Help

This is my upcoming column for The Minister's Corner in the Shawnee News Star, Saturday, February 14, 2015

“I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.”

Psalm 121:1-3, The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version

“Help! I need somebody. Help!”

Help written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, ©1965

            I had a brush with helplessness this week.  My kids and I were driving our daily school route when I had a flat tire. Seeing a police car in a parking lot, I pulled over and asked the officer for help.  She called a local tire place who said they could send someone over, but it would take a while.  I called my car dealership.  Their tow driver was unavailable, so they gave me the number for roadside assistance.  The nice lady on the other end said she would contact someone.  The wrecker they called was going to take an even longer while.  The first police officer radioed another officer to see if he was close by and could lend a hand.  In the midst of all this, my kids were getting later and later for school.  I called both schools to let them know of our predicament, and then I called one of my church members and said, in the words of John Lennon, “Help!”  He responded immediately, met us at the parking lot, and drove my kids to school.  Due to a missing lug nut key (long story), my spare wasn’t changed out for the flat one.  But with the assistance of these three kind people, I was able to get my kids to school, get enough air in my flat tire to drive to the tire store, get a new tire, and get back to my regularly scheduled day. 

            It all turned out well, and I am so grateful for the folks who offered help when I needed it.  I’d like to say that I handle situations like this calmly and with a sense of humor.  I’d like to say that.  But I can’t.  Because I don’t.  My stress level rises and my sense of perspective drops.  It’s not the situation that stresses me out as much as it is my feeling of helplessness.  I learned how to change a tire when I was 16 and in Driver’s Ed.  However that’s been __ years ago, and my memory is getting iffier.  When something goes wrong with a vehicle, all I can see are $ signs.  So I mentally sift through my bank account trying to figure out where the money for the problem will be found.  Whatever the issue – big or small – car troubles make me feel helpless, and I don’t do helpless so well.

            When all the dust of the morning finally settled, my first thought was, “This is ridiculous.  I am going to relearn how to change a flat tire.”  That is not a bad thing to know, but as the day wore on, I wondered if perhaps that feeling of helplessness was actually a gift.  Our culture values independence, self-sufficiency, and a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality.  I value these traits as well.  Yet, the truth of the matter is that everyone needs help sometimes.  Each of us has probably found ourselves in a situation where we need help.  No matter how independent or self-sufficient we may be, you cannot get through this life without needing a helping hand to pull you up.  When the independence we value is taken to an extreme, asking for help becomes shameful.  Helplessness makes us feel vulnerable, and our response to this discomfort can range from mild to manic.  However, if we acknowledge that we all need help, there should be no shame in asking for it.    

            That is why, as strange as it may seem, feeling helpless over my flat tire was a gift.  It reminded me that we are all in this life together.  We need one another.  It reminded me that there is very little in my life that I can control.  Like it or not, life happens.  When it does, sometimes I need help.  Ultimately, the surest help I have is what the psalmist describes.  My help, our help, comes from the One who made heaven and earth.  The One who made heaven and earth created us to be in relationship with one another.  We need one another.  We need to help one another.  There is no shame in asking for help.  What would I have done without it?  I still plan to learn how to change a flat tire.  But not just for myself.  I’m going to learn because one day I might be called upon to help someone else.  When that happens, I want to be ready.  I want to help.

Live to Serve

Mark 1:29-39

February 8, 2015

            “How are you fixed for socks and underwear?”

            This is the response I would hear from my mother whenever I would get overly demanding as a child.  Interestingly enough, I seemed to hear it more frequently when I was a teenager.  Yet whether I was being a demanding child or a demanding teen, I heard these words in response to my verbal lists of things that I needed or wanted from my mother.  “Mama, I need that permission slip signed.”  “Mama, I need to sell 50 raffle tickets, by tomorrow.”  “Mother, I need my favorite jeans washed or I can’t show my face at school.”  “Mother, I need…  Well, you get the gist.  My mother, who worked full-time inside and outside of the home, would listen to my never ending list of demands; those things I needed her to do for me now, and she would calmly reply, “Okay.  How are you fixed for socks and underwear?”  This phrase was a vivid reminder to me that the person I was demanding so much of was my mother.  She was not a housekeeper, nor a servant.  However since I was obviously treating her like the maid, she might as well make sure I had enough socks and underwear too.  Although she rarely if ever said, “I was not put on God’s green earth to be your servant,” that’s what her socks and underwear retort meant.  I’m your mother, not your servant.  Please treat me accordingly.  I do not live to serve. 

            As I read it, “serve” is the critical word in this first part of our gospel passage.  To be honest, whenever this text has appeared in the lectionary readings in the past, I’ve either focused solely on the last part of the passage where Jesus goes off to a quiet place to pray, or I’ve avoided it entirely, and preached from one of the other texts given for this Sunday.  The reason I’ve done this is because this particular healing story bothers me.  It does not bother me that a healing occurred.  It does not bother me that it was a woman who was healed, or that the only clue to her identity was being Simon’s mother-in-law.  What bothers me is that the minute she was healed, she began to serve.  My mother may not have lived to serve, but this woman did.  She literally lived to serve.

            As I said, this text has bothered me for a long time.  I realize that I read, hear, and experience this passage through my own particular lenses: two of them being that I am a 21^st century woman and a mother.  I’ve long believed that figuring out the length of a mother’s illness is like reading the rings on a tree trunk.  The more rings, the older the tree.  The higher the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, the longer the mom’s been sick.  When I read about Simon’s mother-in-law, it’s hard for me not to think about those times when I’ve been sick in bed.  Yet when I finally felt well enough to rejoin my family, I was compelled to immediately start cleaning because the house had fallen apart while I was down for the count.  I did not want to feel better only to have to play servant in my own home.

            And while traditional gender roles concerning what work is designated women’s and what is designated as men’s are changing, they still exist.  As one who has chafed at some of those roles for most of her lifetime, reading a passage about the healing of a woman that seems to imply Jesus healed her solely so that she might serve them is a struggle for me.  That’s why I’ve avoided it, rather than dealing with this story and the way it rankles me.  However I think my avoidance has deprived me, deprives us, of the beauty that is to be found in this text; specifically in this profound moment of healing.

            The story immediately follows Jesus’ exorcism in the synagogue.  From there Simon took Jesus and the other disciples to his mother-in-law’s house.  We don’t learn her name or anything else about her, except who she was to Simon and that she was sick in bed with a fever.  To our ears having a fear may not sound life threatening.  High fevers can still be dangerous, but modern medicine has ways of treating them.  But modern medicine was not at hand in this situation.  There is no reason for us not to think that her illness was potentially fatal.  That makes Jesus’ healing of her even more powerful.  Just as people marveled at his authority in teaching and casting out demons, he also showed authority in healing.  He brought this woman back to life.  What’s more, his authority was so unlike any other authority ever witnessed.  He needed no words to perform this miraculous healing.  He simply took her by the hand and lifted her up. 

            Why did Jesus do that?  Was it because she was Simon’s mother-in-law?  Was it because they were hungry and needed dinner?  Or was it because that’s what Jesus did.  Jesus healed.  He healed her because that is what he came to do – to heal the sick in body and mind, to find the lost, to restore those on the outside to community, to give new life.  We don’t question his motives for other healings, why question him over this one.  Jesus healed her because that’s what Jesus did.  He restored this woman to health, and to her rightful place in her household and in her community.  She responded by serving.

            There’s that word again.  Serving.  It’s that sentence, that verse that rubs me and a lot of others the wrong way; especially because it has been so abused and misused against women in other contexts and times.  I understand that this was a patriarchal society.  I understand that a woman’s role and duty was to tend to the household.  She was responsible for offering hospitality to others; and as we learn time and time again, hospitality in that culture was not taken lightly.  In serving, Simon’s mother-in-law was doing what was required and expected of her.  She was restored to health and she responded by serving.

            Yet what does the word serving mean in this context?  The word in Greek is a version of diakonos; the word our word deacon comes from.  Traditionally, the deacons in a church are those who offer pastoral ministry.  They help those who are sick, lost, hurting, alone.  In other words they serve.  This is also the word that Mark used to describe the attentions the angels gave to Jesus after his time in the wilderness.  The angels ministered to him.  They served him.

            Seeing the woman’s actions in this way is eye opening.  Her response to being healed by Jesus was just that – response.  He healed her.  He manifested God’s love for her.  She responded by serving.  Yes, serving would have been her role and duty at that time, but I can’t help but believe that in that precise moment, she was not serving out of begrudging obligation.  She served out of love.  She responded to love with love.  She lived to serve. 

            How has Jesus healed you?  How has Jesus healed us?  I can’t say that I have experienced a physical healing such as this one, but I know that I have had moments when I have felt the tangible presence of Christ right beside me.  I know that I have experienced his unconditional love and grace wash over me and his hand take mine and lift me up.  In those moments, I have wanted nothing more than to give back, to respond in kind.  I wanted nothing more than to live to serve.

            Perhaps that is the real purpose of our worship.  It seems to me that the foundation of our worship is response.  We worship as a way of giving thanks and praise to God in Christ.  We worship to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.  We worship to refocus and re-prioritize our lives.  And in our worship we are reminded of how we have been healed, and how we are covered by grace.  Through worship we remember that we are surrounded, enfolded, and embraced by God’s complete love.  We remember the new life that we have right now because of that love.  So we respond.  We serve.  We live to serve because God, in love, has first served us.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

What Do We Know?

I Corinthians 8:1-13 (Mark 1:21-28)

February 1, 2015

            “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way.  I can’t wait to look in the mirror.  I get better looking each day.  To know me is to love me.  I must be a h*&% of a man.  O Lord, it’s hard to be humble.  But I’m doing the best that I can.”

            Mac Davis, the writer and performer of this little ditty, loomed large in my youth.  As I understand the back story of this song, Davis was performing at some huge awards show, or big concert, or something along those lines.  He was staying in the most exclusive of exclusive hotels, in the plushest of plush suites.  But he was staying there all alone.  So he wrote this parody of someone who is at the top but without love, and trying to figure out why.  I’m assuming this song isn’t truly autobiographical, but who knows. 

            It’s a fun song to sing, and my friends and I would belt it out in our best Music City twangs.  But I also think it is a brilliant illustration of what it means to be, in Paul’s words, “puffed up.” 

            Paul has used the term, “puffed up,” in his other dealings with churches, and in this first part of this first letter to the Corinthians, we hear these words again.  “Now concerning food sacrificed to idols; we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

            The controversy that Paul addressed over eating food sacrificed to idols was a big one.  Should followers of Jesus eat this food?  Or not?  The issue was brought to Paul’s attention by a previous communication from some of the members of the church.  When Paul wrote that “all of us possess knowledge,” he was quoting from a letter written to him from the Corinthians.  Some church folks believed that because they knew that idols were nothing and the meat sacrificed to them meant nothing, it should be fine to eat it.  Food was just food, whether it had been used as a sacrifice or not.  Idols had no meaning for them, because they had knowledge of the true God. 

This idol meat was standard fare at the larger community meals these early Christians would have attended.  It was a staple served at every function held in their larger social circle.  To not eat this meat would have been rude at the very least.  Again, the Corinthians knew it had no meaning, so why the fuss?

            Paul wasn’t worried about the effect the idol meat would have had on these particular members of the Corinthian church.  However he was worried about the effect it would have on the weaker ones in the faith.  These weaker members were probably gentile converts who had long ties with the larger pagan society.  Eating that meat was directly tied to their former beliefs.  These weaker ones were most likely much poorer than the Corinthians who had written to Paul.  They would have been excluded, not only from the social circles the other complaining church members ran in, but also from their educational systems.  If they were to see older, supposedly wiser, Christians eating meat sacrificed to idols, what would they think?  What would that do to their faith?

            Paul wrote, “Their conscience, being weak is defiled.  Food will not bring us close to God.  We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.  But take care that this liberty of ours, this consequence of your knowledge, doesn’t become a stumbling block to the weak.”

            Sure, Paul told them, you know that food is not the channel to either the gods or to God.  You know it, but you have to be careful.  Don’t let this great knowledge of yours make you arrogant.  Don’t let your knowledge puff you up so much that you cause a weaker one to stumble and pull away from the faith.

            In other words, be humble.  Do not get puffed up with all you supposedly know.  Most importantly, set a good example.  Realize that someone else may not have the same knowledge you do; that they may be less mature in the faith than you.  Understand that these younger, less mature believers may be struggling with letting go of their former beliefs and ways.  You may be able to set yourself apart from a particular society and live in it at the same time, but can they?  Do not be a stumbling block to someone else.

            Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

            Perhaps the message that Paul was really trying to impart to these conflicted Corinthians was don’t get cocky.  Use your knowledge for good; not as a weapon that can inflict terrible harm on others.  What you really need to know is this; without love you don’t know anything.  It is only love that will build up your community.  It is through love that these weaker ones in the faith will grow strong.  It is only love that will burst the bubble of your arrogant knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

            Beautiful, beautiful words.  But here’s the problem, or at least, here’s the challenge with Paul’s statement.  How easy it is to misinterpret his words about knowledge, and twist them from an indictment of arrogant belief in what we think we know to seeing knowledge/education as elitist.  Personally, I love knowledge.  I love education.  I love learning and I love teaching.  I grew up in a home where education was valued.  The statement “if you go to college,” was never spoken in my home.  It was always, “when you go to college.”  I admire my parents for many reasons, but one is that when many of my friends’ parents were giving into “white flight” in the face of bussing, etc. and putting their kids into private schools, my parents stubbornly refused.  If you want public education to also be excellent education, you have to stay in it, stay involved. 

            Yet I also realize that education is not the end all be all of life.  I have met people with an 8^th grade education who are more intelligent, thoughtful, and reflective than some who have a doctorate.  I learned rather quickly that a diploma is no guarantee of wisdom.  While I do not think that Paul is denigrating education in this passage, I do think he is exhorting the Corinthians to understand that knowledge alone is not enough.  It is what you do with it and how you use it, especially when it comes to your treatment of other people that is the real issue.  It is most assuredly hard to be humble when your knowledge is based on knowledge alone. 

            Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

            While Jesus’ first action in his public ministry in Mark’s gospel was to perform an exorcism, this was not a Hollywood brand of exorcism.  The passage begins with Jesus going to the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath and teaching.  But his teaching was unlike any teaching the people had ever witnessed before.  He taught as one with authority and unlike the scribes.  The people may not have understood where this authority came from, but the unclean spirit did.  This may be the first time we hear of an unclean spirit recognizing Jesus’ true identity in Mark’s gospel, but it certainly will not be the last time.  The spirit that possessed the man cried out to Jesus, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  Certainly, obviously, Jesus’ identity as the Holy One of God is the source of his authority.  But the people witnessing his teaching and his exorcism did not know that.  They did not understand that.  They just knew that his teaching was different.  It was new.  It was authoritative. 

            Jesus’ authority lay in his identity, but the essence of who he truly was and the message he came to proclaim was not based on dogma.  It was based in love.  It was love.

            Jesus was God’s love incarnate.  No, this love was not mushy sweetness and light.  It was urgent.  It was invasive.  It would upend, overturn, and overthrow every expectation the people had of God and love and the kingdom.  But that does not detract from the truth that Jesus’ authority, Jesus’ knowledge, Jesus’ teaching and wisdom was based and founded and grounded in love. 

            Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  Jesus was and is love, realized in flesh and blood.  His proclamation of good news was that in him the law, the teachings of the past, the prophecies of the prophets, and the realization of the kingdom of God was fulfilled.  He was God’s complete love for them, for all of creation, in their midst.  He was Love with a capital L, and he was there to build up – their relationship with God, with one another, and the kingdom. 

            Knowledge is a wonderful thing.  I don’t take it for granted because it seems to me that willful ignorance has caused and continues to cause more harm, damage, and destruction in our world than anything else.  But valuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone can lead to arrogance.  It too can do great harm.  But knowledge that finds its source in love opens our minds and our hearts to God and to one another in a way that knowledge alone can’t.  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  So maybe the question to ask ourselves today and every day is not just, “What do we know?”  But “What do we know and how do we love?”  Let all of God’s children say with full knowledge and overwhelming love, “Alleluia!”  Amen.