Hold On While I Throw This Pulpit Into Reverse

The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 9th Chapter

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Hold on for just a second… I need to shift this pulpit into reverse and the clutch on this church sticks a little…  Alright, now we can back this thing into the Gospel lesson!  

Sometimes figuring out how to get to the heart of a story takes backing into it, rather than looking at it from top to bottom.  Looking at this week’s story from the bottom up, you see Jesus telling the disciples that when they welcome “one such child” they welcome both Jesus and the One who sent him.  In Jesus’s day, children had no status.  They were property at best.  They could be bought, sold and traded… and were.  But here, in this lesson, Jesus wasn’t pointing only to people below the age of adulthood… Jesus was pointing to anyone who was thought of, or treated by those in power as less than legal, less than important, less than human.  

Backing into this lesson challenges us to ask ourselves, WHO… who, in our day, is considered as, or treated as less than legal, as if their life didn’t matter, as if they were less than human?  Who are the weak, vulnerable and desperate being demonized, terrorized and brutalized by those in power?  We know who they are.  They’re in graphic pictures on the news.  They’re the easy scapegoats of fear filled campaign and policy speeches, they’re the ones who cling to rubber rafts… or fail to… and the ones who, right here in Augusta, get told to go back to where they came from.  Jesus said to the disciples… Jesus says to US… “Whoever welcomes one of THESE in my name, welcomes me.”  In them, we will see Jesus.

Now, if you keep backing up, you back into WHAT.  Jesus asked the disciples, “WHAT were you arguing about on the way?”  Jesus asked like he didn’t know… Jesus knew.  Jesus asked in the same way my mom always asked, “whose shoes are these in the middle of the floor”… Mom knew… and Jesus knew too.  Jesus KNEW they were arguing about who was first and who was last… who was a winner and who was a looser.  Jesus KNEW and THAT’S why he lifted that child up to make this point.  Welcoming the least, the lost and the last… THAT is welcoming Christ.  

But WHY were they arguing!?  Keep backing up into that question and you’ll back right into the heart of this lesson… They were arguing because they were afraid.  When people puff themselves up and argue about who is greater and who is not, you can bet THAT is a person living deeply in fear.  Jesus told the disciples what was going to happen but they didn’t understand… the couldn’t understand because they were AFRAID!

Afraid they were loosing control.  Afraid they'd been wrong about Jesus, that he wouldn’t raise an army, kick out the Romans and become their king…They were afraid that with every step toward Jerusalem they were becoming more like that child… more like someone who wasn’t in control, wasn’t on top and more like one whose life just didn’t matter.  They were afraid that what Jesus was saying was true!  That being transformed by God meant not living on top of the world in a gold plated palace… but that being transformed by God meant living from the bottom… being transformed by a cross.  

What Jesus was saying was true… it still is true… the path to a fulfilling, purpose filled life comes through nailing our preferences, privileges and priorities to the cross and letting them die.  When we insist on holding on tight to what we have, we’re never able to open our hands enough to receive the gift of life God is giving us.  The one prerequisite for resurrection is death.  Easter only happens after Good Friday.  It means loosening our grip, our need to control, our need to hold on to what is known and what’s safe… It means letting go of everything the world tells us is important… allowing all that we have, all that we know, all that we are, to fall more and more and more deeply into the arms of God and completely allow ourselves to be molded, reshaped and changed by God into the new creation God is calling us to be.  

THAT is how it works… but I’ll tell you a secret.  I’m not very good at doing it.  I’m good at thinking about it.  Up here, in my noodle, I understand it… In fact, up here in my noodle I LOVE it for it’s beauty, grace, simplicity, and particularly for it’s irony… but DOING it is hard… I like talking about it too (obviously)… but to let go of my need to be in control… particularly when it comes to the parts of my life around holding onto resources and money so that I… I… can provide for my family.  I find that part very hard to release.  But you know, I think that too is part of what Jesus was trying to teach us with that child.  

There’s a TED talk by Amy Cuddy who advises not to “fake it till you make it” but “Fake it till you BECOME it.”  This is the other reason Jesus pulled that child onto his lap.  Children don’t think about walking until they can do it perfectly… they fake it until they become a walker.  Children don’t contemplate the theory of playing an instrument until they are perfect from the beginning… they fake being a musician until they become one!  They begin with nothing and are transformed into walkers and musicians in the same way Christians like you and me start with nothing and are lifted up and transformed into the radically welcoming, compassionate, loving and generous people God is calling us to be.    

So, just as Jesus walked the disciples one step at a time toward Jerusalem… and one step at a time God transformed them into Saints, we too are called to take one step at a time toward trusting God to mold us into what God is calling us to become as well.  And it’s time to take a step.  Just one small step, away from yourself and toward the other… toward the one the world has demonized, brutalized and forgotten.  ONE, concrete, physical step… not just in our heads… but with our hands and feet, with our actions and advocacy.  

It’s time to take a step.  Just one small step toward being as generous with what we have, as God has first been generous with each of us.  Not just in our heads or with our prayers, but with our money, time and gifts as well.  Just one small step toward a deeper, more regular, continual practice of giving and generosity.  

It’s time for us to take one shaky, stumbling baby step toward God, who like a parent calls each of us, every moment of every day to take one tentative step toward God’s loving outstretched arms, reaching out to us with the biggest possible smile, inviting us to fake it until we become everything God has created us to be.   Amen.  

Mountain Paths and New Life

The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 8th Chapter

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Way, way back when people first started following Jesus, they weren’t called Episcopalians… they weren’t even called Lutherans!  The first thing people who followed Jesus were called, were followers of “The Way” and that’s in large part because Jesus was always on the road… WALKIN’.  But in addition to describing Jesus’s mode of transportation, “The Way” was also a particular “Way” of living and being that Jesus knew had the power to transform individual people, communities and literally all of creation, from what they were into what God intended them to be… always bigger and more wonderful than any of us could imagine.    

When I think of walking a path like that, I think of Glen.  I met Glen on internship.  Lutherans, for seminary, do two years of classroom work, then go out and serve a church under the guidance of a seasoned pastor for a year and then return for one last year of classes.  Glen was a member of my internship congregation in Libby, Montana.  He was a retired forest service guy and toward the end of my time in Montana he invited me to go hiking with him.  He told me that he loved hiking but these days he only had “low gear.”  Personally, I thought “low gear” was perfect!  I also thought that for a guy who was 83, “low gear” was pretty dang impressive!  

So, off we went… up, up, up a one-person-wide path, up switch backs all the way up, and as we kept walking I noticed there was only room for one of us to lead.  If I had tried to pass Glen and take over the lead, I would have fallen off the edge of the mountain.  Only one could lead and that’s what was happening with Peter and Jesus in today’s Gospel.  Jesus was leading the Disciples on “The Way”… a narrow path, not up a mountain, but down into Jerusalem… to his death and resurrection and Peter tried to take the lead.  He wanted them to go the way he had always been taught things would go with the Messiah…. they’d raise an army, throw the Romans out and crown Jesus King!  But Peter’s way wasn’t God’s way… it wasn’t the Divine way… it wasn't “The Way or the Truth and it would never lead to Life”… like the Devil had done before, Peter was tempting Jesus in the wilderness and Jesus called him on it, “GET BEHIND ME SATAN!”  

To make things clear to Peter and the disciples back then and to us disciples now, Jesus turned and says, “If you want to follow me then you’ll need to allow all YOUR plans to be crucified… allow YOUR agendas to be killed… your own notions murdered… your own egos sacrificed and THEN follow me down this one, difficult, frightening, narrow, painful and dangerous path, THROUGH death and on to resurrection.”

That was a hard, hard thing for Peter to hear and it’s a hard, hard thing for us to hear too.  After all, following Jesus would be so much less difficult if we could just follow Jesus OUR WAY, wouldn’t it?  Even better, if we could just follow Jesus MY WAY then it wouldn’t be hard at all!  It would feel good, comfortable, predictable and completely under control.  Unfortunately there’s just one problem… when I insist on following Jesus MY WAY then I’m no longer FOLLOWING Jesus, on THE WAY.  

If you and I are going to be disciples… if we are going to be FOLLOWERS of Jesus, we’re going to have to let Jesus lead, even (and especially) when Jesus leads us to places we REALLY wish he wouldn’t!  If we’re going to be followers of Jesus we’re going to have to follow him into the uncomfortable and even the downright frightening, because the thing about Jesus is that while he ALWAYS leads us to NEW LIFE…  he always leads us to that NEW LIFE by way of death.  The “new life” part sounds GREAT!  But the reality is that new life ALWAYS and ONLY comes by way of the cross, and that reality just isn’t easy to swallow.  For you and me, it means taking our own ideas of how to be a Christian… our own ideas about how to “do church” and nailing them to the cross and letting them die.  It means taking what we’ve grown comfortable with over generations and generations… taking what we’ve grown familiar with over a lifetime and walking to the place where those things get speared in the side.  

Jesus is leading all of us, and all of creation to become transformed into the creation God intended us to be from the beginning.  But the hard part… the uncomfortable reality Peter hated to face… is that all transformation… for creation, for our churches and for ourselves, is that real transformation only happens through the process of death and resurrection… and the death part is HARD!

Jesus’s call for us to take up our cross and follow, is not a call to suffer quietly through the individual hardships that we all encounter in this life.  Jesus’s call to take up our cross and follow is a call to allow God to change us completely from what we are today, into the creation God is calling us to be.  It’s frightening, because what we are today is KNOWN… it’s familiar… it’s comfortable… while the thing God is calling us to become is a complete mystery, and to make it all worse, we know the path to that new creation doesn’t just LOOK like death… it IS the death of everything that was!  

BUT!  HERE is the promise of following Jesus… HERE is the promise of following THE WAY:  Light ALWAYS shines in the darkness and darkness can NEVER overcome it!  Captives are ALWAYS set free!  Storms and chaos are ALWAYS calmed!  Easter ALWAYS follows Good Friday and a NEW and ABUNDANT LIFE, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS blooms out of what, to all the world, looks like the bitter end.  

I am simply in awe of what you are doing here at St. Barnabas and St. Matthews.  You have decided to follow Jesus on the WAY.  To walk the narrow path and let Jesus lead.  You’ve decided to allow the church that has fed you, cared for you and comforted you for generations to fall even more deeply into the hands of God, to be re-shaped and molded into something new that none of us can yet even begin to fully imagine.  So in the next few weeks and months, as you let go of what was… hold on to the promise of new life!  Hold on to the light and life, even while walking in shadow times and in the darkness of loss and grief.  Hold on to the promise... New Life is coming... Together we are becoming God's new creation!  Amen.  

Temple Talk About Creation

I've been invited by Rabbi Erica Asch to sit on a panel at the Jewish Temple in Augusta with a scientist and an artist, talking about our different views about  Creation as they prepare for the High Holy Days.  This is the text of that talk.  

Thank you for asking me to be a part of this panel.  To start, I’d like to make a couple of disclaimers.  I will not be attempting to represent the sum total of Christian thought on Creation.  There are some very much louder, angrier voices in Christianity that see Creation and the whole of Christianity very, VERY differently than I do.  I won’t try to explain how they think, because frankly, I can’t begin to figure out how they think.  What I can attempt to do tonight is give you a little snapshot of how I approach the texts and share one little tidbit I see God trying to tell me through it.  My methods are not unique in Christianity but it isn’t as loud or angry and therefore doesn’t often make the news.  My second disclaimer is that I started my professional life in the sciences and I still think of myself as a scientist.  My Bachelor’s is in Biochemistry and my Master’s is in Food Science and I have NEVER had a moment of conflict between my faith and science.  So, if you were looking for a Scientist vs. Christian vs. Artist Battle Royal over Creation, well, then you asked the wrong Christian!  

So, with that said, you get what you get, so here we go… I want to start by reading you a poem.  

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

When Robert Frost wrote this poem he wrote something that communicated deep truths.  He wrote something that had pattern, meter and rhythm.  He wrote something that connects with people deeply, powerfully and even spiritually.  What he didn’t write were literal directions to be followed when walking in a wood, yellow, or otherwise.  He wasn’t trying to be Google Maps and he wasn’t trying to define human body mechanics around walking at the molecular level, the muscular/skeletal level or any other level.  If we were able to get Robert Frost to sit here today and say to him, “OH, Mr. Frost, thank you for giving me the directions to find my way home through the woods from Temple tonight.”  I imagine he might look at us with quite a puzzled face.  

HOWEVER.  Just because Frost’s poem makes for TERRIBLE directions to your house and does an AWEFUL job of explaining the biomechanics of human motion over a slightly improved path through a wooded environment, that doesn’t make it without value.  It doesn’t make his poem un-true.  This poem has deep, deep truths in it.  It doesn’t make it less powerful, transformative or insightful either.  In a similar way, when I come to the Biblical texts the first question I ask is what were the authors trying to do with these texts?  So when I look at Genesis, Chapter one, I see a text I understand was written by priests during the exile in Babylon.  I see patterns, rhythms and meter that suggests that this was likely liturgical… it was worship material.  It was the sort of thing the people might have said over and over and over again, every time they gathered.  

So, the next question I ask, is what were they trying to accomplish with this liturgy back then?  Were they trying to do astrophysics, geology or paleontology?  I don't think so, and not just because those ancient people didn't get that stuff either.  When I look at the historical setting in which they were written and the context, to me it seems that the people of Israel were in a bad spot.  They had been defeated and marched out of Israel and now were stuck in Babylon.  According to the wisdom of the day, back then, if your army beat my army that means that your god is stronger, bigger, badder and more powerful than my god.  So when I look at this text, I don’t see the author's goals as trying to define some scientific process.  What I see is a situation where the Babylonians were likely telling the people of Israel over and over again, day after day that they were weak and beaten and so was their God!  So, this liturgy was written, I believe in part as pastoral care.  This was written to be the Jewish community’s reply to the Babylonians… The people of Israel are standing up and shouting over and over and over again back at the Babylonians and proclaiming the timeless, powerful, wonderful truth which is… “NUH UH!”  NUH UH!  Your Babylonian gods are NOT as powerful as our God!  NUH UH!  Our God has NOT left us alone, abandoned in a foreign land.  NUH UH!  We will not forget our faith!  NUH UH!!!

Now, the reason it had to be written as liturgy and the reason it had to be repeated week after week, Sabbath after Sabbath is that frankly, if they were honest, the actual situation out the window looked very much like what the Babylonians were saying was true.  They were in captivity.  They had been defeated in battle.  There didn’t look like there was any hope.   The kids were even going off and starting a life with people outside of the faith!  So to push back against what looked for all the world to be their reality, they had to speak the deeper truth over and over and over again, until that time when what was spoken became what was real, so every week they said, “Let there be!  And there was!  And it was Good!  Let there be!  And there was!  And it was Good!  Let there be!  And there was!  And it was Good!” until what they said for all those years FINALLY and ACTUALLY came into being, just like it had when God first spoke those words at the beginning of all things. 

For me this points to an additional tragedy for the people who insist that this is a scientific text.  They don’t just miss the point of the truth the authors were really trying to teach back THEN, but they also cut off the possibility that the deep, powerful truth of this text from way back then CONTINUES to be a deep and powerful truth for us today.  Because if you bind up this text with literalism, it can’t be anything for you except a terrible description of an ancient event.  BUT, if you see this text as it was intended… as a poem, a liturgy, a powerful, transformational truth for a people in need of a powerful word from Adoni Elohim, then it is FREE to be the same for us today.  

Now, you and I might not be captive in Babylon, but the truth here transcends time, situation and geography.  We all have times where we feel hopelessly bound…  by cancer, addiction, a crummy boss, a racist system, economic injustice or anything else.  This liturgy calls us together as a community to proclaim together at the top of our lungs, NUH UH!  NOT, NEVER, NO WAY are we ever HOPELESSLY bound, because we have a life giving, over flowing WORD of abundant creation and new life from the God of all Creation!!

NEVER stuck, NEVER in short supply, NEVER without hope… EVER!  Because remember, this is the God who creates with such abundance, that the seventh day can be a day off!  HOPE is always in stock!  Wait, there's ALWAYS more!  SO, even when all the world around you is telling you, showing you and taunting you, saying that you are impossibly stuck, and there is no hope…there is THIS DEEPER truth that says… NUH UH!  

I hope that was OK.  It’s obviously not all there is to be said about Creation but I hope it helped as you prepare for the High Holy Days.  Rabbi Erica, all of you… you are a real gift to me and I continually give thanks for our relationship.  Shalom!   

Drawing Circles

The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 7th Chapter

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Thanks this week to Liz Burgess for sharing her Praying in Color meditation for the picture!

He drew a circle to that shut me out –

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in.

This short passage by Edwin Markham shares a truth that is also found in our lessons for today.  Both the lesson from James and the Gospel confront us about how we both consciously and unconsciously ALL draw circles.  In many ways, known and unknown, we draw circles that include some and also exclude others.  Male circles and female circles.  Black circles and white circles.  Rich circles and poor circles.  Educated circles and uneducated circles.  Lutheran circles and Episcopal circles.  We all draw circles.  Some we draw knowingly and others we draw unconsciously but we all draw circles.   

Drawing circles is apparently nothing new.  In the lesson from James, those who were well dressed, wore gold rings and designer labels got a personal escort to the good seats, the private boxes, the executive level.  But those who were poorly dressed and looking shabby got hustled out to the cheap seats on the lawn.  I want to believe that those who were the ushers in James’ world really didn’t think about what they were doing.  I’d like to believe that the people THOUGHT they were welcoming to everyone and the circles they drew were not deliberate but “just the way it’s always been done”, but to be honest, I’m not really sure which is worse.  Is it worse to KNOW what you’re doing... to CONSCIOUSLY be including some and CONSCIOUSLY excluding others?  OR is it worse that your prejudice is so deeply seated in your culture, history, family and story that you THINK you’re being welcoming all the time and treating everyone the same when you bring THOSE people out to their separate but equal seats?  Either consciously or unconsciously the message is clear.  YOU are welcome, but YOU are not!  

In the gospel lesson Jesus faces a similar situation.  Who should be the recipient of God’s grace?  Who is worthy of healing?  Who deserves the power of Christ to work in their lives and who should just go without?  Who’s “in” and who’s “out”?  When this GENTILE... WOMAN... from AWAY... asked for help with her DAUGHTER... well, how far OUT of how many circles can one person be?  In that part of the world at that time, she had a QUADRUPLE wammy!  She was a Gentile... OUT!  WOMAN...OUT OUT!  From AWAY...OUT OUT OUT!  And asking about a child?... OUT OUT OUT OUTTIDY OUT!!!!  

Now the great theological debate here for some theologians much smarter than me is whether Jesus SAW her coming, KNEW what was happening, played into the people’s prejudices and stereotypes, fears and hatreds ON PURPOSE in order to draw in the people watching and then spring the lesson on them about the wideness of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and grace.... OR did God work through this Gentile Woman from Away to enlighten JESUS HIMSELF, as well as all of those disciples who were looking on, that God’s love, healing, mercy, forgiveness, power and salvation has no barriers.  

Now, we could sit here and debate the two natures of Christ and how the completely human or completely divine natures reacted in this situation, but to be honest... IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!!!  Either way, the take home lesson is the same!  God’s love had the wit to win!  God drew a circle and took her in!  God’s grace, love, healing, and salvation is simply boundless.  God’s love is big enough; God draws a big enough circle to include a desperate Gentile woman with a demon possessed daughter... But wait, there’s more!!!  To make sure we get it, we get the lesson a second time, but now it’s a man... an outcast, a deaf and speechless man... probably possessed and at least cursed... what else would leave you deaf and speechless back then?  And once again, God draws a circle big enough for the likes of HIM... and here's the thing... if God can draw a circle to include the likes of HER and HIM, perhaps God could even draw a circle large enough to include the likes of you... or maybe even... the likes of me.  

We all draw circles and every circle includes some and excludes others.  Female and male, white and black, gay and straight.  We draw circles of immigrants, residents, natives and people from away.  We draw circles labeled legal and illegal… Episcopalians and Lutherans... St. Mark’s, St. Matt’s, St. Barnabas, Prince of Peace... Decaf and Regular!  Either consciously or unconsciously we all draw circles, but when Jesus said “Be Opened” he was opening WAY more than just a deaf man’s ears!  When Jesus said “Be Opened!” the circles that had been drawn around that man, labeling him as possessed, cursed, outcast, disabled, broken and unwelcome… all of those circles that had excluded him before were now ripped wide open and all the love, grace, healing, compassion, community and life that had been kept out came flooding in!

But wait there’s even MORE!  On the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished!” and the curtain in the Temple ripped from top to bottom and in that moment Jesus stuck his fingers in the ears of all creation, spit at death and the devil, ripped open every circle that had ever been drawn and to this day keeps ripping circles open even faster than we can draw them!  Our challenge, as ones who have been freed from the circles drawn around our lives by Christ, is to live God’s truth and keep drawing the circles we draw wider and wider and wider each day so that we begin to draw our circles like God draws circles… big enough to include every single one of us and all of creation!

He drew a circle to that shut me out –

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in.  Amen.

Tradition!

The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 7th Chapter

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

When I got to my first church they were celebrating their 125th anniversary and two old traditions in the history caught my eye.  The first was The Lord’s Acre.  Back then, every family would dedicate an acre of their crops to mission work.  When I got there only a couple families still farmed and the tradition had faded with the family farms.  The other had been spittin’ your chewin’ tabbacky juice on the floor of the church!  Bringing that tradition to an end, according to the history, almost split the church!  Ah, tradition!

The Pharisees had traditions too.  Ancient Jerusalem was diverse.  Lots of people mixed together from all over the known world, so keeping the Jewish people together was a challenge.  One of the ways the Pharisees tried to help their people stick together was to create traditions around eating.  Washing yourself and your food in a ritual manner before eating created a barrier between the outside world, where work and play bumped you up against people of other faiths, and the inside, Jewish world.  

Well, that system made good sense in the city but out in the country... not so much.  In the country, the whole community was Jewish.  There just wasn’t a need to break from some, outside non-Jewish world, to an inside Jewish-only world... because well, the only people you ever bumped into anywhere were all Jews!  The city traditions just didn’t make any sense out in the country.  

But, out to the country the Pharisees came, looking to show how unfaithful Jesus was for not doing things the way they’d always been done.  Needless to say, making Jesus look unfaithful didn’t work.  But there was a bigger problem than the tradition no longer making any sense... the traditions had, for the Pharisees, become more important to them than God.  “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition,” Jesus told them.  They had become more worried about following the practices THEY had put in place than living the life God called them to live.  In their obsession with staying faithful, they had blindly walked right over the very FIRST of the Ten Commandments and turned their traditions into idols.

Now, it’s always tempting to give the Pharisees grief.  They make good fall-guys, but before we get too enthusiastic about piling on, it’s good to remember who the Pharisees were.  They were the regular attenders, the tithers, the ones who served on all the committees... they were the folks who took their faith the most seriously.  So, for me, just when I feel most tempted to give the Pharisees the hardest of times, I remember that the Pharisees not only show up in Scripture, but sometimes they show up in my mirror too.   

Think about the last time you found your favorite tradition was threatened by the chopping block.  Were you upset because that tradition helped you remember that one in five kids are hungry in our city or because it helped you forget it?  Do we get more worked up about hunger or hymnals?  Human rights or the right church rite?  Are we concerned for justice, or are we worried more about just us?  At what point does the tradition created to point us to God, tip over and become a god itself?  Those Pharisees aren’t just found in the pages of scripture.  They’re right there, all too annoyingly often in the mirror too.  

Jesus, when he was asked to sum up the faith, said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.”  In every time and place, wonderful, faithful people have started beautiful, powerful traditions.  Traditions which help transport us closer to God and deeper into the love of our neighbor.  But even the most amazing, powerful, beautiful and long held traditions... THEY AIN’T GOD!  So we always need to ask... Does this thing we do still point us toward God?  Does it still call us to a deeper love of God and neighbor?  Or has something happened and what used to help us connect with God, somehow now distract us from God and somehow now perversely keeps us from living lives of kindness, doing justice and walking humbly with God?  

Many, many of our traditions still do a wonderful, powerful, beautiful job of helping us connect with God and care for the world.  Sometimes a tradition that’s gotten off track might just need a new twist.  In my first church, the Lord’s Acre became the name of the church’s produce stand, the money still going to missions.  Other traditions, like spittin’ yer tabbacky on the sanctuary floor, probably need to stay comfortably retired!  

As we continue to welcome other churches and guests into what the Holy Spirit is stirring up in this place, there will be more and more traditions converging here.  We’ll need to take each one out, honor it for the work it has done, but also honestly examine it to make sure it still points us to God and caring for our neighbor.  Some will need to be tweaked and some retired and some will need to be created new.  We don’t often think about the start of a tradition but really, any tradition can be traced back to a couple of people who said, “Well, I don’t know, let’s try it this way.”

  

We Christians are people, who at our core, believe that Easter, transformation, new life, resurrection... those things only happen by way of Good Friday, letting go, commending of the spirit and the death of what came before.  Jesus didn’t just TELL us that truth, he lived, died and was raised to SHOW us that truth.  

May God continue to be with us in the exciting and ever changing days ahead, giving us courage each day to accept and even embrace the death of what was, so that we might all rise to the new life God has in store for us and for those who are on their way.  Amen. 

Have You Decided?

The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 6th Chapter

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

“Have you been saved?”  When I’m asked that I say “YES”... because I am... and, well... because I like to mess with people who ask that question... I too fall short of the Glory of God it turns out!  Have you been asked WHEN you were saved?  When I’m asked that, I say “On the first Easter, about 2000 years ago!”  I know that’s not the answer they’re looking for, but that’s the truth... and I like to mess with people... like I said, I fall short of God's Glory!     

God’s done all the saving in Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  Like the hymn says, “The strife is O’er, the Battle Won!”  We baptize infants in part because it’s clear they can’t even make decisions about the potty, let alone salvation, which makes it really clear that salvation is God's doing and not theirs.  On that first Easter, God made the salvation decision for all of us and God’s decision was “YES!”  Christ’s resurrection included everyone and all of creation long before any of us were even gleams in anyone’s eyes.  Our traditions are pretty good at remembering that, but sometimes we forget that there actually are SOME decisions that ARE for us to make... NOT decisions that make or break salvation... but decisions about how we will choose to RESPOND to the gifts God has given us.  

It’s like the decision Joshua asked the people of Israel to make.  The people were IN the Promised Land.  They were there, so their decision would not determine if they got there or not… 'cause...they were there!  Their decision was how would they RESPOND to the gift they had already been given.  The crowds that Jesus addressed faced a similar decision.  How would they RESPOND to the gift which God had given them in Jesus?  Jesus was there.  The gift was given.  A decision to not continue to follow Jesus wouldn’t cause God to vacuum Jesus back up to heaven and take salvation away!  But the crowds and the disciples DID have a decision to make.  Would they drink in the Jesus life... a life where they would not be in complete control... a life that included mystery and an uncertain future... a life that led them to do what was in the other’s best interest instead of focusing first on what’s in it for me and what makes ME feel good, OR... would they go a different way?    

In today’s story, a huge number of people chose to go a different way.  They simply couldn’t live in the mystery.  They couldn’t stand for their future to be out of their control so they decided... to step away.  To stop following the Jesus Way of living.  After they left, Jesus turned to the disciples and asked them to decide as well.  Would they continue to follow or not?  You see, neither Joshua nor Jesus wanted the people to “PLAY” at their faith any longer.  Both challenged the people... to EITHER go ALL IN and BE God’s people ALL THE WAY or don’t.  Wishy washy fence sitting was not an option. 

These days people lament declining church membership and it does make things interesting... no doubt.  Many also mourn the loss of a culture that pressured people to be members of churches in order to fit in, but I actually see those things as a gift!  It’s a gift because you are here because you have genuinely decided to respond to God’s gifts, not because it makes you look like a good American to your neighbors and not because it makes grandma happy and not because you need a church membership to advance in your career.  You’re here... at least I hope you’re here... because you have come to the decision that Jesus REALLY DOES have the words of eternal life.  You’re here because you’ve decided that drinking in the Jesus life... a life filled with generosity, compassion, radical inclusion, love and grace... brings this world a tiny bit closer to becoming the Kingdom of God each day and leads you toward a life overflowing with meaning, purpose, direction and joy!  You’re here, doing the hard and difficult and frightening work we’re doing, because you’d rather be part of a smaller group of dedicated, passionate, authentic, self declared saints and sinners, than a huge group of fake, plastic, superficial people trying to fill the hole in their souls with wealth and fame and popularity which, God knows, will never come close to filling that hole.  

The people answered Joshua, saying “We have decided to follow the LORD, for he is our God.”  Simon Peter answered for the group, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  You and I have the same decision to make... but it’s really not just one decision either.  Instead, it's about a million little decisions in every moment of every day.  Our decision is whether in this moment or that, will we choose to live in this world the Jesus Way, OR to follow the gods of this world that tell us to keep the OTHERS… the DIFFERENT… the STRANGER out; that there isn’t enough for everyone, so you better grab all you can no matter who it hurts; that cut-throat beats compassion and that power is stronger than love.   

We all have a million decisions just like that to make every day, in every interaction with every person we meet.  Will we follow the Jesus Way of living and draw the stranger in and put the other before ourselves?  Will we say the hurtful thing trying to make ourselves feel bigger by making someone else feel smaller or will we say the kind thing that lifts someone up?  Will we step on and demonize the poor, saying, “At least I’m not like that!” or will we care for the least, the last and the lost remembering that what we do to the least of these we do to Christ?  The Good News is that no matter if we choose the Jesus Way, OR in that particular moment fall short of the Glory of God and choose our own more fearful way, God’s decision FOR US remains unshakable and true.  

May God give each of us the power and the courage in each moment of our lives to choose to live our faith “ALL IN”... to fully drink in the life which God has given us freely in Christ.  May we drink in the Holy, the Eternal, the Transformational Life we have been given and may we courageously choose in each of those moments to live the Jesus Way.  Amen.  

Padre Pollo's Holy Smoke Barbecue

The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 6th Chapter

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 

So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

It’s time for me to tell you about Padre Pollo’s Holy Smoke Barbecue.  It was a my brief venture into the barbecue business.  I sold my Q every Friday night at Crabtree Brewing out of a modified hot dog cart.  I did pulled pork all the time, ribs and brisket as specials.  I had Brunswick stew and a Tipsy Chicken sandwich.  All my own recipes and sauces.  It was good. 

Barbecue isn’t something to be taken lightly.  Barbecue is serious.  You can’t get it from a box or whip it up in an hour.  Barbecue requires a serious investment of time and effort.  Rubs need to be made, fires started and tended, sauce cooked... I cooked my pork shoulders at least nine hours over low heat made with only hickory wood.  

In a similar way, eating barbecue also requires an investment of time and takes effort.  You can’t eat real barbecue in the car, on the go.  Real barbecue requires a table, a roll of paper towels and both hands to make sure every piece gets gnawed off the bone.  

But the thing about real barbecue is that even though it demands a significant investment of time to create, and even though real barbecue insists upon a real effort to free every last bit of wonderful meat from the bone… IT’S SO WORTH IT!  The commitment, the investment of time and the effort... it’s all worth it for the wonderful, succulent, juicy, sweet and spicy richness that is barbecue.

Jesus said to the people, “Very truly I tell you, unless you gnaw on my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life, you’re lifeless!”  The translators toned down the language a bunch in this one.  Jesus really didn’t say eat here.  Jesus didn’t say take nice, polite, little bites, using the correct fork and sitting up straight with elbows off the table, linen napkin in your lap.  NO!  Jesus said GNAW.  He said roll up your sleeves, put your elbows on the table, grab that bone with both hands and chomp down!  Jesus said, “Get into it, get obsessed with it.  Get messy!  Get it stuck in your teeth and sauce on your face and don’t expect to keep your shirt clean!  None of that matters.  Just GNAW!  Which sounds great when you’re talking ribs at a picnic table with rolls of paper towels for napkins, but here we are talking about Jesus’s flesh... not baby back ribs and no amount of good table manners makes that alright!  And we haven’t even gotten to the drinking blood part yet!

Many of us have heard this flesh and blood talk for so long in church we don’t think of how shocking it really is anymore, but this isn’t just a symbol... this isn’t just a remembrance... Jesus really said, “Those who gnaw on my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.”  That was a challenge for the people back then... and if we’re paying attention now it should be a challenge for us as well!  “Those who gnaw on my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.”  Eeek!  

It’s frankly, shocking!  The crowd Jesus was telling this to couldn’t wrap their minds around what he was saying, and you know what, I’ve not yet met anyone who completely can.  How this Communion meal is fully Christ’s Body and Blood is beyond us all.  How in this meal we are given eternal life... it is a mystery without a solution and not even a group of meddling kids are going to solve it!  But in spite of the repulsive imagery... in spite of the unfathomable mystery, THAT is what Jesus was, and is, saying.  Gnawing on Jesus is the only thing that matters.  Gnawing on Jesus is the only thing that will feed us forever.  Nothing else gives life.

What this graphic image of gnawing on Jesus does, is call us, not just to a fast food meal wolfed down on the way to the next meeting.  That shocking image calls us to completely and totally make Jesus a part of every molecule of our being because he is the source of all goodness and life.  He is our true food and we are being called to invest EVERYTHING... all our time and all our being into making Jesus a part of every part of us.  Jesus is calling us to give every ounce of our entire effort to get in there and taste and see the goodness of the Lord.  

Like an amazing feast of real honest to goodness holy smoke barbecue, Jesus is asking each one of us to set aside REAL time... make the investment to mix the spices and put on the rub and then patiently, slowly, passionately smoke our faith over genuine hard wood... serving others, caring for those on the margins, studying, praying and living each day with patience and passion.  Jesus is calling us to become completely involved and completely internalize the gift of God’s infinite love and acceptance so that the Jesus-life becomes a core part of every aspect of our lives.  Our calling is to put into our faith life, the same kind of effort it takes to eat the meat off every bone of a whole rack of ribs to the very last miniscule morsel... to live lives of love, compassion, generosity, justice, kindness and humility until every last miniscule morsel of humanity knows down to their bones, how much they are loved by God and how much each of us has a place in God’s Kingdom. 

Being a Christian just isn’t like hitting the drive thru at McDonald’s for a McRib sandwich on a Sunday afternoon.  Being a Christian is more like spending the whole day mixing the spices, creating the sauce, tending the fire and slowly allowing a tough, low grade cut of meat to be lovingly, miraculously, beautifully transformed into the amazing gift from God that is barbecue.

Being a Christian is a serious thing that needs to be entered into with deep commitment, patience and passion.  But just like the rewards of preparing and cooking real barbecue are SO worth it, so too is the sweetness, the fullness and the abundant life that comes from taking the time to gnaw on Jesus.  Amen