Exercise to Exorcise

Demons

            When I was a kid I loved to run.  I didn’t run to be fast or win races, I just loved to move.  There was a joy in running, in moving.  I didn’t worry about being a great athlete.  I just moved. 

            Although when it came to athletics, I wasn’t a total slouch.  I’ve never been overly competitive when it comes to athletics, but I wasn’t terrible either.  When I was about 8, attending a YMCA day camp, a couple of the boys in my group challenged me to a race for fun.  I ran.  I won.  I’m a good swimmer, and I love being in the water more than anything else in the world.  I was one of a small handful of girls on an all-boys soccer team, when the sport was first beginning to make inroads in the United States.  And the reason I can still play some semblance of basketball today is because my older brother spent many hours with me on the court in our driveway, teaching me to shoot and dribble and do layups.  While I tend to suck at softball and baseball, I’m a fair tennis player, and when I’m in fighting shape, you do not want to take me on in badminton. 

            But athletics aside, when I was a kid I loved to run.  I loved to move.  For a brief while I had no self-consciousness about my body.  I loved it and I loved what it allowed me to do.  But somewhere along the line all that changed.  I think it was when recess turned into PE.  With the President’s Fitness Challenge (which is a great thing, don’t get me wrong) I suddenly had to prove my fitness, and was graded on that proof.  I no longer got to move just for the joy of moving.  I had to perform certain physical tasks, and failed if I couldn’t do them. 

            It didn’t help that puberty made an early appearance.  I suddenly had female attributes that I didn’t want and didn’t know how to deal with.  The problem with puberty and me was that I didn’t suddenly get curves, I just got round.  And I was self-conscious and my self-esteem plummeted.  I no longer ran because I liked it.  I ran because I had to.  I was slow and chubby and generally began to despise everything that had to do with gym in particular and exercise in general. 

             What happens to the kids who are slow and chubby and can’t do a pull-up no matter how hard they try?  They get teased.  They get mocked.  They become the last ones picked for teams.  Whatever self-esteem they had left is completely wiped out.  You can probably guess I was one of those kids who got picked on for not being good enough when it came to sports. 

            This isn’t a whine about the past though.  Because now it is many years later and I’m in better shape than I have been in years.  I work out hard.  I kickbox.  I do Zumba.  I work out on the elliptical machine and the rowing machine.  I swim laps and take water aerobics classes.  I do whatever I can to keep in shape, keep my weight down and fend off depression by raising my endorphins on a regular basis.  Last week I started taking a boot camp fitness class at my Y two mornings a week. 

            The first two days were tough.  I was sore for days.  The second day we did a lot of running/jogging, which I thought would kill me.  But in the last sprint of the morning, jogging back to the main building of the Y, I felt like I did when I was a kid.  It was a joy to move!  I was completely in tune with my body.  I wasn’t self-conscious about how I looked running.  I just loved how it felt to run.  Feeling this way, in spite of the predicted muscle soreness, I couldn’t wait to go back this morning.

            Let me say that our boot camp instructor is great.  She’s encouraging.  She doesn’t demean.  She tells us that we’re all at different fitness levels and not to compare ourselves to anyone else in the class.  But she also likes to shake things up and try different things every day.  It’s a strategy that keeps us on our toes and keeps our muscles responding and working hard.  Today she decided to put us in teams.  Each team would do one exercise, and each member would race to the center of the gym, do another exercise, race back, then the next member of the team could take his or her turn.  It was meant as a friendly competition.  The only prize earned was the team that came in first each time got to run two less sprints than the team that came in second.  Everybody jumped right in eagerly.  Except me.  I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes.  Suddenly I was back in PE.  I was the slowest one.  I couldn’t do the exercises as well as everybody else.  The only sprinting I wanted to do was to my car and home. 

            I stuck with it, but I was miserable.  It’s hard to explain why.  No one mocked me.  My teammates were encouraging, but I realized that this morning’s work out unleashed demons I thought were long gone.  Sadly they’ve been battering me ever since.  Their voices tell me that I’m not enough; not good enough, not strong enough, not capable enough.  They try to make me believe that my self-esteem should be intricately connected with my physical self – my looks, my weight, my coordination or lack thereof.  Who knew that my desire to exercise would also bring about a need to exorcise? 

            But exorcise I will.  I will find a way to silence their voices, root them out of my psyche and send them packing.  Mahatma Gandhi once wrote, “Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will.”  If this has truth to it, and I think it does, then I am stronger than my demons.  I still can’t do a good pull up, but my will is stronger than ever.  I am more than just the sum of my physical attributes.  The demons won’t win. 

By the way, I’m going back to boot camp on Thursday. 

New Rules

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

August 12, 2012

            The philosopher and ethicist, Thomas Hobbes, did not base his understanding of ethics on a belief in the divine.  He believed that there were Laws of Nature that could be reasoned out without any divine intervention or interpretation necessary.  He also believed that because humans are essentially social animals, meaning that we need social groups and communities in order to survive and thrive, then having clear Laws of Nature was absolutely essential to our survival.  In his words, without these laws that allow us to live together in relative harmony, our lives will be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

            Hold onto that thought as you listen to this story. 

            My cousin Rich was the closest thing I had to a little brother.  That included sibling rivalry.  Rich and I missed each other terribly in the time that we were apart, and we fought like cats and dogs whenever we were together. 

            Rich went through an intense toy gun phase.  He loved to play with guns, collect as many of them as he could and stage battles on a regular basis.  So whenever Rich and I got together, we ended up playing with guns, whether I wanted to or not.  On one trip to Minnesota to visit Rich and his family, when I was around 9 or 10, Rich convinced me to play some war game with him.  We were heading down through the woods in his backyard, guns in hand, when I decided I’d had enough.  I didn’t want to play guns.  I didn’t want to engage in a battle.  I just wanted to go back to the house and read my book.  So I told Rich that I wasn’t feeling well and I was going back. 

            Rich wasn’t happy about this.  His toy gun was a heavy wooden play rifle, and when I made my pronouncement, he yelled, “Chicken!” and threw the gun at me.  It hit me right in the back of the neck.  So I turned around and clocked him.  Yep, that’s right, I punched him. 

            It seemed that time stood still in that moment.  We both stood there a little shocked and bewildered at what had just happened.  Then in the same instant we took off running toward the house, determined to be the first one there so we could tell our side of the story before the other one got the chance.

            The result was that we were immediately separated, sent to our different corners and reprimanded for breaking the rules of appropriate behavior.  You don’t hit someone.  Not with a gun.  Not with your fist.  You don’t.  And our punishment was to cool off, then apologize. 

            Rich and I spent a large chunk of our time together as children having to cool off and apologize.  There are many pictures of the two of us hugging, but if you look closely you’ll see a pair of hands on each of our backs, pushing us together.  But that’s the way it was.  That’s how our parents kept some semblance of order.  Rich and I fought, we were reprimanded, we apologized.  You broke one rule and there was always another rule waiting to help patch things up. 

            Fortunately both Rich and I haven’t held any grudges from our childhood skirmishes.  While we may have fought horrifically as kids, we’re good friends now.  The anger we would feel towards one another dissipated quickly (usually through a brief bout of violence, which I can't condone) and didn’t leave room for grudges. 

            But that’s not always the case.  Paul, in this section of his letter to the Ephesians, writes in verse 26 “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”  Paul seemed to understand that anger had its place.  I would bet that every reform movement in human history started because of anger.  A person or a group of people grew angry over ill treatment or injustice and began to protest.  We are called Protestants because our spiritual ancestors protested and called for reforms in the church.  I suspect some anger had to have been involved. 

            Be angry, but don’t let the sun go down on your anger.  Meaning, I think, express your anger, and then get over it.  Don’t leave room for grudges to set in.  Because when we hold a grudge against someone, it festers.  We seek revenge and we work against one another, and none of this builds up the community.

            It seems to me that that’s Paul’s real concern – building up the community rather than tearing it down.  What builds up?  What doesn’t?  How can you be angry, express that anger and not do damage to the community?  How can you deal honestly and uprightly with one another?  How can you build up the community?

            Well you need rules.  And this passage in Ephesians lists some of those rules.  We speak the truth to our neighbors.  We get angry, but we don’t sin in our anger – which means we can’t solve disputes the way my cousin Rich and I did, by throwing a punch.  But we also can’t let that anger go on and on and on. 

            If members of the community steal, then they need to stop stealing and work honestly.  What they make should be shared with the needy.  We can’t let evil, slanderous, gossiping talk leave our mouths, because again that doesn’t build up.  It only tears down and destroys.  We need to put away bitterness and slander and wrangling and malice.  We must be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving of one another as we have been forgiven. 

            These are the rules.  And as my sermon title suggests, they were, are, new rules.  I took my title from the passage heading in my Bible – Rules for the New Life. 

            But these really aren’t new rules are they?  We could survey a wide variety of ancient sources and probably find rules for living in social groups that read almost exactly like Paul’s.  These other groups would have nothing to do with the early church or the community of believers as Paul knew them.  As I said at the beginning of my sermon, Thomas Hobbes did not work from a Christian or religious perspective.  But he reasoned that natural laws could be found and were there for a purpose, to keep us from killing one another, to keep our lives from being solitary, nasty, brutish and short. 

            So these aren’t really new rules?  But for Paul they are, not because the rules for living in community have significantly changed, but because what the community is grounded in has.  The motivation for community has changed.  It is new.  For Paul the significance of these communities is that they are formed out of our being baptized into Christ.  It is our baptism that makes these rules new.  Through our baptisms we have been engrafted into Christ.  We have become part of him, part of his death, part of his new life. 

            That’s what makes these rules new.  They are grounded not just in a social contract to keep people in a community from beating each other to death, but in the body of Christ.  So if we tear each other down, we tear Christ down.  In Paul’s words, we “grieve the Holy Spirit.”  I guess one way to say it, is that we not only hurt one another when we break these rules, we hurt God.  I realize that sounds overly simplistic, like something my Sunday school teachers would have said to me when I was little.  “If you hurt your friend, you hurt Jesus.”  But if our relationship with one another is built on the relationship that God in Christ made with us, then it stands to reason that if we hurt one another we hurt our relationship with God in the process. 

            At the close of this part of the passage, Paul states that the ultimate rule is to be imitators of God.  We are beloved children of God, therefore we should live in love as Christ loved us.  Perhaps to the casual observer this sounds easy, but living it out is anything but easy.  In fact being told to imitate God is just about the most intimidating command I could hear.  To me imitating God is a perfect way to set myself up for failure, because there’s no way I can possibly live up to that kind of standard. 

            But I don’t think Paul is trying to set us up for defeat.  Perhaps Paul wants us to consider that God loves us unconditionally, so we need to do our best to love one another the same way.  God loves us persistently, so we need to persist in loving each other no matter how hard it is.  God loves us, not because we are so completely loveable, but because more often than not we are completely unlovable, yet God loves us anyway.  God forgives us, so we need to figure out how to forgive one another.  God speaks hard truths to us, but even in those hard truths, we are loved, we are the beneficiaries of God’s infinite kindness, so let us speak the truth but let us be kind to one another even as we’re doing it.  These are the new rules for us, the body of Christ.  Let all God’s children say, “Amen.”

           

           

Hard Truths

II Samuel 11:26-12:13a (Ephesians 4:1-16)

August 5, 2012

            If there is one person in my family who isn’t afraid of speaking a difficult truth to me, it’s my dad.  He’s done it many times; sat me down, told me that he thinks I’m about to make a mistake or that I’m about to make a choice that’s unwise. 

            One time I remember in particular is when I was preparing to graduate from college.  Along with resume writing and job searches, I was also dating a young man who was – how can I put this nicely? – a jerk.   But I couldn’t see it.  And friends and family were concerned about me getting serious about him.  In fact we were getting fairly serious.  So my dad finally sat me down and had a talk.

            My dad is a pretty quiet man.  He listens intensely to what is being said around him and does a lot of thinking about it before he speaks.  He’s not afraid to make tough decisions or speak his opinion.  But you know that when his opinion is offered, it’s going to be one that’s based on careful thought.  He doesn’t often speak rashly or impulsively. 

            So when he decided to talk to me about my relationship, even though I didn’t want to hear it, I listened.  I hated the hard truths my dad was speaking, especially because they concerned me, but I knew that he was speaking from a thoughtful place – and, even more importantly, a loving place.  He spoke some hard truths, but they were truths I needed to hear.  I listened.  And thankfully I slowed the relationship down and eventually broke it off entirely.

            This week, as we continue the story of David’s abuse of power with Bathsheba and his manipulation of Uriah which led to the young soldier’s death, we hear hard truths.  Nathan has come to confront David about what’s happened but he does it in a way that will ensure David fully understands the consequences of his actions.  He tells David a story.

            “There were two men; one rich and one poor.  The rich man had many flocks and herds, but the poor man had only one little lamb.  The poor man raised the lamb like a child.  It grew up with the man’s own children.  It shared from his table.  It was a member of the family.  It was like a daughter to the man.”

            “But one day the rich man had a visitor, a traveler who came to stay with him.  The rich man wanted to serve his guest a fancy meal, but he hated to take an animal from his own flock.  Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and served it as the main course.”

            David became incensed at this terrible tale.  He was livid.  He said to Nathan, “This man deserves to die!  He should have to replace the man’s lamb four times over because of what he did, and because he had no pity.”

            Then in one powerful instant, Nathan turns the story on David, and cries out, “You are the man!”

            If I could turn this into a movie, I would have the actor playing Nathan standing with his back to David as David spouts off about the punishment this man deserves.  Then Nathan would whirl around to face David, pointing his finger at David’s nose and shout, “You are the man!”

            You are the man!

            These words must have felt like a razor-sharp punch right in David’s stomach, knocking the wind of righteous indignation out of him.

            You are the man!

            This isn’t some sad little story about some unknown guy out there somewhere.  This is about you, David; you, and what you’ve done to Uriah, to Bathsheba. 

            Nathan then proceeds to tell David what the Lord has to say about the whole ordeal that David’s lust and abuse started.

            “David!  I anointed you king over Israel.  I rescued you from the hands of Saul.  I gave you this house, your wives.  I gave you the house of Israel and Judah.  And if all this would have been too little, I would have given you even more.  But what you have done is evil in my sight.  You have despised my word.  You have killed Uriah the Hittite, and you’ve taken his wife to be your own.”

            “Because of all this, there’s going to be trouble for you; trouble in your household.  You took Uriah by the sword.  Well that sword will never leave your house from this moment on.  In other words, David, you will reap what you have sown.”

            David immediately recognized his deeds for what they were – sin – and he repented.  But the Lord’s words proved true.  In very short order, trouble raised its head in David’s household through his older sons – Amnon and Absalom.

            What really stands out to me about this story is not so much the content of the truths spoken to David, although certainly it was truth and it offers significant and important insight into the dynamics of David’s family and his kingship.  But more than that, what strikes me is the power that speaking this hard truth has to effect change.  David hears the word of truth, righteous truth, God’s truth, spoken to him through Nathan and he sees how far he has turned from God and repents.

            Speaking a word of truth to someone is never easy.  It’s difficult at best.  It can be grueling, painful, and leave both speaker and listener feeling vulnerable.  It had to have been hard for Nathan, and yes, even God, to speak this word of truth to David.  David was a beloved son, but he had to be told the truth about his actions and see that their consequences would be severe and far reaching.

            David had to be told a necessary, but hard truth.  But that truth was not spoken to utterly destroy him.  It wasn’t done just to lay him flat, to hurt him without any redemption.  I believe that this powerful word of truth was spoken so that David could see clearly what he had done, so that he could see the pain he caused and hopefully become a better king, father, husband and person because of it.  It seems to me that the truth was spoken to David because it had to be, but it also gave him the opportunity to learn and change.

            The Lord through Nathan spoke a word of truth to David in love.  It may not have sounded very loving, but it was.  That’s what Paul writes about in these verses in his letter to the Ephesians.  “Speak the truth in love.”  These words come at the end of Paul’s passage about maintaining the unity of the church, the body of Christ.  We are all members of one body.  We all have our own unique and useful gifts and talents that help the body to function.  We have all been called, in one way or another, to serve God and to build up the body of Christ.  And we can’t be like little kids anymore.  We can’t be naïve.  We can’t be blown off course by trickery or fancy words that deceive.  “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

            As I understand it, what Paul is really trying to teach the Ephesians is how to be in right relationship with one another.  Unity is found when people live in this right relationship.  Unity requires that people recognize and affirm the calling of each member, and it requires that people use their own gifts and talents for the good of all, for the good of that common relationship.  Perhaps even more than that, unity requires that when we are blown off course, when we are falling away from that relationship, the truth must be spoken to us in love.

            I guess the problem with this is that too often we speak the truth to one another, but it’s not spoken in love.  When my father spoke a hard truth to me, it was spoken in love, but there have been lots of other people who have spoken hard truths over the years as a way to lay me low.  I’ve had the truth spoken to tear me down, not build me up.  I know that I’m guilty of this as well.  I’ve spoken a truth to someone to hurt rather than to help. 

            The problem though is that when we tear down one another, we also tear down the body of Christ.  Speaking the truth in love is meant to be just that.  It’s meant to build up, not tear down, to grow, not destroy.  Yet we’re not always good at putting this speaking truth in love concept into practice.

            In one of the presbyteries that I served, there was a larger contingent of ministers and elders of one political and social persuasion than another.  Whenever there was a debate on a particularly controversial subject, commissioners on both sides of the line would queue up to take their turn at the mic and speak their particular truth.  Often, though, there would be far more from the majority opinion waiting to speak.  What disturbed me about this was not that the people on the majority side wanted to have their turn, it’s that they used their chance at the mic to just verbally beat the other side to death.  We’re going to use our truths, not as a way to build up, but to tear down, stomp on and utterly crush the other side.  It was discouraging, to say the least.

            But the presbytery I went to next had a different policy.  After witnessing how divisive and destructive these debates could be to the whole presbytery body, the Executive Presbyter determined that whenever a particularly controversial subject was to be debated on the floor of presbytery, always, ALWAYS, the agenda would be structured so that worship immediately followed the debate and communion was always celebrated during that worship. 

            This EP understood that no matter how angry or frustrated the commissioners might be over a hot topic, if we could worship with one another, if we could see each other through the lens of the Communion Table, we could find a way to overcome what divides us.  When we broke bread and shared the cup, we were better equipped to build up rather than tear down. 

            The hard truths were still spoken in that presbytery, but they were spoken in love.  That made all the difference.  At some point or another, we will either have to speak a hard truth or hear one.  But may we remember that whether we are hearing or speaking, that truth should be spoken in love.  It should be spoken to build up, to create, to liberate and to witness to the love of God for each of us.  Let us speak the truth in love to one another and to our hurting and broken world, so that God’s love can be felt in all places by all people.  Let all God’s children say, “Amen.”

A Question of Power

II Samuel 11:1-15 (Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21)

July 29, 2012

            In the spring of 1993 I was privy to a prediction.  I was attending a required conference at my seminary on Clergy Sexual Misconduct.  The key speaker and leader of the conference was Elizabeth Stellas, who was at that time a key person at the Institute for Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle, Washington. 

            In her introduction Elizabeth told us that statistics predicted that by the year 2000 the Roman Catholic Church would pay over a billion dollars in lawsuits due to sexual misconduct and abuse by priests.

            Over the last twelve years, it seems that every time I open a newspaper or tune into the news this prediction I heard in seminary appears to be coming true.  Everyday brings a new headline about yet another priest charged with abuse.  Sadly, the headlines don't seem to change much as the years go by.  In just the last month or two I’ve been reading about another priest who has been charged for sexual abuse. 

            I don’t want to give the impression that I’m picking on the Roman Catholics.  I’m not.  No one particular denomination or expression of faith alone is guilty of this problem.  The reason the school coordinated and designed this conference for our campus and required attendance by both faculty and students alike was because this issue was coming to light in every mainline denomination – including the Presbyterians.  It was literally being uncovered.  And the more uncovering that was done, the more people – the clergy and laity alike – were realizing how prevalent a problem it was and still is.

            This conference was one means of educating pastors and pastors-to-be about clergy sexual misconduct – what it is and how to prevent it.  In a nutshell, clergy cannot be “involved” with their parishioners.  That’s the bottom line.  Certainly it is more complicated and more layered than just romance.  It involves secrecy and shame and guilt.  Some of what has happened within Catholicism involves pedophilia.  And though it seems to be about sexuality, it’s really an issue of power.

            The one thing that was drilled into my head over and over again in seminary – in this conference and in countless other classes as well – is that as a pastor I have a certain amount of power.  I may not feel like I have any power.  I may not believe it about myself or believe that I have any real authority, but whether I believe it or not is not the issue.  My power rests in the perception of my parishioners.  In my calling as a minister I hold a sacred trust.  I am called to serve a congregation, to care for them, to be their shepherd.  It is an abuse of my position, my authority, my call to draw anyone from my congregation into a relationship that is less than ethical.  Clergy misconduct is an issue of power.

            Other professions, other positions and offices are not immune to the abuse of power.  As I was making my way home to Oklahoma last week, I watched the press conference held by the president of the NCAA and its decision concerning Penn State.  In my opinion, if you want a case study in egregious abuses of power at all levels, look at what’s happened at Penn State.  And to use a clichéd example, like a stone thrown into a pool of water, the ripples, the consequences of what’s happened there are going to expand outward for a long time. 

This makes the story of David and Bathsheba sound like it’s been ripped from today’s headlines, doesn’t it?  Certainly David’s relationship with Bathsheba was a question of power.  I realize that there are many different opinions about what really happened between the two of them and which person was actually to blame for their affair. 

But let’s remember this: David wasn’t just some guy who looked over and saw a woman bathing on her roof.  He was the KING.  At that time he held the ultimate religious and political power.  Of course there were and probably always will be kings, rulers, dictators who abuse their power in a variety of ways.  But we have to hold David up to the light of who he was and who called him.  He was the King of Israel, a people whose national identity was based on the belief that they were the chosen people of the one true God.  What happened between David and Bathsheba and between David and her husband Uriah was a question of power, an abuse of a king’s power.  And how does the expression go?  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

            It is unfair to say that David was absolutely corrupt, because there are many other instances where he wasn’t.  I don’t believe that David was some sort of evil tyrant.  In many ways he was a good king.  But in this case King David had absolute power.  Women in that society, in that time, in that culture did not.  Bathsheba’s only power was through her husband, Uriah.  When the king beckoned her to come to him, she had to go.  Knowing this makes me question how much control or choice she had in what came next.  I doubt that she had much choice, but even if she did, even if she acted somewhat of her own accord, David was the King.  David held all of the power in that situation.  And David used it, not only to have Bathsheba for himself, but also to have Uriah put in harm’s way to cover up the scandal David's abuses created.  When David cannot convince Uriah to go against his duty and lie with his wife, the king, without any sense of remorse or regret, then acts to put Uriah at the front, in the sure line of fire.

            Clearly David abuses his power.  Instead of using his power as King to protect and benevolently lead the people he ruled, he used it instead to serve his own needs, to get what he wanted.  And the consequences of his actions are only beginning to be realized in this first part of the story.

            David’s use and misuse of his power provides a striking contrast to the power Jesus uses in today’s passage from John’s gospel.  Jesus proves his power in the feeding of thousands of people from the meager offering of one boy.  He proves his power by walking on the water toward his disciples caught in a strong wind on a rough sea.

            Neither act of power was for show.  They were done for the nourishment of the people, for the reassurance of his closest followers, and these acts of power were proven not by what he did, but by what he didn’t do.  He didn’t stop his own death.

            Here was a man who could heal with a touch.  People went to Jesus believing they would be healed if only they touched his garments.  And they were!  He fed thousands!  He walked on water!  He preached with an authority that had never been witnessed before.  He frequently got the better of the religious professionals of the day.  He knew what was coming, he knew how his life on earth would end, and with all of his power, it is not hard to believe that he could have found a way to change the ending, but he didn’t.

            It’s significant that Jesus withdrew from the large crowds because they wanted to make him king.  He wasn’t about to be forced into that kind of position, and it wasn’t the kind of power he wanted.  Jesus knew that his greatest power came not from what he could do, but from what he didn’t do.  Jesus’ greatest power was his willingness, even his determination to be the suffering servant, to lay down his life so that countless others might live.

            Jesus held the power of the suffering servant, and that was his greatest power.  And if Jesus was a living testament to the nature of God, doesn’t it follow that God’s power is not the kind of power that hits us like a lightning bolt from the heavens, zapping us when we’re out of line.  God’s power is God’s eternal capacity for love, for mercy and for grace.

            When Paul in his letter to the Ephesians prays for the church in Ephesus and for us to be “strengthened in our inner beings with power through his Spirit” maybe this kind of power is the power that Paul prays for us to feel and to know.

            The power of God isn’t about position or politics.  It isn’t about having license to do whatever we want to do, to serve our own needs while flaunting or abusing the needs of others.  Being filled with God’s power gives us the power to love as God loves.  Being filled with God’s power gives us the power to show mercy when we are wronged, to show grace to someone who has hurt us.  Being filled with God’s power gives us the power not only to show these qualities of character but to live them.

            How wonderful if everyday I could live loving others the way God loves me.  If I could live as mercifully toward others the way God has shown me mercy.  If I could live as graciously toward others the way God has offered me grace.  How wonderful it would be, how much strength and true power would my life really hold?  But I am very far away from this goal.  Maybe some of you are too.  So then, Paul’s prayer still holds true for all of us.  May all of us find the power, the true power of God, may we be filled with it, strengthened by it, live according to its call, and may this power, this real and true power, root us and ground us in the love of God.  Amen.

A Silver Platter

Mark 6:14-29

July 15, 2012

            Sometimes being a prophet means getting your head handed to you on a silver platter.

            Bishop Oscar Romero was an El Salvadoran priest.  He is considered a saint of the church, and we often hear his name in connection with All Saint’s Day.  Bishop Romero was made Archbishop of San Salvador to the disappointment of many of El Salvador’s priests who were working for the liberation of the poor and promoting the work of liberation theology. 

            Romero was a conservative choice; the powers that be in the El Salvadoran government saw him as a safe choice.  He wouldn’t shake things up or cause any kinds of problems for them.  I’m sure that certain people in that government saw him as an easy, malleable mouthpiece for their ideology.  In other words he wouldn’t get in their way.

            But then another Jesuit priest, a good friend of Romero’s, was assassinated for his work with the poor and his stand against the government.  This was a defining moment in Romero’s life.  When he saw his friend’s dead body, he knew that was being called to walk that same path. 

            So he took up the cause of the poor.  He spoke against the government.  He was unafraid to call into question the injustice of those in power and with privilege.  In March of 1980 Romero was assassinated as he presided over mass.  The gun shots were fired as he raised the chalice during the Eucharist. 

            Sometimes being a prophet means getting your head handed back to you on a silver platter.  Sometimes being a prophet costs you your life.

            I don’t say that lightly or in jest.  Being a prophet, speaking prophetically to the powers that be, especially when you are speaking against the powers that be, is a dangerous thing to do.  Bishop Romero is just one example.  Certainly there are many, many others.  Answering the prophetic call is a dangerous thing to do. 

            Studying our passage today and studying the verses around it, I wonder if the twelve disciples didn’t feel at least a little hesitant about going out on their own when Jesus sent them.  Were they being called to suffer the same fate as John the Baptizer?  Would they have to sacrifice their very lives for the message of good news that they shared?

            At the end of the passage we read last week Jesus commissioned the twelve disciples to go out two by two into villages and towns.  He gave them the authority to cast out unclean spirits and heal the sick and the lame.  And this is what King Herod heard about in our passage today.  Jesus’ name and fame had been spreading.  Now even his disciples were going out into the countryside, healing and proclaiming repentance.

            That made Herod nervous.  He was scared.  Because maybe this fellow doing all these things was actually John raised from the dead.  And if it was John, would he be coming after Herod?

            King Herod imprisoned John because John told Herod that he was wrong in marrying his brother Phillip’s wife, Herodias.  John never hesitated to proclaim to Herod that his marriage was unlawful.

            Surprisingly enough, Herod wasn’t angered by this as much as he was frightened.  Herod was actually scared of John.  He knew that John was righteous and holy.  Maybe he was scared of John’s authority or strangeness or complete conviction that he spoke the truth of God.  Maybe he was scared because he knew that John was right in what he was saying about Herod’s marriage.  Whatever the reason, Herod protected John.  He protected John probably as a way of protecting himself.

            But Herod’s wife, Herodias, felt differently.  Her grudge against John ran deep.  She wanted to see him dead but was thwarted in her desire because of Herod’s protection. Her chance finally came, however, during Herod’s birthday party.  The dance that her daughter, often called Salome, did for Herod and his companions pleased him so much that he promised her anything she wished.  When she asked her mother’s advice on how to have Herod fulfill that promise, the response was instant, “the head of John the Baptizer.”

            This story sounds like something out of a crime story, doesn’t it?  A little Law and Order in the gospel.  And it seems more than a little strange that Mark goes into such great detail about it.  Matthew’s gospel tells the story, but it doesn’t seem to have as much emphasis placed on it.  Luke’s gospel mentions it in only a few verses and then moves on. But Mark seems to find it very important.

            It certainly presents a pattern as to what happens to prophets.  John’s story parallels in some ways the story of Jesus.  And this story also serves as a cautionary tale that discipleship is not easy.  It’s not always pleasant and it certainly wont’ be profitable.  The twelve disciples, heading out in different directions, certainly had to realize this and we have to realize it as well.  Discipleship isn’t easy because we are called to do difficult things and speak difficult truths.  We’re called to love and care for difficult people.  We’re called to reach out to others, to step outside of our comfort zones.  And we’re called to speak the truth to the powers and principalities – even if speaking that truth means great risk to ourselves.  Even though speaking that truth and calling people and institutions to accountability may mean that we literally or figuratively receive the same fate as John – our head on a platter.

            The telling of the story of John’s beheading is done through flashback.  Mark writes that the reason Herod is nervous about Jesus and his disciples is that he fears a return from John.  The use of flashback means the disciples probably knew John’s story.  They knew what happened to him.  They knew that what they were doing carried great risk and danger.  John’s story is a reminder about what can happen when someone steps outside of the status quo.  Teaching and preaching outside of the social, cultural and religious lines was a dangerous and risky thing to do.  It cost John his very life, and we, the readers and the hearers of this gospel can see that John’s story is also a foreshadowing of another death yet to come.

            I have long been fascinated with John the Baptist, the baptizer.  The prophet who one day appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming the need for a baptism of repentance.  He was a strange and charismatic man.  His clothes were strange, his words were strange, even his diet was strange.  He stood out.  And he never shirked from saying what he believed God was calling him to say.  Just before Jesus begins his public ministry, we hear of John’s arrest.  Now we know the rest of the story. 

            But what does it mean for us?  What does it mean to hear about this terrible death of a prophet?  Maybe we read this story so that we can answer a question.  When the time comes for us to stand up, to speak the truth, to act prophetically, what will we do?  What will we risk? 

            A few years ago, I heard about a woman named Leymah Gbowee.  Leymah is a woman from the African country, Liberia.  Her work for peace in her country has gained her international recognition, including winning the Nobel Prize. 

            Describing her work in that way doesn’t really do justice to what this woman, along with hundreds and hundreds of other women, did to bring peace to their troubled country.  Liberia had lingered in a civil war for many years under the dictatorship of President Charles Taylor.  In that civil war, children were forced into being soldiers, women and children were raped and tortured and thousands of innocents were killed.  Leymah said in an interview that from the time she was 18 until she was 31, she lived in fear.  She admits that she never wanted to put herself at risk.  She never wanted to put her family at risk.  But she felt that she was called, as a Christian, to speak out against the violence that was happening all around her.  Along with other Christian women, she began a peace movement.  They began to protest with sit-ins, sitting in a field on a route that the president would have to pass by twice  a day.  Their sit-ins brought attention to the atrocities that were happening to their children and their country. 

            Like any movement it started slowly, but it gained momentum.  Leymah and the women who stood with her even had a chance to confront President Taylor in front of the other leaders of the government and a large assembled crowd.  It was Leymah and the other women who kept the peace talks going between the differing groups at a peace summit in Ghana. 

            Leymah, this woman who had once been so afraid and so scared to speak up and speak out, become a prophet.  Her story ends well.  But it could have been much different, and I suspect that she is still in danger because of her willingness to confront the evil in the powers and principalities around her.  I suspect that she could still wind up with her head on a platter.  But she did it anyway.  Just like John.  Just like the disciples.  Just like Jesus. 

            We know that what we are called to do will not be easy.  We know that being a disciple is about taking risks.  We know that at some point we all may be called to be prophetic.  But we also know that no matter what, we are not alone.  We stand on the shoulders of all those who have gone before us.  And through faith, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the love of God, we know that when our time comes we will have the courage to stand up and be counted.  Amen.
 

This Was Our First Rodeo!

                My son Zach and I went to our first rodeo last night.  What I’m about to write next will sound like a contradiction at best, definitely paradoxical.  It was fun.  We were bored. 

            A word of introduction; Shawnee, Oklahoma plays host to the International Finals Youth Rodeo.  This is a great event for our city.  Young people from all over the world know about Shawnee.  It obviously brings people together.  The rodeo is a good thing for Shawnee and for the people who participate.  Going to it was fun.  It was fun to shop for our cowboy hats at the trade show before the evening events kicked off.  It was fun to see the different people who attended.  I saw one of my parishioners on the way in, and chatted.  Two of my other parishioners were honored for their long time volunteering for the rodeo.  I know absolutely nothing about horses, but they were beautiful.  It was fun!

            At the same time, it was boring. Those were Zach’s words.  “I’m bored.”  When we left and were walking out to our car, he explained to me why he thought it was boring.  He liked the events.  He liked watching the cowgirls and cowboys ride their horses, rope calves, and race around the poles.  Definitely the bucking broncos were exciting.  But he didn’t understand it.  He didn’t get it, so he was bored.  So was I.

            What I didn’t know about rodeos is that there is a whole culture built up around this.  It has its own lingo.  Clothing lines that I’d never heard of, like Cinch, Justin and Cruel, are huge at the rodeo!  I figured out that they were going for the best times in the competitions.  How long can you stay on a bucking horse?  How fast can you rope a calf?  How quickly can you race your horse around poles and not knock any of them down?  The competitors and their families and it seemed like most of the folks who were there seemed to have been immersed in this life their whole lives.  But what about Zach and I?  We were clueless. 

            You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?  What about the church?  Do you think the people who visit our churches leave as confused and bewildered as Zach and I were at the rodeo?  I bet they do.  And I bet the complaint that church is boring to some may in fact stem from feeling clueless, and worse, excluded. 

            It’s overly simplistic to say that all the antagonism I see in our larger culture against the church comes from merely being bored by a Sunday service.  But what about feeling excluded?  Ignored?  Unwelcomed?  I don’t think those of us who grew up immersed in the language of church realize that there are many other people who just don’t understand what we’re saying.  They may have a genuine interest in being part of a community of faith, but they come to church and don’t get it.  So they leave bored, frustrated and disinclined to visit again. 

            Let’s not forget the power of being welcomed either.  In today’s typical church, any church, we assume we’re friendly and welcoming because we’re friendly and welcoming to one another.  That doesn’t necessarily translate or transfer to someone new. 

            In the summer of 2006 my family went on a sabbatical to Michigan.  After we'd returned to our home in Iowa, one sunny Sunday morning the kids and I decided to visit the large church across the street from our house.  We had no other church commitments that morning and it seemed like a good time to try something new.  As I said, this was our neighbor church.  Across the street from the home we lived in for 11 years.  This was a relatively small town.  Neighbors knew one another.  In spite of this no one, except one of the three pastors, said hello to us.  No one welcomed us.  No one offered their hand.  No one invited us to stay for fellowship or asked our name or greeted us in anyway.  We were that church’s neighbors!  And we were excluded.  Although that church was a different denomination, the language wasn’t a barrier, because we are church goers.  But the lack of welcome was. 

            My point is a simple one.  We bemoan the decline in membership in every mainline denomination in this country.  But what is it about church that really attracts people?  I don’t write this as a way of saying that churches need to jump on the do-any-kind-of-worship-or-program-there-is-in-the-desperate-hope-we’ll-get-new-members bandwagon.  However I do believe that we have to welcome critique about the welcome we give people.  I believe we have to talk about the language we use.  I think we have to think about what we do or don’t do that makes people get it or just leave bored. 

            I realized that had someone who spoke rodeo sat with Zach and I last night and taken the time to explain the events, what was happening, what was at stake, it would have contributed exponentially to our experience and fun.  Maybe being willing to do the same thing during worship or fellowship or in a phone call or over a cup of coffee with someone seeking God might help them go from clueless to curious.  Maybe if we shared the love and joy and passion we find in our faith in everyday terms, a life or two just might be transformed.  Maybe it will be our own.  

We do look cool in our hats!

A Different Kind of Jesus

Mark 6:1-13

July 8, 2012

            A few years ago, before I started the call process that lead me here, I went looking for a new pastoral call.  However my heart wasn’t really in the search.  I wasn’t sure I was ready to move or take a full-time call yet.  So I got my paperwork together, limited my geographical search and didn’t have a lot of confidence that anything would come from it.

            I did talk with a few churches, but the most interesting query I received actually was from the Presbyterian Church in Rockville, Maryland.  It was interesting because this church was my first call out of seminary.  I went there as an Associate Pastor.  In the e-mail correspondence I had with the chair of the search committee, whose name I did not recognize, I told him that I had already served there.  His response was that he knew that, and there were members of the search committee who remembered me and were eager for me to come back. 

            I’m not immune to flattery and this was flattering, so I told him I’d really think and pray about it.  And I did.  The conclusion I came to was that even if I’d felt compelled to pursue that call, going back to where I’d once been was too fraught with problems.  I realized that there’d be a lot of people who would be glad to have me back, but they’d expect the young, naïve pastor I’d once been.  I’d grown as a pastor and as a person in the years since I’d left Rockville.  But I believe it is human nature to forget that fact.  I wasn’t sure that I could pastor that church, not in the way I would want.  So I respectfully declined.

            It wasn’t all that hard to make that decision when it came to going back to Rockville.   But had a call come from a church in Nashville, Tennessee, that would have been a different story altogether.  Nashville is my hometown, and I often say that had I known when I moved away from there that I would never go back, I’m not sure I would have ever left. 

            Had a call come from Nashville, I would have been tempted to take it whether or not it was a real call, a good match or anything else.  That’s because there’s a part of me that will always long to go home again.  Nashville maintains a rosy glow in my mind. 

            The problem though is that there is a disconnect between my rosy image and Nashville as it actually is.  It’s not that Nashville isn’t a great city.  It is.  It’s just that it’s not the city I grew up in.  It has grown and changed and evolved, in ways that I think are both good and bad.  So whenever I make a visit, it is somewhat disorienting.  I have to relearn my way around and figure out what makes my city tick all over again. 

            If I’m disoriented by the changes I encounter in my hometown, I can only imagine how disoriented the people of Jesus’ hometown must have been encountering him. 

            Jesus and the disciples came into town.  As soon as the Sabbath arrives, Jesus did what he does, which is not only to attend services at the local synagogue, but to teach and interpret the Word of God to all who will listen.  But that’s where the trouble started.    

            The people were astounded at Jesus’ teaching with authority, as people often are when it comes to Jesus, but these are the people who knew him when.  These are the folks who remember him when he was a kid.  These are the people who know his family.  These are the ones who hold the stories of his childhood.  So when the man that Jesus had become stood up and preached and taught and did all of it with the authority of not just a really talented preacher and teacher, but as the One with the authority of the divine, they can’t hear it.  They cannot get past their memories of him as the carpenter’s son and see him for who and for what he really is. 

            Not only could they NOT get past their memories of Jesus, who Jesus had become offended them.  Jesus realized what was happening and said, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” 

            From that point on, Jesus couldn’t do anything for them.  He couldn’t do any deeds of power.  Sure, he was able to heal a few people with the laying on of hands, but considering how many he’d been able to heal before, this was pretty much nothing. Then we leave this part of our passage with these words, “and he was amazed at their unbelief.”

            He could do no deeds of power and he was amazed at their unbelief.

            This is not the kind of Jesus we’re used to hearing.  This is a different kind of Jesus.  A Jesus whose ability to heal and perform deeds of power was stymied by the unbelief of the people around him. 

            This is such a remarkably different kind of Jesus that when Matthew and Luke take on this story in their gospels they change this part.  In Matthew’s gospel Jesus chooses not to do anything.  The people’s unbelief doesn’t thwart him.  He makes a conscious choice not to heal.  And Luke just leaves this bit out altogether. 

            Yet this is one of the main reasons why I love the gospel of Mark.  As challenging as Mark can be, it is in this gospel more than any other where Jesus’ humanity rises to the top.  But that’s what is both frustrating and a little frightening about this gospel, especially this passage.  We see Jesus as very, very human.  And with his humanity comes human limitations.  He can’t do any deeds of power.  This is not a choice he makes.  He can’t do it. 

            This makes sense in light of last week’s story as well.  The woman who has bled for twelve years doesn’t ask Jesus to heal her.  She touches his clothing and his power leaves him.  It is a completely passive healing on Jesus’ part.  He has no control over it.  The power leaves him without his willing it or doing something to make it happen.  He has power but he has no power over how it is used in that particular moment.  And in today’s story, whatever power he has used in other places is useless here.  He can’t do any deeds of power in his hometown.

            A Jesus who can’t do something is definitely a different kind of Jesus, isn’t he?  I suspect that many people don’t want this kind of Jesus.  They want a Jesus who has absolute power.  They want a Jesus, they want a God, who is in absolute control over all things, all events, all places, all people at all times.  So to hear that Jesus can’t do something is scary.  I think it’s scary because it presents an image of Jesus as powerless.  Whether I like to admit it aloud or not, I feel powerless most of the time.  The last thing I want is the God I worship to be powerless too.

            But here’s where I think we have to parse out the word power.  As I see it, our human way of understanding power is to equate it with control.  I am powerful if I am in control.  If I can maneuver and manipulate all the aspects of my life then I have control, and subsequently I have power. 

            Yet when we read the gospel, not just Mark’s gospel but all the gospels carefully, this is not the power that is portrayed.  Jesus’ power, his real power, comes from being the suffering servant.  It comes from his weakness, from his obedience.  He heals and preaches and teaches and does great deeds but it’s not through control or manipulative power.  It’s through love.

            That’s where Jesus’ power really comes from, isn’t it?  It’s through love.   

            The people who experience that love, that power, are transformed by Jesus.  Whether they are healed of a physical ailment or their hearts are softened, they experience the power of Jesus when they experience his love. 

            And therein lies the rub of this passage.  The burden of responsibility is placed on the people.  Jesus can’t do great deeds of power because the people are not receptive to him.  They close their minds and their hearts to him.  They refuse to see him as anything but Mary and Joseph’s kid.  So he can’t do for them all the things he’s done for others.  Their lack of belief limits Jesus.

            So here is the question I think we all must ask ourselves.  How are we limiting Jesus?  How are we being unreceptive?  Are we keeping Jesus’ ability to heal us at bay because of a wound we won’t acknowledge or a grudge we won’t let go of?  Are there ways in which we’re making it impossible for Jesus to do any deeds of power in our lives because of our unbelief? 

            This is a different kind of Jesus to be sure.  But the reality of Jesus’ humanity does not lessen the good news of love.  Jesus’s power is the power of love.  And I believe that it is love that can break down every wall we construct to keep Jesus and one another out.  The people of Jesus’ hometown may have thwarted his ability to heal or do great deeds of power.  But they did not limit his love. Let’s not limit ours.  Alleluia.  Amen.