June 28, 2015

         “Don’t fear, only believe.” It’s surprising how often Jesus, or an angel speaks these or similar words. It’s as if we don’t get it, or we can’t believe it. Every time we find ourselves near to something holy, we lose our nerve. We don’t know where we stand and we doubt what we believe.

         I think we find ourselves in this place very often these days. We have no end of troubles. The world is spinning out of control (as if it had ever been in our control.) Perhaps we are facing the realization that things have never been what they seemed and we have to make sense of that. Beyond all of this talk about our world, we find our selves living in difficult circumstances. We have to make ends meet. We worry about our health. We worry about our children. We worry about the future.

         On a particular day in Palestine two thousand years ago, Jesus is making his way through a village by the Sea of Galilee. There is a big crowd of people excited to see the teacher they have heard so much about. Jairus, a leader of the synagogue falls at his feet, and begs him, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” So often we hear about religious authorities who question Jesus. Here, we find an important man who is desperate. He does not worry about how he looks or who will judge him. His little girl is dying. He’ll do anything.

         Is there a worse pain than watching a child suffer? What parent wouldn’t gladly change places with their dying child? Jesus with compassion goes along with Jairus to see what he can do.

         Along the way, a woman quietly approaches Jesus. She has her own tragic story. She has had an illness that causes bleeding for twelve years. She has spent all she has on doctors and she is no better and getting worse. On top of this, her disease makes her ritually unclean. She should not be in the crowd. She should remain apart (to avoid contagion) and she risks her life by coming near to Jesus. In her mind she thinks, “If I could only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” She touches the hem of his cloak and she is healed.

         Jesus knows something has happened. He asks, “Who touched me!” The disciples helpfully point out that there are crowds of people touching him, but Jesus knows someone has been healed. The woman approaches Jesus in fear. She may be exposed for violating ritual laws. Instead, Jesus blesses her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well: go in peace and be healed of your disease.”

         At this moment, a group comes from Jairus’ house. The little girl has died – no need to do anything else.

         We get to these moments in our lives as well. Everything we have tried, fails. We have no options. There’s nothing to do but move on – to bury the dead, to pick up the pieces, to begin the empty work of trying to move on. Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe.” Believe in what? Believe in Whom? What can we do when we have nothing left to do? What can we believe when the worst we imagine has happened? I’m going to repeat what I said last week. Faith is not trusting in the impossible. Faith is trusting in the promises of God.

         There is an overlap of language when we talk of being made well. The words used in the story can also be read, “to be saved.” Jairus asks, “lay your hands on her, so that she may be saves and live.” The woman thinks to herself, “if I but touch his clothes, I will be saved.” Jesus pronounces, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.” Healing and salvation are linked. Jesus promises to heal more than our bodies. Jesus would make us whole in every way that we think about it.

         The woman who is healed is blessed in her healing. She is not only made physically well, she is restored to community. She is not outcast. She is no longer shunned. I wonder how much of our desire for healing is also a desire to be restored to a full life. We don’t want to be dependent or pitied or blamed or separated from the life of the whole. Jesus would restore us to good relationships with our neighbors and with God. Without this, there is no healing.

         Jesus enters the home of Jairus and the mourning has already started. Jesus throws them all out, despite their mocking, or confusion. Is she only asleep? Maybe Jesus knows more than the crowd. Maybe Jesus is trying to keep it quiet. Whatever is true, he enters the room of the little girl and takes her hand. “Little girl, get up!” She stands up and starts to walk around the room. Jesus tells them to give her something to eat. Is she saved? Is she resurrected? She is restored to her family and she begins a new life.

         We read these words and are they impossible to believe? These healings happened two thousand years ago through the hands of Jesus. What business do we have asking for healing?

         Faith is not about the impossible. Faith is believing the promises of God. God promises to save us. God promises to resurrect us. When we pray for healing we are “Putting ourselves in a place where God can work in us.” (To copy a phrase from Richard Foster and The Celebration of Discipline) When we come with small worries and little problems, we often come with a list of what we want and how we want it. It is a place to begin and God can honor even our smallest prayers. When we are at our end, when we’ve run out of options, when we don’t know where to return or what will happen next – then we come to God with empty hands. It is then that God can work in us in a different way. This is where God promises to save us.

         In our worry and in our fear, what are we asking? Are we only asking that God will keep us going exactly as we are? We may not see much change because we haven’t really asked for it. If we come with empty hands in desperation: that may be a place where we are open to being saved. God will work powerfully to save us.

June 21, 2015

         Is it easy to have faith? All our lives as followers of Jesus we are continually measuring our faith or our faithfulness. We read the bible or hear a nice sermon and we think that it really is pretty simple. Then life comes in. We face a disappointment. We get caught up in something that sets us off. We hear of an unspeakable tragedy. Faith becomes hard. It’s hard to believe the promises we so very much want to believe. It’s hard to live up to the standards we know we want to live up to.

         The hero stories of the bible sometimes seem too fantastic. Goliath is huge. He carries so much armor and so many weapons; he’s like a human tank. Plucky little David runs around the battlefield full of confidence. We’re happy he won. We would not have heard about him otherwise. His confidence in God is inspiring – but not so much that we are ready to take on similar risks.

         The disciples are worried about a great storm. Perhaps they have seen such storms in their experience as fishermen. They knew that it was bad (and not just frightened by the unknown.) Jesus is asleep. They are desperate. Why are you sleeping, Jesus? He wakes up and tells the storm to be quiet and suddenly everything is still. Where is your faith? I don’t know what is more disturbing, the power of the storm or the power Jesus has over the storm. Who could have guessed that?

         God asks a lot of us. We want to love and be better people. We are comforted by promises of some better day. It’s the living day to day that is the struggle. We don’t see Goliath but we do see storms. We do see insurmountable problems. Jesus is not asleep on a cushion in the back room waiting to be awakened. God has not trained us how to sling stones to defeat our enemies.

         Name your giant or your storm. Is it addiction? Illness? Long-term unemployment? Comfortable sayings about God’s love won’t put food on the table. This week we are confronted with the stubborn sins of hate, racism and violence. Nine people were gunned down in a church while they prayed and studied the bible. This evil act points to a whole host of social ills we have not had the will to change. It is also a challenge to our faith. Where is God? Why did this happen?

         It appears that the killer is a man filled with hate. He is a racist and we thought racism was over. It is hard to believe that anyone could spend a life nursing such hatred – that groups of hate-filled people continue to organize or believe that they have a cause worth their time. Even in this unbearable tragedy, there is news of hope. As the killer was arraigned, the family members present had one message, “We forgive you.” The tragedy is impossible to understand. The forgiveness may be even harder to believe.

         There is much to be learned about what happened. We can learn this. Faith does not believe in what is impossible. Faith believes in what God promises. Those forgiving families believe in God’s mercy – that it extends even to the hate filled murderer.

         How will we live faithfully? We need to live as we believe God promises we can live. Instead of fearing what we do not know, we can have confidence in a God we do know. Instead of pretending that the suffering of others does not matter because it doesn’t happen to us, we can choose to live as God calls us to live and seek to love and respect all of God’s children.

         David picked up five smooth stones. He used what he had at hand. God has given us everything we need to face the giant of racism. We can respect our neighbors. We can see our solidarity with neighbors who live in Waterbury and South Carolina (and not just close by in Woodbury.) We can seek peace instead of violence. We can seek mercy instead of hate. We can believe the good news and live as if it is true, because it is.

June 14, 2015

Parables of seeds

         We live by stories. We tell stories about our past. We tell episodes in our lives or the lives of people we love. We use stories to share information, and also to share emotions, hopes, and connections. We use stories to break the ice, to reveal a little about ourselves. We share humor and drama. We use stories to make sense of our world. If we knit all the stories together, it becomes a kind of narrative of our life, which helps us make sense of our world.

         We are familiar with the parables of Jesus. The images stick in our heads long after we remember the moral lesson or the point the preacher was trying to make. The stories Jesus tells are more vivid and more true than a lot of the words we live with. The news of the day seems like the buzzing of insects compared to the simple and clear truth that Jesus offers.

         How simple are the parables of Jesus. Part of the reason that they stick with us is because they appear to share a simple truth (which is the point of parables). As we turn them over in our minds, there is a little sense of unease. There s something that is not clear and it nags at us until we work through it.

         Why so difficult? Jesus could be more efficient and simply tell us true things. He could share bullet points just like any PowerPoint we are used to seeing on a screen. Instead, Jesus works a little magic. He tells us stories through the imagery of parables. They intrigue us. We are captivated. He doesn’t tell us the answer but leaves us to work on it (and the parable to work on us). Often there is a simple interpretation, and there is also a little edge to it that causes us to question our assumptions. Jesus is not interested in supporting our comfortable assumptions. Jesus wants us to look at the world with new eyes.

         Jesus talks about seeds. A farmer throws seeds on a field. (He is not the sower from another parable.) The farmer waits. He cannot make the sun shine or the rain fall. Eventually the plants grow and the grain ripens. The farmer collects the harvest. There is another seed. The mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds and yet it grows into a huge bush. It grows so large that birds make their nests in it.

         The parables tell us truth about the Kingdom of God. We are like the farmer. We sow seed. We wait for God to produce new life. We gather in God’s abundance. The Kingdom of God is also like the mustard seed. It looks small. Contained in that small seed is everything necessary for life and growth and abundance.

         There are other ways to consider the parables. Perhaps the farmer is God. God sows seed and waits for grow to occur without intervention? Perhaps God is the seed that looks so small and insignificant in the person of Jesus, and yet a new way of living springs up from his death and resurrection. There have been ages in the church when people looked for hidden meaning and worked the parables for every possible interpretation. Instead of talking about the parables, a way to consider them is to consider how they affect us.

         We hear the parable and what do we feel? What seems to be the plain meaning of the story without trying to prove anything? What truth is proclaimed? God is generous. God gives life. We know this. We can list all the important attributes of God. What we are not so good at is imagining what difference it makes in our life.

         We know that God gives life in God’s good time. We talk about faith and our need for more faith. Do we have faith of a farmer? Are we willing to wait and trust for the good harvest? We understand this as a concept, yet how many of us are willing to live this way in our busy 365/24/7 lives. We want efficiency and convenience. Can we live with trust?

         Consider the mustard seed. Everything is needs to grow into a huge bush is contained in that small seed. We know the power of the good news. We know how it gives us life. Do we live as if we have all that we need? Are we more worried about money than we are about spiritual life? It’s easy for us to get caught up in defining abundance as having plenty of money. In our heads we know that God offers an abundance that is more satisfying than money. Do we live as if this were true?

         I’m going to try an experiment today. I’d like us to write our own parables. Let’s start with an image of a simple thing in our minds. What is the truth of that thing? What does it say about God or us or eternal life? How can we describe it to bring out that truth? Let’s offer it and see if it helps us consider our own perspective.

         The kingdom of God is like a dog. Dogs are loyal and eager to please. God is always loyal to us and eager to show love to us. The kingdom of God is like a dog that always sleeps at the foot of a bed ready to rise with its owner. Do I imagine God so close and so willing? Do I not more often act as if God isn’t even in the room?

         I know our parables are not the works of inspiration that Jesus crafts. God also gives us imagination and inspiration. The kingdom of God is like a seed. The DNA of God’s love is everywhere. The good news is contained in everything created by the hand if God. I invite us to use the gifts God has given to know more deeply how God lives in us. The kingdom of God is like… what? It’s right outside your door.

June 7, 2015

Jesus' true family

         Last Wednesday night, we met with the Rev. Judy Rhodes and we talked about what’s been going on here at St. Paul’s. The overwhelming sentiment is that we all appreciate the care and support we give each other. This is our family. We take care of each other and we look out for each other. This is our home. We know where we sit! This is a good place to begin to build whatever we are going to do next.

         When we think about church as family, it’s hard for us to hear the conflict between Jesus and his family. Why the harsh words? Why can’t they get along? In the end Jesus looks around and says, “Here is my family! Whoever does the will of God are my mother and my brother and my sister.”

         Mixed up in this story is the criticism about Jesus. He must be in league with the devil! Jesus points out how this is impossible. Then he refers to the unforgivable sin. What’s that? Have I done it? Is there a danger that I might? It has to do with somehow rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit or attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to another. Can we do this by mistake?

         Jesus is here to get us reconciled with God (and with each other.) The danger is not to those who are honestly seeking God. The danger is to the ones who already think they know the answer. The religious authorities are the ones in danger. They have an unshakable idea about God. In there desire to avoid idolatry in worshipping another God, they fall into another idolatry. They have imagined a God who is not true.

         This is our danger. In our fear and in our anxiety, we are tempted to create for ourselves a God who works for us – instead of following God as God leads us. We are worried about numbers and about relevance. We are worried that this lovely community won’t exist in the future. The bad news is that we are right. What we know today will not continue forever. The good news is that the promise of God does exist forever – it may not appear in a form that we have become used to.

         The prophet Samuel has grown old and the future is uncertain. The people ask Samuel to anoint a king, so that they can be like other nations. Samuel grieves for God. He knows that the people are rejecting the direct rule of God and they are opting for something they think they can understand and control. Samuel warns them what they are really getting – but they want it anyway. What is the lesson for us? Beyond easy political references about taxes and the “one percenters,” Samuel is reminding us about who leads us and about where we put our loyalties.

         It’s easier to trust a system or an organization that looks like something we know. All our institutions are failing us, but at least we know how they are failing! Samuel and Jesus are inviting us to think about our priorities and our loyalties. Who is our leader? The person we elect? If we consider ourselves to be disciples of Jesus, then our first loyalty is to God and then to the community of followers of Jesus. As we seek to create something new in this community, we are called to seek the will of God and to have less trust in what we know or in what makes us comfortable.

         It’s not bad to have harmonious community. Sometimes we seek something that looks good and feels good. We can hope for comfort in times of pain and grief. We also have to take up our responsible roles as adult disciples of Jesus. We are not called here only to be comfortable. We are also called to live into a new way of life. The apostle Paul calls our present state an earthly tent. Whatever we have now is temporary and flexible. We should expect impermanence. The eternal and unchanging is where we are headed. It is not that our bodies are somehow a kind of temporary prison from which we need to escape. Paul is writing about our temporary state of this life, which we will exchange for a new way of being in the new heaven and the new earth.

         Until we get there, we are on our journey to the promise. As we plan together to make sense of where we’ve been and where we’re going, we need to remember how we are gathered together. God did not call us here to maintain an unchanging institution. God calls us to grow in love and faithfulness. We have a great tradition of doing this here. There are things from our past that we have lost and we need to grieve. We can also free ourselves to imagine new ways to follow God together. There are other sisters and brothers who can be welcomed along the way. There are always new blessings to discover.

Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015

Trinity Sunday

       

  I have been reflecting on how we know another person. I write a lot of little homilies for funerals. Sometimes I know something about the person, and sometimes I know nothing. I listen to people tell me stories about the person they have lost. Sometimes they have treasured memories. Sometimes they just relate how the person lived – they had a sense of humor, or they liked to meet new people. Sometimes I have the privilege of visiting someone over time. They tell me their story. I get to hear from them who was important and what was important. Almost no one talks about his or her possessions. They talk about whom they loved and what they did together.

         Today we talk about God. It is difficult for us. How do we describe God? The best we can do is share in our own words what we have been taught or what we have seen. Each of our individual perspectives seems too small. Even if we have had a powerful experience of God, it is peculiar to us and we have trouble expressing it to others in a way that they can understand.

         Today we celebrate an idea more than an event. We celebrate the Trinity, that is, God is one and God is revealed to us in the three persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We know that we worship God. We know that we refer to God as Father. We know how important Jesus is to us. We might have a feeling the Spirit is important (especially right after Pentecost.) We have no easy way to explain how these three persons fit together. Not only are we a little uncertain about just what the trinity is, we are uncertain why it’s important or why we would bother to celebrate it.

         I think the problem is that we are trying to create an objective description of God when we don’t experience God that way. We can talk about God without ever knowing God. So what does any of this have to do with us?

         The trinity is never explained in scripture. It has been developed through time by trying to understand what has been revealed to us. Putting the pieces together we find a God revealed to us in three persons. The identity of God is never revealed in a way that we are to understand God or be able to define God. The bible has no interest in our ability to confine God in a set of ideas. Instead, scripture is given to us to show us how to have life, how to have a living relationship with God.

         What we see is God as a being in relationship. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Spirit is that bond or that love between them. This is an ancient understanding of the Trinity from the early church fathers. The Trinity is described to us not so much that we can understand about God. The trinity is shown to us so that we can understand our way to God.

         Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He is seeking truth and he expects to find answers with Jesus. Jesus won’t let him remain in his old ways of understanding. Maybe when we are challenged by the trinity we can consider that God wants us to leave behind our old expectations about whom God should be or what God should do. We are so western and logical in our thinking. We want to know in order to control. We want to be come masters of our subject material.

         God wants to simply love. To love, as God wants to love, maybe we have to give up all our illusions about control. Maybe we have to give up our need to understand. God is seeking for us to love without knowing the outcome. Maybe God wants us to love without knowing what’s in it for us. Maybe God wants us to love with detachment, without caring if we accomplish anything. It’s a little like stepping out into the unknown.

         While we do not ever come to a place where we can comprehend God. We do know some things about God. God is love. God is trustworthy. God keeps promises. God has promised to walk with us. We have yet to come to any certainty. In this life of ours there will still be loss and pain. There will be sickness and failure. We will be confronted with doubt and mystery.

         It would be much more simple for us if we could have one singular God much like our Abrahamic partners, as in Judaism or Islam. One God is easier to believe in, and certainly easier to explain. What we believe is what we have been given. What we have been given is the way of our salvation. The work of faith is not so much to understand but to listen. It is not so much to keep score about our blessings, but to trust in what may happen next. God has been revealed this way to us to show us that we are loved – so that we can welcome others in to that love.