Lessons from the Redneck Riviera

Matthew 10:40-42

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

I grew up in Northwest Florida.  They called it the Redneck Riviera because that’s where all the redneck Alabama families would go to vacation.  You know, now that I think about it, Kelly’s from Alabama… and her family vacationed there.  Hold on!  Wait a minute!  Could my Kelly be from a Redneck Alabama family?  What?  

Anyway, that area of Florida has every species of poisonous snake that lives in the United States, all in one place.  I’m also Gen X which means I was often out in the woods for 10 to 12 hours every day in the summer completely unsupervised, mostly barefoot, and totally feral.  That combination developed in me a VERY fined-tuned sense of situational awareness.  I NOTICE what’s going on around me at all times!  I can FEEL if there is something or someone close to me.  Knowing every step you take can be potentially deadly turns out to be a very effective way to learn to notice what’s going on around you.

Moving North, I noticed people’s situational awareness was less developed.  In Maine, where there are no poisonous snakes at all, there seemed to be no situational awareness at all.  I know correlation does not mean causality, but when you push your cart up to someone blocking the whole aisle at the supermarket and they remained completely oblivious to your presence?  I mean, if I was a snake, I would have bit ‘em!  

Anyway, I tell you all that, because I think the very first step in Welcoming the “Little Ones” or anyone else, for that matter, is NOTICING THAT THEY ARE THERE!  WE NEED TO SEE THEM.  WE NEED TO SEE THE OTHER IN ORDER TO WELCOME THE OTHER.  

And we need to notice them.  We need to see them.  Not for what they can do for us.  Not as potential movers of the needle, drivers of efficiency, or optimizers of work flow.  NO!  We need to notice them as fellow human beings… in communion with us, in communion with creation, and in communion with the Divine.  We need to notice them for their ability to care, love, mess up, repent and tell the truth.  We need to notice them, not for what in them can be mined, manipulated, and monetized, but as beloved children of God.  We need to notice the other, as a living WONDER… A MIRACLE, made in, and reflecting nothing less than the image of the Divine.

In his recent encyclical, Pope Leo writes that the quality of a civilization is measured not by its power, but by the care it offers: reading stories to a child; keeping company with an elderly person; making a home welcoming.  

Philosopher Jim Stump reflecting on what the Pope wrote says “These are not inefficient tasks waiting to be automated. They are practices through which we become human.”  He says, “Maybe one day AI will read stories (to children) with flawless pacing and perfect voices.  Maybe it will keep an elderly person company with inexhaustible patience.  Maybe it will recommend the ideal arrangement of furniture, lighting, and music to make a home feel welcoming.  Fine.  But WE still need to read to children.  WE still need to sit with the elderly.  WE still need to make places hospitable for others with our own hands and attention.  If we outsource care itself, WE lose something — maybe not for the person on the receiving end (though I’m not convinced of this yet), but certainly for the person who would have given care.”

I think the "something" we loose, when we fail to NOTICE the other, is connection… not just with a fellow human being… but with the God… with the Holy… with the Divine.  I believe that developing, growing, nurturing, and practicing the skill of NOTICING… the skill of genuinely SEEING the other is honing the tools needed to welcome the prophet, welcome the righteous, welcome the little one, welcome Jesus, AND welcome the One who sent him.   

Now, if you wanted to practice NOTICING, you could move to North Florida and walk around barefoot all summer.  A less potentially deadly way to practice noticing would be to look directly into the eyes of the person you are talking to long enough to register their eye color.  Determining their eye color isn’t the point.  The point is that the 4 or 5 seconds it takes to register someone’s eye color turns out to be the same 4 or 5 seconds it takes for us to profoundly SEE the other and for the other to FEEL profoundly and deeply seen.

The world is super busy, always rushed and driven for what it calls efficiency.  Let’s slow it down.  Let’s take time to sit together with our shoes off, touch grass.  Let’s pause to consider what was just said rather than racing to respond.  Let’s sit and look into the eyes of the other, tell stories, laugh, be at ease with one another.  I believe that in doing that we will come to notice, sitting right there in front of us is a creation which contains and reflects the image of the Divine… THE IMAGE OF THE DIVINE… for crying out loud!  And once we see that... welcoming them, caring for them, giving them what they need to fully live… not just what they need to get by, but what they need to live abundantly… will become as simple as handing someone a cold cup of water.  Amen. 

Bruce

 Hosea 5:15—6:6

I will return again to my place

  until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.

  In their distress they will beg my favor:

 “Come, let us return to the Lord,

  for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;

  he has struck down, and he will bind us up.

After two days he will revive us;

  on the third day he will raise us up,

  that we may live before him.

Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;

  his appearing is as sure as the dawn;

 he will come to us like the showers,

  like the spring rains that water the earth.”

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

  What shall I do with you, O Judah?

 Your love is like a morning cloud,

  like the dew that goes away early.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;

  I have killed them by the words of my mouth,

  and my judgment goes forth as the light.

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,

  the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Have you seen the movie, Bruce Almighty?  It’s not new.  You may have, in fact, rented it from Blockbuster… perhaps even on VHS!  Eeek!  Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, wanted to know what it felt like to be God, played by Morgan Freeman.  So, God obliged and among other things, Bruce used his new-found powers to part his tomato soup like it was the Red Sea.

But Bruce was not the first character to be shown what it feels like to be God.  The first was Hosea.  God wanted the prophet Hosea to understand what it felt like to be God in relationship with God’s people.  So, God had Hosea get married to the town’s most infamous prostitute.  Apparently what it feels like to be God, in relationship with God’s people is… “interesting” from the start.  

God tells Hosea to treat his spouse with an abundance of love, grace, generosity, and tender care, no matter what, BECAUSE, that’s how God treats God’s people… no matter what.  So that’s what Hosea does.  But Hosea’s wife… she loves the nightlife, she’s got to boogie… so off she goes, leaving Hosea.  Apparently, part of what it feels like to be God in relationship with God’s people is feeling… unappreciated… unwanted… abandoned.  

Still though, God does not direct Hosea to give up on her.  Instead God tells Hosea to go out and find her, no matter how far she’s gone.  That turns out to be easier said than done, but Hosea does eventually find her.  She’s gotten herself sold into slavery, but Hosea buys her freedom.  And apparently, all of that too is what it feels like to be God, in relationship with God’s people.  It feels like a perpetually repeating search and rescue operation for a less than grateful spouse.  

At this point, maybe you’re wondering if this story arc will eventually reveal some deeply hidden gratitude… some wonderful and redeeming qualities in Hosea’s wife that have at long last been cracked open by Hosea’s unwavering love and devotion?  No.  We’re not getting any of that.  Apparently, that too though, is how God feels in relationship with God’s people.  It feels like giving a Divine-Sized investment of love, kindness, generosity and care… and getting a return on that investment from God’s people of… bupkis, squat, nada, zilch, zip, nothing.  

And yet, Hosea learns that God remains undeterred.  God’s character is not changed by the ungrateful response of God’s people.  God continues to be God, regardless of how God’s people respond and that means God always continues doing Hesed, because Hesed is the core of God’s character.  

Hesed, as you might have guessed, is a Hebrew word and it isn’t easy to translate.  In the Hosea passage it is translated as Steadfast Love.  When Jesus uses Hosea’s words in today’s Gospel it gets translated as Mercy.  In other places it might be translated as compassion, righteousness, loving-kindness or faithfulness, just to name a few.  All are correct.  None are complete.  It’s a word that’s used to describe what God is like… which is probably why we have trouble pinning down it’s full meaning.   

But Hesed is the way God works in Creation.  

Hesed is how Jesus dealt with the tax collectors and the sinners… and even the Pharisees.

Hesed is how Jesus cared for the hemorrhaging woman.

Hesed is the way Jesus cared for the devastated father whose daughter had died.

Hesed is how Jesus cared for his dead little girl.

And HESED is how God deals with the likes of you… and even the likes of me!  

God deals with us, exclusively with steadfast love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, healing and life.  Giving more generously than Oprah ever imagined giving out cars!  

God deals with us this way NOT because of who WE are, but because of WHOSE we are… Because of WHO God is.    

WE are God’s beloved and we remain God’s Beloved, no matter how many times we wander off to boogie… in spite of our chronic drought of gratitude… in spite of our profound shortage of “redeeming qualities”… God loves us.  God refuses to let us go.  God comes and finds us when we’ve gotten ourselves hopelessly lost.  God lifts us up when life face plants us in the muck.  God will spend any amount to buy us out of our stuck-ness.  AND God will do all that… all of that… REGARDLESS of our response!  Because doing HESED is the very core of God’s true character!  

We live in a time where people invoke God’s name but insist that God acts in ways directly opposed to God’s true character.  We live in a world where God’s name is used to insist that compassion is weakness, cruelty is power, and our fellow human beings only have value if they can be monetized. 

Hosea is here to remind us what God is REALLY like.  Who God REALLY is.  Hosea is here to remind us that God is full of compassion, full of loving kindness, full of steadfast love and full of mercy for ALL of creation… EVEN for the parts of creation that make themselves the most difficult to love.   

God has, and always will, shower us with Hesed… regardless of  how we respond, because THAT is God’s true character.  As we grow in the understanding of the enormity of that gift, we have the opportunity to emulate God’s character ourselves, and show Hesed to the people WE meet each day.  When we are able to do that… and granted, the world makes that a very challenging ask… but when we can do that, we do nothing less than show the world the true face of God, and THAT is a face this world is desperate… desperate to see.  Amen.

Move On

Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The disciples came to the mountain and there they saw the Resurrected Jesus.  Not the resuscitated Jesus.  Not the ghost of Jesus.  No.  What they saw there was something no one had ever seen, or even imagined, ever before!  They worshiped, because, well, this was clearly Jesus… AND yet they doubted because they were rational, thinking, honest human beings who were seeing something that no one had ever seen or even ever imagined before!  

This mix of worship and doubt didn’t make them unfaithful… it made them human.  It made them honest!  This lesson is NOT here to tell us that we need to “believe better than those darn, doubting, disciples”.  NO!  This lesson is meant to tell us that the most faithful disciples will always be those who move forward while both worshiping AND doubting.  The most faithful disciples will always be those who are willing to live in the uncertainty and discomfort of NOT having their faith all tied up neatly with a bow.  The most faithful disciples will always be those who are honest enough to say out loud, “this is confusing” or “this bit of Scripture contradicts that bit of Scripture” or “I just can’t wrap my mind around this.”  The most faithful disciples will always be those who refuse to do the dishonest acrobatics that some insist we do to make any difficulties, conflicts, or contradictions magically go away.

The original disciples didn’t do that!  They stood there on that hillside and honestly said “This is all more than my brain can process!  I see Jesus, yes, but like NO Jesus I’ve ever seen before and REALLY… HONESTLY, I don’t know what to do next!”  

I find myself these days in a not too dissimilar spot.  Perhaps you do too.  We see Jesus, neither resuscitated, nor as a ghost, but instead, in, with, and under the small, fleeting, wonder-filled moments of lived out human love and compassion AND we are also plagued with doubt about what to do next in this world, which frankly feels all too often like it has no God, because it has become so maddeningly horrible.  We, like those original disciples, believe and doubt all at the same time.  We, like those original disciples very often have no idea what to do next.  

The answer of what to do next given to the disciples then, in this lesson, was not that they needed to fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity, nor fully work out all their other theological conundrums.  NO!  The answer to them about what to do next… was to Go!  Go and live the “Jesus Way” of living in the world and in that Going… and in that Living… other Disciples of the Jesus Way of Going and Living would be made along the way and that would, in time, change the world.

Theologian, Steven Sondheim says it this way:  He says, “Move on.  Stop worrying where you're going.  Move on.  If you can know where you’re going, you've gone.  Just keep moving on.”  Theologian Sam Cooke talks about belief and doubt and carrying on anyway like this:  He says, “It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die. 'Cause I don't know what's up there, beyond the sky.  It’s been a long, a long time coming. But I know a change gon' come, oh yes, it will.”

You and I are overwhelmed by an onslaught of madness day after day.  We believe God is with us, at the very same time we don’t really know what’s up there beyond the sky.  We too don’t know what to do next.  Even those with pointy hats who we think should know, are maddeningly silent… struck dumb by the day’s insanity.  They too have no answers.  They too have no idea what to say.  

But faithful disciples are NOT those who have the answers.  Faithful disciples don't wait until they know exactly what to say.  Faithful disciples have doubt… they have questions… but even while absolutely NOTHING is clear to them… still… they Go.  They take a first step.  Even while believing and doubting all at the same time, they… Move On.  First, one step toward doing justice, and then another step toward loving kindness, stepping humbly along the Way.  Even while being deeply mired in the fog of belief and doubt, they take a step toward the hope filled vision we have been given by Jesus, that love is stronger than hate and that death will not have the last word.  

Faithful disciples GO, even when they are not at all sure they are going in the right direction.  Faithful disciples Move On, not knowing if it’s the right move they’re making.  The decisions we make as faithful disciples may turn out to be wrong, but, the Deciding… the Moving… the Going… is not.    

So we Step out.  We Move On.  We Go.  We Carry On, not waiting for a time that will never come when we can wrap our minds fully and neatly around the Divine and be certain.  We Move On, even while we are still lost in a dark and maddening fog of confused belief and doubt.  We Carry On. We Move On.  We take a next step toward justice, kindness, and humility knowing only one thing… That we Go... That we Move On... That we take that next step, possessing not certainty, but the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit which is with us… always… in some mysterious way…  sometimes profoundly felt and at other times feeling profoundly absent, but with us always… even to the end of the age.  Amen.  

Don't Spit Into the Wind

John 20:19-23

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

What’s your favorite Easter candy?  Cadbury Cream Eggs is the correct answer.  Did you know they make Cadbury Cream Eggs year round and freeze them in order to be able to meet the demand during the Easter Season?  Well, now you do.  What’s your favorite Christmas Candy.  Candy Canes are number one in sales.  But honestly, how many of those go uneaten?  Chocolate Santas, I think, are really where it's at!  Now for the hardest question:  What is your favorite Pentecost Candy?  Easter, Pentecost, then Christmas.  Those are the three top Christian Feast Days in order of importance and both Easter and Christmas have candy… so it stands to reason there should be a Pentecost candy.  Right?  But there’s not!  Why is there no Pentecost candy?   

I think it’s because the Holy Spirit just refuses to be domesticated!  The Holy Spirit, and her Coming Out Day of Pentecost, is something the world simply can not tame!   

Everything about the Holy Spirit is impossible to even hold onto let alone tame.  She’s like the sound of a violent wind or like fire… things impossible to contain.  She’s like the wind but not like a cool evening breeze.  Like fire but not the kind confined in a circle of stones.  The Holy Spirit comes out of nowhere, with a force that breaks open locked doors.  She is untamed.  Powerful.  Determined.  She moves with a tenacious purpose.  To those who seek to manipulate Scripture and use the Divine for their own hateful devices… that makes the Holy Spirit… dangerous.  Because… She simply won’t have it!

Last Sunday on the National Mall there was a celebration of manipulating Scripture and using the Divine for hateful purposes that would have made the Prophet Amos sick all over again.  They didn’t talk about Jesus, let alone the Holy Spirit.  They misrepresented and manipulated scripture to justify working in direct, violent opposition to the Gospel’s call to heal the sick, lift up the broken, feed the hungry, calm the chaos, and raise the dead. 

They celebrated a litany of ongoing blasphemies against the Holy Spirit:  terrorizing the foreigner, misusing the military, demonizing peacemakers, taking away food from the hungry and health care from the sick, and gleefully condemning people to death with nonchalance and bravado.  

But wait.  It is actually so much worse than just that.  Because this movement runs full speed into the warning of the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”  If the Holy Spirit is Wind, what they are doing is spitting right into her face!  And THAT is what Jesus himself called an unforgivable, eternal sin.  But here is the Good News:  The Holy Spirit simply will not have it!  The Holy Spirit remains uncaged, untamed, and She will simply NOT HAVE ANY OF IT!  A Holy Fire is coming!

  

On that first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit blew Her way into this world to take over the work that Jesus began, leading and motivating the faithful to continue doing justice, continue loving kindness, and continue walking humbly with God.  

On that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit blew into the world so that you and I would always have a wild, untamed, unbroken, undomesticated, riotous, ungovernable force leading us more deeply each day into this Holy Work we’ve been given.  

On that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit blew into this world to lead us from the front by giving us the gifts and tools we need to be about God’s work in the world AND, when necessary, to lead us from behind, lighting a holy fire under our nether regions to get us moving again when we find ourselves opposed, oppressed, and overwhelmed.  

On that first Pentecost the promised Holy Spirit came and that same Holy Spirit continues to blow and burn today, unfettered by frail, small men in expensive suits… 

On that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit blew into this world and remains undaunted by tiny, tired, insecure men who erect golden statues to themselves… 

On that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit blew into this world and remains untamed by fearful men who continue to drive our nation deeper into idolatry, heresy, and continually tell us we should just sit down and shut up because God is on their side.  

On that first Pentecost the Holy Spirit blew into this world to lead us neither in sitting down nor in shutting up, but to lead us into the untamed, faithful work that God… Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… has given us to do… the work we have each promised to do in our Baptisms:  

To renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God.  

To renounce the powers of this world that would have us rebel against God.  

To renounce the ways of sin that draw us from God.

To boldly go out and do God’s justice with Holy Spirit Fire.

To Love God’s Kindness launched by a Holy Spirit Wind.

To Walk Humbly with God, but unafraid in the world.  

We have been CALLED to love God and love our neighbor voraciously until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness runs like an ever-flowing stream.  

We have been SHOWN by Jesus what that looks like, caring for the Least, the Lost, and the Last.

And we have been GIVEN the power of the Holy Spirit to do that work with an untamed, unquenchable, holy FIRE!  On THIS Pentecost, we say COME Holy Spirit COME!… and come as always… with an untamable FIRE!  Amen.