poverty) in the first century.  This was a time of rich and poor and not much in between.  There were property owners and peasants.  The peasants worked for the owners as farmers or fisher folk or even slaves and barely squeaked by.  The owners inherited their wealth in the form of land and land-based businesses or were given it as a political reward or the spoils of war.  There were a few folks who worked as managers and were able to improve their financial lot, but for the most part you ended life in the same place you started or maybe a little worse off.  There was nothing fair or just or compassionate about the economic system of the times.

It makes sense then that Jesus, who was advocating for everyone being valued and treated fairly, would critique the economic system of his day.  In fact, Jesus talks more about money that almost anything else.  Most of the point is that the rich exploit others for their own advantage rather than sharing equitably with those who were poor, hungry, widowed, disabled or otherwise able to provide for themselves.  

Most of us have been raised in an American mindset that says if you work hard, you’ll get ahead.  If you get a good education or take advantage of business opportunities, you can move up in the financial world.  The reverse of that is that if you’re poor it’s a sign of being lazy or unwilling to try harder.  In this part of the country where many of our families can point to homesteaders who came to claim land and worked incredibly hard to turn prairie into a productive farm, or we can talk about ancestors who started businesses or were the first to go to college and get a job as a teacher or manager, this American myth holds true.  We are the ones who have worked hard and been able to provide for our families.  

In recent years we’ve become more aware that this story doesn’t hold true for many of the people in our country and certainly not for those in developing countries.  It’s simply not true that every person has an equal chance to succeed.  Not everyone gets a good education simply by going to the neighborhood school.  Which neighborhood you live in makes a difference.  Not everyone has access to a good job even if they are willing to work very hard.  Yesterday I was listening to a review of the book Nickled and Dimed which decades ago chronicled how hard it was to make a living if you started out poor.  If the job you can get is cleaning houses or stocking shelves at Walmart or changing oil in cars, you can work even harder than many people and still not make enough to support yourself and your family.  During the pandemic we heard often that the people most exposed to Covid dangers were the ones who worked the hardest and made the least income.  It’s an important reminder that in our time as well as in Jesus’ time economic inequity is real.

Maybe people loved this story from Jesus because he advocated sticking it to the man in charge with the big bucks.  It’s not right that some few folks are rich and the others are vulnerable and hungry.  If you can do a little something to change that, go for it.  Certainly the first followers of Jesus formed communities where those who had wealth shared it and those without were cared for.  When we read The Didache we learned that the community planned ways to help people learn skills and find work so that they could support themselves and contribute to the community.  Our president keeps reminding us that work and dignity are closely related and that it's good for government to help people prepare for and find good jobs.  That’s a first century theme that still works today.

Mainline Christianity in our time is a middle class endeavor.  We think about faith and money from that mindset that’s ingrained within us.  It’s important for us to hear this story Jesus told from the mindset of poor folk, because that’s who first heard it.  It’s important for us to hear this call for equity of opportunity and of wealth, and Jesus implies that the God-message of worth for everyone is more important of the wealth message of get as much as you can.  In our time we’re being challenged to think about what our responsibility is to all people – to everyone who can get an education, learn skills, find work.  To everyone who deserves to eat and be housed and have access to health care regardless of their ability to work.  To everyone who contributes to the good of our whole society in many different ways – and sometimes just by living among us.

People of faith have something to say about economics and human dignity.  It’s not a simple message today just like this story wasn’t a simple message two thousand years ago.  But it’s up to us to have the conversation about wealth and to seriously advocate for equity.  There’s a lot that needs to be improved and we need to be part of that improvement.  We begin by believing that God cares about everyone, and we care more about God than about our personal comfort or amassing assets.  It’s a beginning place.  Let’s see where we go from here.

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15:1-10

Today’s stories in Luke are sometimes called the “lost” stories.  We read about the lost sheep and the lost coin.  If we’d keep going, we’d read about the lost son next.  They give us a chance to think together about the experience of being lost or of losing something important to us.

In a religious context what first comes to mind when we say someone is “lost”?  The hymn sings “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.”  In that context “lost” means going the wrong direction, often as in not knowing God’s love or believing in Jesus.  In bygone years the purpose of the church was to “seek and save” the lost – or to convert people to Christianity.  When I think about “lost” in that way I feel hopeless.  Being lost implies we won’t find our way to heaven or know the blessings of life with God.  It’s often paired with being a sinner or doing all the wrong things for the wrong reasons.  It’s a bad thing to be lost.

Sometimes in my life “lost” has been a good thing.  When we lived in Seattle we used to play a game called “let’s get lost.” We’d drive off our usual route and see what new things we could discover.  Some days my kids worried I’d never find our way home, but in a town with one north/south freeway, a big lake and a sound you can’t get permanently lost.  Before we found our way home, we discovered lots of adventures.  That kind of lost opens us up to new opportunities.  It pushes us beyond our comfort zone to learn new things. 

The other day I was lost in a book.  I sat down to read a few pages and came to hours later in love with a new cast of characters and a world I’d never imagined.  Like wandering back roads, getting lost in literature or music or the wonders of nature helps us find the true center of our lives.  It too pushes us to learn and grow.

A less magical kind of lost comes when life throws us curve balls and we temporarily lose our sense of purpose.  We’re feeling “lost” when familiar work or relationships no longer seem to fit.  We have a sense that we should do something new, but it’s not clear what that is.  That kind of lost is one of the most uncomfortable.  If we stick with the feeling and explore where it’s coming from, we can often “find” a new way forward.  We change careers, make new friends, start a new hobby, learn to play an instrument or paint a picture.  Again, being lost can be productive when it challenges us to become more than we’ve been before.

If we think about “lost” in these ways, what does it mean to “find” God?  That too can be a way of growing into our own.  Not because what went before was wrong but because there’s a possibility of much more.  If we think of God as the highest good in life, then finding ourselves more closely aligned with that good opens our hearts to more love.  We gain a sense of purpose and find peace in the ways we belong to God’s community.

If these stories are about being lost, they are also about being the loser.  What is the experience of losing something or someone?  The stories tell us that what is lost has value and so the one who has lost it works hard to find it again.  The shepherd counts the sheep at night and hurries to find the one who’s missing.  The woman counts her coins and turns the house upside down looking for the one she’s short.  Why?  Because they don’t want to be without.  What’s gone begs to be found. 

You and I don’t go looking for things we don’t care about.  When I drop a tissue out on a walk, I just take another.  I don’t retrace my steps looking for the first one.  In my house I sometimes find things I didn’t even know were missing.  I think:  Where did this come from?  How long has it been there?  These aren’t things of great value.  In fact, life goes on just fine without them.  But what about those things we do care about?  The remote to the air conditioner carefully stored away for winter demands a thorough search when the weather turns warm.  I’m looking for my favorite pair of earrings I’ve misplaced recently.  The other day I decided to wash the waste basket and when I dumped out the water, here came a bracelet I’d given up ever finding.  

Losing things can be a nuisance, but other losses are more devastating.  We lose our loved ones to illness or age – or sometimes to careless words or lives that take different paths.  Those losses take our breath away and we wonder if we’ll survive them.  In the course of a life we lose a job or two and wonder if we’ll find another. We sometimes lose our sight, or our mental acuity, or our flexibility.  Most of those things don’t come back.  The sensation of losing can be devastating.

The message I love most about these stories isn’t that we’re lost and in trouble.  I’m not sure that’s true.  I love the fact that God is devastated when God’s thinking the connection with us is gone.  When we’re missing, God throws over everything to find us and to reconnect.  Do you remember the panic you feel when a young child wanders off in a store?  Imagine God caring that much about being with you.  

These stories aren’t about what’s wrong with you, they’re about what’s right:  you are beloved by God.  You are of infinite value.  God would spend your whole lifetime looking for you.  There is nothing God won’t do to find you and to let you know how amazing and important you are.

And here’s one last way to think about these stories of lost and found:  in the infinite realm of God’s love you can’t be lost.  Like a child who thinks Dad is missing when Dad is watching all the time.  Like the mom who follows from a distance so the child can think she walked to school all by herself.  If we feel separated from God, it’s not God who is absent.  The moment we turn and acknowledge God’s presence, God is there for us.  

When I’m feeling snarky and someone asks me if I’ve been “saved” I say no – because I was never lost.  It’s not possible to live outside of God’s presence.  It’s possible to ignore God’s love, but it’s not possible to not BE loved.  God is the air we breathe, the movement of our cells, the pull of the tide and the ground of our being.  God is always in us, around us, between us.

And what is the response when we realize this truth?  Joy!  Our joy; God’s joy; the world’s joy.  The end of the story is rejoicing and celebration. 

Because God is with us and we are always, forever, tightly held in the love of God.

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Philemon & Luke 14:25-33

We don’t often read Paul’s letter to Philemon, which is buried near the end of our Bibles.  It’s written on behalf of the slave Onesimus who has been working with Paul and helping him while he’s imprisoned in Rome.  We don’t know how Onesimus came to be with Paul, but it seems like he’s escaped from Philemon’s household, where he came to know Paul through the Christian community which met there.  Perhaps when he could no longer tolerate his enslavement he ran away and sought out Paul as a person who might help him.  If that’s the case, after spending time with Paul, the two men seem to have determined that it would be right for Onesimus to return and Paul sends him with a letter of commendation.

It takes a lot of trust for Onesimus to go back to Philemon, who had the right to take his life because of his actions.  Maybe he and Paul are counting on Philemon’s faith in Jesus to soften the punishment he inflicts.  In Christ they are not just owner and slave but brothers in faith.  Paul certainly plays all the right chords in his attempt to make this situation positive.  If Paul has brought the message of Jesus to Philemon’s household, then surely the folks there owe Paul their lives.  In comparison to all of life, a little leniency to a slave is a small request to ask.  And after all, Onesimus has been caring for Paul (on Philemon’s behalf!).  (One thing this letter tells us is that Paul isn’t shy about calling in all the favors he can.)  We don’t know “the rest of the story” but perhaps the fact that this letter has survived to become scripture is a sign that it was successful in reuniting these two men into a new relationship.

There’s nothing in Paul’s persuasive letter that suggests that Philemon should be lenient with Onesimus because slavery is wrong.  Even though they are now brothers in faith, they are still owner and slave.  Paul isn’t asking for that to change.  He sends Onesimus back to serve Philemon.  In the first century imagining an end to slavery was beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.  Some changes are so huge that even the Jesus followers who were rethinking the world couldn’t get there.  But to experience slavery in a kinder way was possible so that’s what they did.  There’s good evidence that both enslaved people and owners of people met together as equals within Christian communities.

Over the centuries the fact that neither Jesus nor Paul called for an end to slavery has been used to justify the owning of human beings.  In our own country, in South Africa and elsewhere people pointed to the practice of slavery in scripture as condoning the practice for themselves.  We believe this to be a great distortion of Jesus’ view of life.  It’s a good example of the fact that the meaning of scripture changes over time.  When we read the Bible we aren’t just looking for timeless truths and trying to duplicate life thousands of years ago.  We’re applying principles from one age to our own.  That means our understanding of God and Jesus and a holy life is different from just copying ancient practices.  The Reformed part of our heritage tells us that we are “reformed, always being reformed.”  In other words, we change and our faith changes with us.  I think it’s Maya Angelou who said,

“Do the best you can.  When you know better, do better.” 

Over the years and certainly over our lifetimes we learn and grow in faith and our practice grows with us.

Each one of us hopes to be a better person because of our faith.  We follow Jesus not just to earn a reward for ourselves, but to live a more just and moral life and to be more helpful to others.  Our church’s emphasis on justice and mercy, on compassion and acts of kindness, is how we live out our hope for a better world – a world God envisions as possible.  That means we’re constantly trying to know and do better for our community.

I wonder if that’s what Jesus had in mind when he talks about hating family and even our own lives in order to follow Jesus.  In the first century to become a disciple or to take Jesus’ teaching to heart would certainly have been divisive.  In many cases it would have endangered people who challenged the status quo like Jesus did.  It cost Jesus his life.  It’s not that Jesus encouraged people to cause trouble in their families or communities.  That wasn’t the point.  The trouble was the result of living life in a new way – a way that challenged rules for the benefit of people.  The result of that is a challenge to power and a challenge to power is dangerous.  You are risking your life because of your commitment to God’s way.

The stories about counting the cost are interesting.  They accurately describe how folks plan for big projects.  You don’t start out to remodel your house unless you can finance the work.  Is Jesus telling us not to bother with following him unless we’re willing to die for the cause?  Does he mean that we literally might die?  Many of his followers did, although that’s not a 21st century experience for most folks.  Or is he talking about “dying” to an old way of life to adopt a new one?  Paul asked Philemon to “die” to the old way of being an owner of people to live in a new relationship with Onesimus. 

Too often we think of Christianity as a “finished product” given to us by Jesus and then to be followed in exactly the same way forever.  Today’s stories are reminding us that to be a follower of Jesus is always a work in progress.  In our time Paul would have told Philemon to free Onesimus.  Jesus tells us that following his way of life may lead to conflict, but not because we’re “right” and we have to leave behind all those folks who don’t agree with us.  The conflict comes when we grow into a newer understanding of how to live out Jesus’ values and some folks just can’t come along with us yet.  It takes courage to notice when the way we’ve always thought about things is hurting others and to make changes to correct that.  We count that cost and we take the risk. 

In our moment in time we’re learning that the privilege we’ve never even noticed we have has harmed others and we’re trying to become more understanding. We’re trying to leave behind racism and injustice – even as we’re learning that that even means.  Our lives are changing as a result.  This week we’re apologizing to our native friends for the remains found at UND.  We didn’t take them or store them, but we’re still sorry for the hurt their existence is causing others.  We’re learning about that hurt and we’re changing.  President Biden is asking us to consider that we can’t uphold a democracy when we focus on who should be excluded – making voting harder, immigration more difficult, poverty a judgment and not a problem to be solved.  How do we count the cost of building a just and equitable community in our nation?  What do we have to give up – and what will we gain?

Science tells us that life that isn’t evolving is dying.  Faith that isn’t evolving is dying.  We aren’t the same people we were when we first believed in the message of Jesus.  Hopefully, we understand better now.  And when we understand more, we do better too.  Life is about change and so is faith.  I think that’s not a sacrifice but a joy.  It’s not something we lose it’s what we all gain.  We are invited to create the kingdom of God and we do that by learning more and doing better  -  together.

Twelth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 14:1,7-14

How many of us have been to a big party, like a wedding, and hesitated at the entrance to the banquet hall because we don’t know where to sit?  If there aren’t place cards or assigned tables, we have to choose a chair.  Those of us who are introverts hate going up to a stranger and asking,  “Is this seat taken?”  What if they say “yes”?  There’s that awkward moment of rejection.

In the first century those who could afford to have parties for their friends knew that there was a strict ranking.  The most important guests sat nearest the host.  Presumably they got the most and best food as the dishes were passed, like today if we get to be first in line at a potluck.  Those farthest from the host were served last.  We’ve heard that in the Middle Ages this was called “sitting above (or below) the salt” with the salt cellar placed in the middle of the table.  On feast days the peasants and servants might be invited to the meal, but they sat “below the salt” and their food was inferior to those sitting higher.

I suspect Jesus isn’t terribly interested in the seating etiquette of his time but is using this story as an example of how we understand generosity and benevolence in our lives.  Often he tells his followers that they are to put themselves last and others first.  Practicing humility reminds us that life isn’t really about just us but about community.  It matters whether we prioritize our own self interest and importance or if we see others as equals and prioritize the benefit of all.  In this moment we’ve seen this difference show up in the debate about forgiving student loans.  I read an amazing satire about how if I had to struggle and sacrifice all future people should struggle and sacrifice.  It’s not “fair” to pay off the loans of some if others have already repaid their debt. Personally, when I graduated from college I owed a whopping $2700.  My grandmother helped me pay it off at $100/month.  Today students are going to spend more than that on spring break and taking the family out to dinner costs more than $100.  It’s not going to hurt me much if someone else’s debt is cancelled.  I’m no expert on the economics of this forgiveness program and it may or may not be a good idea.  But the fact that some people don’t qualify and others have paid off their debt and won’t benefit from the new program shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

We see this mindset in many places.  Why build a new school for today’s children when the old one was good enough for me 50 years ago?  Why subsidize new low income housing when my house is already paid for?  Why provide assistance to people who are hungry when I can pay for my own groceries?  If I don’t need it, no one should get it.  If people don’t work as hard or have as many advantages as I do, then that’s their problem, not mine.  I’m going to take the seat of honor because I deserve it.  I suspect if Jesus had advocated for this attitude, he would have had a very different set of disciples.  Every time his disciples wanted to send someone away or exclude a person they didn’t see as qualified, they were chastised.  Women, children, beggars, leppers, tax collectors, prostitutes and all sorts of unsavory folks got to sit at Jesus’ table.  Jesus lived on a level playing field and each person mattered just as much as any other.  If we’re going to be his contemporary followers, we have to check our mindset for humility often.

The second part of this reading is about reciprocity and gratitude.  We may all have been in a situation where we invite people to dinner and never get an invitation back.  I’ve gone so far as to say, “I’m not inviting them again until they invite me.”  We don’t always know why relationships like this become uneven.  Maybe the others are embarrassed because they don’t cook well, or their house is in disarray, or their schedule is crazy and they can’t manage the extra stress of inviting guests.  Jesus is telling us that we don’t do kind things in order to get something back from others.  We do them because they are the right thing to do and we are the right person to do them.  Sometimes people tell me they aren’t going to cook for LaGrave any more because they never get a thank you note.  I understand that it’s nice to be acknowledged.  I’m not going to quit cooking because it’s way too much fun.  There’s a “thing” out there called reciprocal altruism, which means doing the right thing because it will benefit you.  That’s okay, but how much better to do the right thing because it will benefit someone else.  Or simply because it’s the right thing to do.

There are lots of good deeds that are the right thing to do.  We hear about them every Sunday in the Light Signs.  Cooking for LaGrave.  Growing a garden to donate the produce.  Sending puzzles and movies to the Juvenile Detention Center.  Filling food boxes.  You make your own list.  A man down the block from me mows my neighbor’s front yard every week.  Any given week I’ll bet a couple of hundred folks in town take a friend to the grocery store.  There’s lots of tomatoes and zucchini being shared right now.  My daughter’s neighbor blows her snow when her husband’s deployed.  It’s campaign season and every night we get an update about who’s raising the most money.  Some of that money may be yours.  For the most part none of these things get done because we expect something in return.  The reward is in the good feeling of knowing we’ve brightened someone’s day and made the world a better place.  Those who are keeping score need an attitude adjustment.

How do you know if you’re the right person to do any particular act of kindness?  Check and see if it makes you happy.  Of all the things we do, none of them appeals to all of us.  Each activity draws the group that wants to do it.  I hope you hear often that you can choose to participate in those things that interest you.  If it brings you joy – it’s yours.  If it doesn’t – skip it.  Of the billion or so jobs that need doing we’re going to have to pick a few.  Nothing on our list is essential.  If no one is interested, we can leave it for someone else.  But leave it because it doesn’t fit your skill set, not because you don’t get enough recognition for doing it.  

Jesus invited us to help him build a better world.  He called that world “the kingdom of God.”  By that he meant a community in which everyone counted and all people had what they needed to live.  It’s a way of life in which we all look out for each other.  We do what we can.  When we can’t do for ourselves, someone helps.  We take turns.  We share.  Years ago we read that all those good qualities were a little like what you learn in kindergarten.  Hold hands.  Pay attention. Go together.  Maybe we’re all going to grow up together when we return to those basic, early learnings and remember how to form groups of compassion.

In the meantime doing any small part for the benefit of the whole is an end in itself.  We do it because it matters.  The reward is in the good feeling that comes from being truly helpful.  There may not be immediate payback.  In the long run we are all better for it because we actually are building the kingdom of God among us.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 13:10-17

This story tells us that Jesus had enough standing as a teacher to be invited to teach in a synagogue.  More than once we hear that he was reading scripture and talking about what it meant.  It also tells us that his teaching irritated the official teachers – the rabbis.  It was too radical for their comfort zone.

What is it that was so radical about Jesus’ teaching?  Mostly that people were more important than rules.  In this story a woman bent in pain comes to him.  This is already a rules infraction because women didn’t attend service in the synagogues.  Instead of reminding her to wait outside Jesus healed her.  The leaders point out that he has done work on the sabbath, another violation.  Jesus insists that helping God’s creatures is more important than following the rules.  Even though the commandment to rest on the sabbath comes out of the people’s understanding of God, the strict enforcement of this and many other rules based on the law was making it hard for people to live.  Those at the bottom of the economic ladder simply couldn’t keep all the commandments and so thought they were estranged from God.  The rules were a barrier to experiencing God’s love and participating in God’s community.  Jesus says when there’s a conflict between human need and rules, the rules are secondary.

I wonder where that happens in our world.  This week I talked with a woman in need of housing assistance so she’s not evicted.  We’re going to help her pay back rent and her landlord is going to roll her deposit toward a less expensive apartment.  I asked if she had contacted agencies in our communities who help with housing.  She had been turned down because her young adult daughter lives with her.  This daughter has medical issues which make it difficult for her to work right now.  Because the woman is caring for her daughter, she couldn’t get help with her financial situation.  She had made good decisions about how to live within her income, but she couldn’t implement those decisions because she was keeping her family obligations.  The rules prevented her moving forward.

Decades ago in our country we declared war on drugs.  We needed to do something to address addiction and drug use that was damaging our people.  Unfortunately what we did was impose strict punishment which has been unevenly enforced.  Minority folks have spent disproportionate time in jail, destroying the futures of so many and breaking communities.  We spend much more money on incarceration than on treatments that have been proven to work.  We tried to fix a problem with rules rather than with compassion.  As a result the problem is bigger and many folks have been harmed.

We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws and many of those laws serve us very well.  We are all safer because of speed limits and vaccinations and social security.  The laws that serve us best are those which help people live better lives.  The laws which don’t serve us well impose the beliefs of some people on all people or try to punish folks into healthy living.  By his actions Jesus gives us a way to evaluate our rules by the way they relieve suffering and encourages us to make adjustments when the rule has become more important than the people we are called to help.

I’m also intrigued by this woman’s illness which caused her to bend in pain for 18 years but could be cured in an instant. Our Tuesday study group is reading a book by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams about hope.  A story in this week’s reading seems very similar to this scripture and I want to share it with you:

[Douglas] told Jane about Ashlee Cunsolo, who works with Inuit communities in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada, who have been impacted by climate change.  She was interviewing the communities about all they were losing – the ice that was breaking up; the temperatures that were rising; the plants and animals that were changing; and in many ways, an entire way of life that was disappearing.

“Cunsolo was hearing all these stories of despair and trying to write them up in her dissertation when she began experiencing radiating nerve pain in her arms and hands.  The pain was so severe that she couldn’t type or work.

“She went to all the medical specialists, but they could not find anything wrong with her nerves.  Finally, she went to one of the Inuit elders and he told her, ‘You’re not letting go of our grief.  Your body is stopping you from typing because you’re intellectualizing it, not feeling it.  Until you get it out of your body, your body won’t function.’  He told her she had to make space for her grief and speak it.  And she also had to find awe and joy every day.”

“What did she do?”  Jane asked.

“She went into the forests.  She immersed her hands in an ice-cold river and asked the water to take away the pain.  She apologized to the land for the harm that she and others were doing.  It was a reckoning.

“Cunsolo told me that she had been able to find awe and joy in the forest, “I continued.  “She said there’s always beauty, even when there’s pain and suffering.  She learned not to hide from the darkness, just not to get lost in it.”

“Did it help?” Jane asked.

“After two weeks of crying and letting the grief flow out of her body, the nerve pain was gone.”

(The Book of Hope,  Jane Goodall & Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson, p. 75)

This is a remarkable story.  It reminds me of times when stress has lodged itself in my body and brought pain.  That may be true for you as well.  It also brings to mind the folks who are telling us that the pain of our history is lodged in our DNA.  That as a people we can’t just ignore past trauma and move on like nothing has happened.  Until we acknowledge that there is pain in our past, we can’t build a good future.

We aren’t directly responsible for terrible things that have happened in history:  for genocide and brutality that took the land we live on away from the first peoples; for slavery that still shows in racism and inequality in today’s society; for abuse and exploitation of women and children under the guise of male privilege or of people of color because of white privilege or of LGBTQIA folks because of heteronormative culture.  These atrocities are things that we personally would not do and certainly not something we condone.  But we stand at a moment when there’s a movement to deny that they happened rather than to face them.  We do have a voice to ensure that doesn’t happen.  When folks want to make rules that rewrite history or ban books or censor teachers we can stand up for justice.  It may make us uncomfortable, just like Jesus made the leaders of his day uncomfortable.  But healing comes from acknowledging grief and facing trauma so that we can choose to live a different way.  Healing comes when ALL people are more important than our comfort or the status quo.  Healing comes when we follow Jesus’ example and extend a hand.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 12:49-56

Scripture tells us that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.  This scripture doesn’t sound very peaceful.  Jesus is telling us that he’s come to shake things up and can’t wait until it gets really hot.  He anticipates that everyone is going to be arguing , maybe because of him or his message.  He tells us it’s easy to read the “signs of the times” – even easier than the weather – but then he doesn’t tell us what they say.

For centuries people have been referring to Jesus bringing life on earth to its amazing climax.  There have been classic poems and graphic novels and film series about how it’s all going to come to an end in a glorious revelation of God’s holy reign.  Everything as we know it will change.  Those who aren’t in Jesus’ camp will be sorry.  Those who are in Jesus’ camp will be glorified.  What does it all mean?  And if it’s going to be so great, why hasn’t it happened yet?

Jesus says it’s “from now on” but that was a very long time ago.

There’s plenty of evidence that the world is divided in the twenty-first century like it was in the first century.  Religion, class and political loyalty divided people then and still do.  Our country has been all riled up most of this week without much consensus about whether the news was good or bad.  In our own families we can’t often agree about how things are going.  If there were clear and easy answers in scripture about how things were supposed to go down, I’m thinking folks would have found them by now.  If God were going to make the world better in one fell swoop, I’m thinking there’s no reason for all this delay.

There’s also not much consensus about what a godly world looks like.  About the only thing most of us agree on is that whatever our vision of the reign of God looks like it matches God’s vision.  Which implies that competing visions are wrong.  Lining up on various sides of this debate isn’t doing much to improve the world.

So what is Jesus saying is happening in his lifetime and ours?  Certainly his ministry caused discord.  Some religious leaders loved what he was saying and others were furious.  Peasants were attracted to his ideas and threatened the wealth of landowners and power folks.  Eventually Rome thought he was dangerous enough to execute him and the Pharisee Saul saw enough danger to persecute his followers – until he became a follower himself.

Maybe there are clues in what Jesus said and did to help us know what he was trying to accomplish and why he thought it was okay to stir up trouble in the process.  

Wherever Jesus went he shared food with those who were hungry.

Jesus healed people who were ill.

Folks who were ostracized because of illness, disability, mental struggles, or profession were welcomed back into the community.

Men who thought they were holy were challenged and those who thought they were worthless were lifted up.

Women and children were treated with the same value as men.

People were allowed to make mistakes, learn from them, and start again.

Judging others was discouraged.

Jesus was describing a way of life in which everyone mattered and people looked out for one another.  Those are the kinds of communities his followers continued after his death.  They attracted more people who became followers because it was a good way of life.

I don’t know about you, but at least some days I feel like I’ve got this Jesus way of life down.  I’m a very nice person.  I do good things for others, even some folks I don’t know.  I’m humble beyond belief.  (insert laugh line here)

One thing I know about the stories Jesus told in his teachings is that the people listening were rarely the heroes of the stories – the ones getting everything right.  Over time we’ve decided that Jesus teachings describe Christians of all stripes and so reinforce our own ideas about how to behave.  That’s one sign that we’ve got it wrong.  Being a follower of Jesus is a journey – a goal to work for – and rarely a destination.  There’s always room for improvement.  There’s always more to know.

When we contribute to the dissention of the world by thinking we’ve got it all right and those who disagree with us are wrong, then we aren’t doing such a good job of following Jesus either.  There’s hard work to be done trying to understand those who are different from us and seeking consensus about the best way to move forward.  Sometimes that means we compromise.  Sometimes it means we stand for our principles and reject compromise, especially if someone is going to be hurt if we give in.

I’m intrigued by Jesus’ idea that the signs of God’s way are all around us to be seen and welcomed now – his now and our now, too.  If that’s the case, then life ought to be getting better for everyone.  Sometimes it is.  Most of the time there’s a long way to go.  Jesus seems to think it’s okay to stir thing up if it leads to positive change on behalf of everyone.  His follower John Lewis called that good trouble.  Maybe part of following Jesus is keeping an eye out for what good trouble we should be in next.  What action can we take to make the world better?  What policy can we advance that makes life easier for others?  

I suspect agreeing on what we ought to do isn’t the most important point.  Arguing about ideas can be interesting but it doesn’t always accomplish much.  Instead, we can just politely and determinedly do what we think contributes to good.  There are some folks in town that think people at LaGrave don’t deserve good meals.  That doesn’t keep us from feeding them.  There are some who think churches should be exclusive and call out those they call “sinners.”  That doesn’t keep us from welcoming everyone.  If we get in trouble, so be it.  But the trouble isn’t the point.  It’s doing whatever is the most loving thing in each moment that matters.  If that causes division, then division it is.  If not, then that’s even better.

Sometimes we’re going to get it right.  Sometimes we’re going to make mistakes and need to learn how to do better.  Listen and learn are important words for this journey.  Probably more important than “God says.”  Surely more important than “it’s always been this way.”

It’s not clear when Jesus is coming again in the way some folks think he’s coming.  It’s not clear when he’s going to change the world into the reign of God.  It is clear that Jesus is here now in and through those of us trying to live out his vision.  It’s a messy business.  And it matters.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 11: 1-13

Last week we read the Lord’s Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew where the emphasis was on the petition for forgiveness.  Today we read from the Gospel of Luke and see that this author stresses that prayer works.  Ask and you will receive.

Jesus grounded his entire life and ministry in prayer.  He often went away from the work and other people to pray.  He got up early and stayed up late to talk with God.  Prayer was part of his entire being.  So it’s no surprise that the disciples asked him to teach them to pray.  They saw how prayer gave him confidence and courage and energy for his ministry and they wanted what he had.   They wanted to be the kind of person that prayer helped Jesus to be.

In response Jesus teaches them a simple prayer focused on everyday life issues.  He doesn’t give them an elaborate ritual or fancy words.  They are taught to ask for what they really needed.  Here’s one way we could think about those needs:

God, we believe you are real and have power and influence in this world.
Make your good vision for life our reality.
Give us enough food.
Forgive us and help us to be forgiving of others.
Don’t let the hardships of life threaten us.

This is a practical prayer for people living under military occupation in a world where many folks were poor and hungry.  It’s also a prayer that the ministry they were engaged in – helping people live in a more loving and forgiving community – would be successful.

Two thousand years after Jesus taught his disciples this simple prayer, those who call themselves disciples are still repeating it.  We use it every Sunday.  It’s familiar and loved.  I wonder, though, if sometimes we say it just because we say it without believing in its power.  It’s a helpful exercise for us to think about what this prayer means in contemporary times.  Here’s one take on that:

God, you are the power of the universe that unites all life.
May we see goodness and holiness in our world.
May the way we live reflect the values we hold because of our faith.
Help us be sure everyone has food and the necessities of life.
May we forgive others and ourselves and heal divisions.
When we face hard choices, help us to choose wisely and for the common good.

You might want to think about what the words of this prayer mean to you.  What are we really asking God to do and what result do we want to see in our lives when we pray it?

One of the benefits of the Protestant Reformation which birthed our two denominations is giving prayer into the hands of ordinary people.  Prayers aren’t rituals or fancy words that only trained and ordained people can speak.  They aren’t confined to holy buildings or religious occasions.  Prayer, like Jesus taught, is a conversation with God, who listens to us all.  Sometimes those official prayers are helpful and we find comfort in them.  But the thoughts that come into your mind when you can’t sleep are also prayers.  They also connect you to the loving heart of the universe that we call God.  Even the spontaneous words we speak when things go wrong can be prayers.  “This is the pits!” is a prayer.  Or when things are beautiful and we say, “What an amazing sunset!” that also can be a prayer.  Jesus prayed because he lived in constant connection with God.  It can be our goal to live immersed in that kind of connection, and everyone can do it.  God is always with us and whenever we remember that presence, we are living in prayer.

Luke stresses that prayer works.  Jesus believed that what he asked for would happen.  He taught his disciples to expect results when they prayed.  What does that mean?  I’ve spent my life preaching that prayer is effective and we should all do it.  But we all know that sometimes what we pray for doesn’t happen, even if we’re persistent.  People we love die of illnesses that aren’t cured or age that doesn’t go away.  Russia invaded Ukraine and is killing thousands of people.  Our country and the world is still full of racial injustice and political divisions.  Children in our country and around the world go to bed hungry at night and get up to work instead of going to school.  If prayer works, why over two thousand years haven’t we prayed a better world into existence?  If there were a simple answer to that question, we’d be living in a different reality.

Jesus was convinced that prayer was worth the effort, that it helped him.  The reality is that it didn’t keep him from being executed and it didn’t make his movement an overnight success.  It did give him courage and hope.  In the long run, it made a difference not only to the way he lived and the way he faced death, but to all of us – to the world.

Many folks have written that prayer isn’t about changing the world; it’s about changing us.  That when we pray we approach life differently and that shift in our own attitudes can make a difference in the way we live and in what happens around us.  Praying for a person we love can help us see good in their lives, even if it’s not exactly what we asked for.  Praying for a person we don’t get along with can bring us patience and understanding which changes our relationship.  Praying for a better world can give us the energy to get up and make changes.  If enough people pray, we can find consensus for a new way forward.  

Most of all prayer keeps God’s vision for the world front and center in our thinking.  Prayer can keep us from being resigned to injustice or hardship.  Not all the brokenness of the world is inevitable.  It can be changed and God can work through us to accomplish that change.  Holding a friend in prayer during a hard time keeps them in our hearts and helps us reach out with some help – a cup of coffee, a few minutes to listen, a card that says we care.  We often say that our goal is to live like Jesus.  Jesus prayed – alone and with others, at intentional prayer times and in the midst of doing other things.  For Jesus prayer was his way of staying connected to God and to the vision of life that worked better for everyone.  This prayer and all words of prayer can help us keep that connection for ourselves.  It’s a way of holding the vision in hope and finding the courage to act on it in all the ordinary moments of our days.  Eventually, it becomes who we are – people of faith and action.  And in that way prayer changes us and through us it changes the world.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 6:5-18

Today we’re finishing up our walk through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that’s been a summer project. Next week we switch to the Gospel of Luke and we’ll read familiar stories there into the fall. Today’s reading contains Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer and next week we’ll see Luke’s version of the same prayer so we can compare.

There are a couple of themes in Matthew’s setting of this prayer. One is public piety. In this telling Jesus encourages people to pray but to do so quietly, avoiding public displays in the temple or synagogue and rather just talking with God. The point of prayer isn’t to get recognition from other people but to have a conversation with the power of the universe. The same is true about fasting, which was a common practice in the first century. Think of fasting as being publicly religious or drawing attention to how hard you are working at being spiritual. Folks in Jesus’ day put on clothing made of rough fabric and took ashes from the cooking fires to rub on their faces so everyone could know they were doing something holy. In contrast Jesus suggests they clean up – wash their faces and anoint their hair with oil, which is our equivalent of dressing up for something special. Look like you’re having a celebration rather than making a sacrifice. Jesus is telling us that faith shouldn’t be hard to do – it can be a daily joy.

I’m thinking of this in contrast to the voices in our day calling for the United States to be a Christian country and to restrict the rights of other religions, particular Jews and Moslems. We may not hear much about this, but it’s loud and proud in some circles and growing as a movement. I wonder if stating that Christian is best is a contemporary way of praying publicly and fasting with big show. The Supreme Court just said that coaches could pray prominently after public school games, even though public prayer has been discouraged in non-religious settings for most of our lifetimes. Prayer in schools has never been forbidden, but prayers which highlight one faith over another have been restricted because of the separation of church and state. Standing on the 50 yard line after a game seems to me to be a lot like making a big show in the temple. It’s more about drawing attention to a person than about talking with God. It's something to think about. Our denominations have always been great encouragers of prayer for all of us at the same time we respect the rules which prohibit exclusively Christian prayers in settings open to people of all faiths. We lend our voices to those who protest religious discrimination of any kind and build bridges instead of walls to people who worship differently from ourselves.

The second theme in this scripture is about forgiveness. Jesus asks us to pray for forgiveness of debts (or trespasses or sins) in accordance to the way that we are forgiving. Praying for forgiveness has grown to be a significant part of the Christian tradition. Many worship services include a prayer of confession and confession is a sacrament in the Catholic tradition. For some this forgiveness has become the main point of believing in Jesus – forgiveness of sins is a ticket to heaven for eternity. About the time that our denominations were forming in the Protestant Reformation, the debaters of theology gave it a prominence that continues for us today. They defined sin as doing, saying or thinking something which violated God’s rules and made us deserve punishment. Punishment evolved into “going to hell” and forgiveness became a “get out of jail free” card which promised heaven instead. Some folks went so far as to wait to be baptized until they were dying so that they wouldn’t commit any sins after baptism and risk not being ready for heavenly reward.

Because Jesus is the one who forgives sins and his death has become God’s punishment which he takes instead of us, Christianity stands in a unique place among the major world religions in looking at our responsibility for our actions. Forgiveness is related to what we think about Jesus and not about what we do. When we can’t earn forgiveness, we are somewhat removed from responsibility. No other religion does that to the same extent as ours.

It helps me in thinking about this to remember that Jesus wasn’t a Christian, he was a Jew. His ministry was a Jewish reform movement and it only became Christianity decades after his death. With that in mind I want to share a Facebook quote about forgiveness. (You can tell this thought is touching a chord with people because it’s being widely shared.) It’s a quote from Rabbi Harold Kushner who writes about Judaism to help all people understand better:

In Jewish thought, a sin is not an offense against God, an act of disobedience. A sin is a missed opportunity to act humanly.

In other words “sin” isn’t a violation of divine rules. We see that in the Jewish celebration of the Day of Atonement. First forgiveness is asked of those we may have harmed in the past year. It acknowledges that people argue, hurt one another, are forgetful and tries to make amends. When we patch up relationships with people who matter to us, we not only say we’re sorry for being wrong, we agree to change in the future. We act differently going forward. When Jesus is teaching about forgiveness, he reminds us that it’s a mutual event. We forgive others and are forgiven. Only when it’s not possible to seek reconciliation with others is forgiveness asked of God. God is the last resort for being absolved of sins, after we’ve done our part. I love that the symbol of this day is turning your pockets out and letting any lint fall into running water, which takes it away. It’s a sign of being made new and getting a fresh start.

Kushner tells us that sin is “a missed opportunity to act humanly.” That implies that an opportunity missed can be revisited and become an opportunity taken. We may not always be kind or generous, but when we realize we’ve made a mistake, we can correct it. I like it when doing the best we can counts for something and learning to do better makes a difference. Our current world is broken in many ways – from personal interactions to war and climate disaster. So much needs to be changed as we relate to each other, learn more about correcting past wrongs and build a world of peace, justice and opportunity for everyone. The idea that God believes we can do something about this brokenness gives me hope. It’s a reason to get up in the morning and try again.

This past week I met some new friends who recognized my name as being connected with justice issues in our community. Together we all have made a name for ourselves in caring about how our towns work and being leaders in caring about others. These folks must have thanked me three separate times for what we do. I was surprised and realized that even the small things we do are making a difference. Do we need a forgiveness that’s bigger than those efforts? Of course. But we also need to know that what we can do counts for something. For that we can be grateful.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:38-48

This summer we’re reading scripture from The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew (and its counterpart The Sermon on the Plain in Luke). So many familiar sayings come from today’s scripture – turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, love your enemies.  Sometimes these scriptures give Christians a reputation for being weak in the face of evil.  I want to suggest they are actually a formula for greater strength.

Let’s start with the instructions of Jesus in their first century context.  Jesus lived in a country occupied by Rome and full of Roman soldiers.  These soldiers could beat people who weren’t obeying, demand they hand over goods or even clothing, or conscript them to carry heavy loads. While the actions described in this scripture are unusual to us, they were common to the original hearers.  But even Rome put restrictions on what soldiers could demand and exceeding those limits brought punishments.  So if a soldier requires your shirt and you give him also your cloak, he’s in trouble.  If he asks you to carry his pack a mile and you go two, he’s violated the rules.  Often when people of higher authority wanted to discipline a slave or underling by beating them, they would strike their face with the back of the hand.  This indicated that they were superior.  If you have been struck in this way and turn the opposite cheek for a second blow, the abuser would have to strike you with an open hand.  But to do that infers equality.  It places a dilemma on the one giving the blows – admit equality or back down.  Already the one being beaten has won that match.

These stories are about situations in which people are rendered powerless by those who control them and in each they turn the situation around and without violence get some measure of control.  This is nonviolent protest against an unjust system.  Jesus isn’t saying “give in.”  He’s showing people how to make their own choices at times when it seems they have no options.  He’s giving them strength in the face of oppression.

The same is true about the teaching on loving our enemies.  Jesus is right that it’s relatively easy to love people who love us and treat us with respect and high regard.  Whether it’s family, and employer, our neighbors – we like folks who like us.  Jesus points out that there’s not a lot of virtue in responding in kind to our friends.

Loving enemies is harder.  How are we to love those who malign us, argue with us, cheat us, or gossip about us behind our backs?  How do we love people who take advantage of our generosity or our good will?  How do we love those who do horrible things – murder, theft, abuse – or hold opinions we believe are harmful to all society?  Most of us just never pull that off.

Let’s start with thinking about what “love” means in this context.  Usually we see love as “like” on steroids – we really, really, really like the people we love.  That’s what it means when we’re falling in love with someone.  It can be what it means when we think of our love for family – folks we’d be willing to die for even.  Jesus isn’t necessarily talking about that kind of love here.  We can love some pretty undesirable characters without liking them at all.

Remember Jesus told us that God is love.  We believe that God loves every person, every creature, with a vast and unending love.  We are loved!  That’s because such love is the very fabric of all being.  I’m pretty convinced it’s the energy vibration of all that is.  Love is pervasive to all existence.  So even those folks we find totally unacceptable are loved, just like us.

This love isn’t related to liking behaviors or ideas.  God can love Vladamir Putin who is murdering thousands of Ukrainians as we speak.  God can love the young men who have created mass murder in terrible ways.  God can love your neighbor who always puts up yard signs for the party you object to in elections.  God IS love but God isn’t pleased by folks who harm others or create chaos and damage in the world.  

In the same way, we can separate our foundational love for everyone from our preference for positive actions and attitudes.  We can love the person while objecting to their behavior.  In fact, there are countless examples of people whose love toward another helped change that behavior.  The Jewish couple in Omaha who showed love to a Neo Nazi until he changed his mind about Jews comes to mind.  The capitol rioter who apologized to police this week is another example.  It doesn’t always have magical results, but love can be healing in difficult relationships.

Even more, showing love toward others can heal us.  You may have someone in your life who’s treated you badly.  They may still be at it.  Loving that person doesn’t mean you have to spend time with them.  It doesn’t mean you have to like them or ignore the harm they do toward you.  But if you can separate in your own mind their obnoxious behavior from the person they are, and then see them as a beloved child of God, you can diminish the pain you feel.  What they are doing is wrong, but seeing them through the eyes of love can keep you from obsessing about all the ways they hurt you.  You may not stop them, but you CAN stop the hurt.  That’s because you get to choose how you respond to them.  You get to decide if their belligerence is going to get to you or roll off of you.  You can de-escalate a difficult situation by refusing to engage in it.

Jesus lived in dangerous times.  Most of the people who came to hear him faced situations daily that could result in their own harm or death.  Teaching them to de-escalate by touching into a depth of love had the potential to save their lives.  Our times are usually less dangerous, at least for us, but they are still difficult.  There are many ways we can be triggered by actions or beliefs which seem harmful to us.  When we embrace Jesus’ call to love, we increase the chance that we can connect with people who disagree with us.  We give ourselves a way to find peace when someone wants to rile us up.  We can respond to difficult conversations from a place of calm and control rather than shouting back.

It takes practice to turn the other cheek or go the extra mile.  It takes practice to love our enemies.  But these practices give us strength in situation which would otherwise disempower us.  These practices give us control over ourselves and sometimes over an entire situation.  Over time, with intention and repetition, we find that we really can love all people – even the most difficult.  Over time we find a bottom line that says we have no enemies.  We still have people who push our buttons.  We still find people whose behavior needs correction.  But we have no enemies because everyone is a person we can love.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:13-16

Today’s scripture is part of the collection called The Sermon on the Mount, mostly short teachings which summarize the point of Jesus ministry.  “You are the salt of the earth.”  “You are the light of the world.”  These sayings have come into many languages as familiar ways to say positive things about people.  In our congregation they remind us every week of what we’re about as followers of Jesus’ Way.

In the first century and throughout most of history salt was a seasoning and a preservative.  To say folks are salt means they make life better the way salt makes food taste better.  It also means they keep things safe and whole instead of allowing them to rot and decay.  Salted food keeps without refrigeration at home and on long journeys.  Salt allowed people of wealth to have meat throughout the year and not just when an animal was slaughtered.  Salt was a valued commodity and broadly traded across national lines.  In some ways it connected the world. 

Light is as highly valued as salt.  Light allows us to see what’s going on in the world.  Daylight is for working and for safety.  A lamp extends daylight – for seeing loved ones after supper, for finishing important tasks, for keeping bandits away.  In the first century people traveled by day and travelers camped by fires after dark.  Light then and now carries more than just a practical function.  Light lifts our spirits.  We feel better on a sunny day than on gray and rainy ones.  We are moved by colored light through stained glass.  When we are little, we ask for a nightlight to assure us through the night.  We light candles for celebration and their flames speak to us of holiness and hope.

Most of Jesus’ audience as he traveled and taught were poor folks without power or influence.  Even wealthy leaders had very little opportunity to impact how their world worked.  And their world was hard.  People were hungry, overworked, susceptible to illness, in danger from occupying armies.  With this teaching about salt and light, Jesus is telling them that what they do with their lives matters.  Each one can make life better in their families and their villages.

You can be salt.  You can be light.  You can be kind.  You can be loving and compassionate.  You can laugh and have fun and celebrate the people you love.  You can be welcoming of others and live without judgment or condemnation for your neighbors. 

First century Palestine wasn’t a democracy.  They couldn’t vote out bad leaders and choose better.  They couldn’t overthrow Rome and become self-governing again.  Those who tried died.  Those who complained about harsh bosses or owners lost their jobs or were brutally disciplined.   But they could choose how they lived their lives.  They could choose the values they lived by and the quality of their daily actions.  They could choose how they responded to hardship and how they thought about others.  They could choose to love, no matter what happened to them.

We’ve decided that this teaching of Jesus is one of the priorities of our church.  We too choose how to respond to the world around us and celebrate that with Light Signs every time we gather.  We have a lot more options open to us than the folks who first heard and remembered these words.  We can vote.  We can be leaders in our community.  We can stand up to our employers.  We are free from slavery.  We have property and financial assets to put to good use.  And we do just that.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find this world overwhelming.  It seems like there’s a lot that’s broken and not much to be done to fix it.  That’s true of racial justice in our country.  Those of you who like me were alive in the ‘60’s thought we had done a lot to fix segregation and violence that denied freedom to people of color.  We did make progress, but we didn’t finish the job.  Now every day in the news we see evidence of more work to be done.  Reforms to policing and education and investment in communities.  Voting rights.  I don’t want to think that things are getting worse instead of better.  The struggle seems hard again.

Those of us who care about the rights of women and of the LGBTQIA+ community and immigrants want to believe we’ve made progress in giving people the right to live as full citizens and make their own choices.  Current events remind us that those rights are fragile and the future is less certain than we hoped.

The war in Ukraine and violence in many places in our world remind us that we haven’t yet fought “the war to end all wars.”  People are capable of death and destruction still.

Most of my life I’ve believed that people are good and the world is a kind and happy place.  I grew up that way.  I’ve tried to live that way as a parent and a pastor.  With the pandemic many of us have been reading more.  I’m learning that the world can be harsh.  That history is full of danger and injustice.  That people can behave very badly.

We need to work with partners across the nation and the world to address all those things which beat people down.  None of us can do it all, but we can elect leaders who want to make change – to lift people up, build bridges, share resources.  We can stand up for what matters to us – make some holy noise and good trouble.

When I get most discouraged about how much is broken in our world, I cook for LaGrave.  It helps me remember that I can’t end hunger but I can make sure one group of people is fed.  A few folks are doing better in life because of good nutrition.  I know that each of you has those things which lift you up too – helping neighbors, connecting with kids and grandkids, donating blood, planting trees. 

 Jesus’ message isn’t meant to be about how much is on our to-do list for the world.  It’s meant to encourage each one of us that what we CAN do to make life better matters. It matters how you live.  It matters how you think about others.  It matters when you do the best you can. 

Every act of kindness is something to celebrate. 
The salt you bring and the light you shine are evidence
that God is present in the world through you. 
That gives us all hope.

Forth Sunday after Pentecost

Today we revisited some important readings from US (and Canadian) history. Following are some of them.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Gettysburg Address

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes - 1901-1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek —
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean —
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today — O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home —
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay —
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again —
The land that never has been yet —
And yet must be — the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME —
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain —
All, all the stretch of these great green states —
And make America again!

The Hill We Climb
Amanda Gorman – inauguration 2020

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared at its inception.Z
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour. But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain. If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the West. We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn balloons as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Third Sunday after Pentecost

Cynthia Shabb, Director of Global Friends, was our guest speaker today to talk about what’s new in the Grand Cities with welcoming New Americans. She told us that there are now 100,000,000 official refugees in our world and many times that many people unable to live in their home countries. Global Friends has registered with Church World Service and hopes to begin once again welcoming new Americans to Grand Forks in the fall. When that happens, we can decide if we’d like to be a special sponsor to help a family adjust to this new home. In the meantime, there are a number of volunteer opportunities to explore with the people already here. It was a wonderful hopeful message that Cynthia brought and we were privileged to hear from her.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 5:1-12 & Luke 6:20-23

We know today’s scripture as The Beatitudes.  In Matthew they are the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount, which we’re going to spend some time with this summer.  In Luke’s version of the Gospel they are in what’s called The Sermon on the Plain.  So two different settings for this teaching but the same sharing of wisdom.  I wanted us to read them together so that we can notice what’s the same and what’s different.

This comparison gives us a chance to remember that the Gospels aren’t a transcription of Jesus’ teachings written down as they happened.  They are written near the end of the first century, compiling what was remembered about Jesus’ teaching and perhaps some written sources we no longer have copies of.  They are the result of telling the story of Jesus over and over until it became part of the collective memory of the church.  They tell us how people who heard Jesus remembered what he said.  So they also tell us what those people and the generations who came after them thought was most important.  

Every author brings a unique style and emphasis to writing and this is also true of the Gospel authors.  We see the difference between Luke who talks about poverty, hunger and mourning as realities in people’s lives and Matthew who gives these realities a spiritual twist – blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  We don’t need to decide that one is more accurate than the other.  Both can be faithful remembrances of the essence of what Jesus said.  In fact, he probably said things like this over and over in his ministry, not just on one occasion.  But talking about “that time on the mountain” or “when we gathered on the plain” gives a literary setting to teachings that were central to Jesus, who had both a practical/social justice message and a spiritual message combined.

Both of these renditions talk about the fact that those who followed Jesus faced ridicule and persecution.  In their day they were radicals advocating for some clear changes in the way society worked.  They were religious reformers, wanting all people to have a loving relationship with God whether or not they could afford the time or equipment to keep strict Jewish laws.  They were social reformers, challenging those with wealth and power to share with those who had nothing.  Any group that challenges the status quo in these ways is going to face resistance.  Jesus’ surely encouraged them that the fight was worth it.  Today we’re reading these words on Juneteenth, the new-to-us celebration of the end of slavery and the continuing struggle for equality in our country.  Surely those who challenge the status quo today in favor of rights and opportunities for everyone take courage from these words.  We’re going to sing a song which includes these words in a few minutes.  That song has been important to me since I first heard it in the 1970’s.  These words spoke to me then of the struggle of women to find acceptance in ministry, and they remain important to me as we work together to bring justice to our contemporary world.

Both of the meanings of Jesus’ teaching – the spiritual and the political – are important.  We’re tempted to take them as “either/or” and focus on the spiritual.  Over centuries that’s justified acceptance of the fact that some folks have it hard in life.  We quote Jesus “the poor are with you always” and settle for the fact that folks will get a reward in heaven.  But these are “both/and” words; both the spiritual and the material meanings matter.  We are meant to work together to make life better for everyone.  We do that by feeding folks and sharing generously when people need help.  We also do that by advocating for policy change that levels the playing field and makes it possible for people to care for themselves.

Sometimes those are hard struggles and the spiritual truth of these words can help us sustain the effort over the long haul.  It’s true that saying there are blessings in life in spite of hardships isn’t enough, but it IS something important.  Looking for blessings every day does sustain us. We have experienced that in grief.  Sadness can sometimes overcome us when we’ve lost a person we love.  AND the kindness of friends, the memory of good times we shared, the healing of time all bring blessings to that mourning time.  Matthew’s framing of these words especially talks about a world view or lifestyle that approaches life in a positive way in spite of negative circumstances.  He talks about mercy and righteousness and peacemaking.  Those are qualities that serve us well and help us face even difficult challenges with godly hope.

It’s become popular for folks to keep a gratitude journal each day to remember the good things that happen, even if the day didn’t go very well.  Acknowledging the bright spots even in a dark day shifts our focus a little and helps us see the presence of God’s love. When I was at Mayo for transplant and Pat was with me, keeping me going, we made it a practice to write down every night the good things that had happened.  Usually that was a list of kind things people had done for us.  Sometimes it was a celebration of some medical progress.  Sunshine and flowers and good food made the list.  At the end of every day, sometimes late at night, we could remember that the day had been filled with goodness and it kept us going.

Pierre Pradervand has written a book called The Gentle Art of Blessing. In it he teaches people how to bless those around them even in difficult circumstances.  He tells of being punched by a stranger who broke his nose.  In the emergency room he mentally sent blessing to his assailant and by the time it was his turn to be x-rayed his nose had healed.  I don’t know what to think about that, but I do know that consciously moving through the day sending blessings to others heals my spirit. When we read that book some years ago, we made a habit of sending blessings and positive energy whenever we drove past the hospital or a school.  We learned to bless other drivers who irritated us.  We practiced blessing people in stores, especially those whose children were acting up or who were rude to us or others.  I like to think it made a difference to all those folks.  I know it made a difference to me.  Moving through life expecting blessings and actively blessing others changes how life unfolds for us.  Maybe it brings us closer to heaven.  I know it brings heaven into our daily lives.  That in itself is a blessing.