June 19, 2016 - What do we believe?

Proper 7, year C

I have spent most of last week feeling sad. I didn’t get the news about the Orlando shooting until after I got home from church on Sunday – so I was already pretty tired. I think I was also depressed about all of the predictable reactions to the shooting. It seems as if everyone retreated to his or her default positions, and all the old arguments were repeated over and over.

Being an Episcopal priest, I have many friends and colleagues who are gay. They are very sad and afraid. We are all too old to be dancing in nightclubs, but Pulse was a kind of place where my friends remember feeling safe – and now that’s gone. The violence and hatred that we hope to keep away visits us anyway. It is hard not to be discouraged.

I remember a time when the NRA was all about gun safety. As a youth I remember going to a shooting range with my father. There were many rules. You never point a gun at anyone, ever. You treat every weapon as if it were loaded. You never take off the safety until you have looked downrange and are prepared to fire the weapon. Swagger, bragging, boasting, were all looked down upon. There was great respect – for the weapon – but more importantly, for human life. Now there is the noise and nonsense of hate and a selfish assertion of rights over respect for the other.

It does not have to be this way. We get caught up in all the rhetoric and in the endless news cycle as if it were true simply because it is so loud. What do we truly believe? In what do we place our faith?

Today we hear another chapter in the life of Elijah. He has just prevailed spectacularly over the priests of Baal. Now Jezebel wants him dead. He flees in fear. Has he already forgotten what God has done? Perhaps he thought that the great miracle on Mt. Carmel should have been enough to change Israel. He runs and hides and he is depressed. Through angels, God guides and sustains Elijah through the wilderness. Eventually God passes by Elijah on the mountaintop. God is not in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire. God comes to Elijah in the sound of sheer silence.

Maybe we want spectacular displays of strength. God often gives us only the words of truth we already know. Is it a test of our faith that that should be enough?

Jesus takes a detour across the Sea of Galilee to visit the place called Gerasene. There is a place of tombs where a man tormented by many demons lives alone and wild. The people try to restrain him, but he breaks the chains and howls. They are used to him being this way. Jesus frees him by casting the demons into a herd of pigs – an odd but spectacular display of power. I find it interesting that the people only become afraid when the see the man clothed and in his right mind.

What causes the fear? Perhaps the people are afraid because they are confronted with the reality that the status quo will no longer be tolerated. God will not let us settle for the abuse or neglect of others, even if we cannot find a way to change. Jesus has compassion even on the people whom we have cast aside or hidden away as not acceptable to our sensibilities or our worthy of our compassion.

I believe that the Pulse nightclub would be just the kind of place that Jesus would have gone. I think he would have enjoyed Latin Night in Gay Pride month. I also believe that he would be unafraid to confront people bound by hate and fear. He would reach out to those who feel they need to protect themselves with guns or who only feel safe surrounded by angry rhetoric. He would have offered an ear to zealots who feel it is their duty to destroy – even their own lives.

We have our own mountaintop miracle that defines what we believe. Jesus died on the cross and rose again. He destroyed sin and death. Don’t we believe that? Why do we live as if it were not true?

We need to listen to the sound of sheer silence. What is the truth we already know? God loves the whole world – no exceptions. God is saving the whole world – no exceptions. Every person is a child of God, no matter how angry, or violent, or foolish, or frightened.

What can we do? First, we need to remember our faith. God’s love can never be broken – no matter how much we fail. God has given us a message of love. We need to share it. More than ever, our world needs to hear about God’s love. We need not worry ourselves about clever apologetics, we need only tell God’s love, as we know it.

We also need to take up our work as agents of reconciliation. We need to reach out to those who are isolated and lost. We need to find a neighbor who is different from us and listen to them with compassion. We need to cross those human barriers we take for granted. We may not like their story. We may not agree with them. God loves them: we can too. We can’t change all the madness of the world. We can live the truth of God’s love and live in peace with all our neighbors. We can create with God a new way to live together.

 

June 12, 2016, What is forgiveness?

Today we have the chance to think about forgiveness. What does it mean to be forgiven? What does it mean to forgive? There’s more to it than being sorry and hearing, “That’s OK.” There seems to be something else important. It seems to be wrapped up in the meaning of relationships and how we go about creating good relationships.

So much of what the church has taught about forgiveness has turned into some sort of mechanical ritual. Private confession becomes a necessary prerequisite for receiving the sacrament of communion. At it’s worst, confession becomes a way for religion to dominate and control the lives and beliefs of dependent penitents. It’s no wonder that most people want nothing to do with it. This is sad, because true confession can be a discipline of freedom where we let go of our burdens. Our public confession often becomes just another prayer we recite together. We have lost the depth and extent of what it means to be forgiven.

Perhaps this is an explanation for why we have become such unforgiving people. We almost expect the next celebrity or politician to do something shameful so we can set them aside as “just like all the others.” We see in Ahab a kind of ruler we recognize. We have seen his entitled attitude. We have seen his petulance and complaint of the uncooperative poor. We have seen the backroom machinations with plausible deniability. He’s powerful and he gets what he wants. It is the way of the world.

We cheer the righteous words of Elijah. Do we recognize the charge? It is easy to see the sins of others, especially public abuses of power and authority. We know we have had enough of all the pride and contempt of those who think they are our betters. Is that all there is to this story? What about our own pride and contempt of those who oppose or disagree with us? What about our own abuse or neglect of those weaker than us? Most importantly, what about all our plans that are crafted by our own cleverness with no reference to God? Ahab is certainly proud and ruthless. Elijah chides him for lack of respect for God.

Forgiveness is something greater than a righting of accounts. Of course, we are all in debt to someone. Intentionally or not, we often take more than our fair share. In our ignorance, we often abuse of neglect our neighbors. We know that we have done much that needs forgiveness. What is needed is more than paying off our debts. God seeks to restore our relationships. God seeks for us a right ordering of how we relate to each other and to God.

Forgiveness is giving something before it is deserved. God reaches out in love to us before we have anything to return or repay. This is what God seeks for us, and this is what God encourages us to do. The other does not deserve it and that is entirely the point. This also implies that the forgiven one has no power or control over the one who forgives. God forgives because God loves. God wants us to forgive so that we know love and so that we live in relationships where no one has a debt to another and no one has control over another.

Jesus is invited to a meal at the house of a Pharisee. It is a great honor. It is a way of showing respect to Jesus and a way that Jesus can show respect to the Pharisee. Underneath is a sort of control. The Pharisee is imposing a way of understanding God and the world. The Pharisee is in control – or is he? A woman (who is without honor) cries at the feet of Jesus and anoints his feet with oil. This is just as odd at that time as we would find it today. Jesus sees the meaning of it. She has been forgiven much therefore she loves much. In contrast, the Pharisee does not love much and has been forgiven little (or he knows little about how much he has been forgiven.)

God’s forgiveness is never in question. God always forgives. There is nothing we can do that can overcome God’s will to forgive us. The question for us is, “Do we know it?” If we know it (or as much as we can know it), we can know God’s love and grow in our relationship with God. As we grow in our knowledge of God’s love and forgiveness, we become able to forgive and love our neighbors – even the difficult ones! – Even ourselves. God forgives and asks us to forgive because God wants to restore us to each other.

June 5, 2016

What gets in the way of getting what we want? We think if only we had a different boss, or a different job, or a different president – everything would be better. We know that those sorts of external changes don’t really change us. So what gets in the way? We are afraid. We don’t know what might happen. We take the easy path, even though we know it will take us to the wrong destination.

We think we know what we need, and we know what has to happen. We often project our desires on the powerful people over us. Oh, how they manipulate us with promises and threats! How easily we are swayed because of our fear! We also know that we need something true and right. We need to find meaning. We need to be connected. It would be nice if someone we could trust could simply appear and show us the way.

Elijah takes on that task. Last week, he defeated the prophets of Baal in a spectacular contest on Mt. Carmel. What we didn’t hear was what happened next. He killed all 450 of the prophets of Baal. Today we have the story out of order. This is part of the story that leads to the contest on the mountaintop. Ahab marries Jezebel and builds an altar to Baal. Elijah proclaims a drought throughout the land. Everyone is suffering. God seems a very hard master. I believe that Elijah is depressed and feeling very alone.

Elijah wanders into Zarapheth. He meets a widow, who is starving. He asks for water and bread. She is planning to make a cake out of the last of her flour and oil. Elijah promises that her flour and oil will not run out. So it happens. I wonder about the neighbors. The widow’s son dies and the widow wonders why the holy man has brought this on her. She mentions her sin – not that she has done anything wrong, except lived too close to holiness. Is this is what happens when you get too close to God?

Elijah raises her son. Now she knows that he speaks God’s words. Now she also knows new words from God. God is not dangerous or distant. Perhaps, even that God is not cruel. Elijah isn’t just a messenger of an angry God. God dwells with strangers and restores them to life.

Jesus performs a similar miracle of resurrection. We can hear the story of the dead being raised to life, and we think, “That’s great! I wish we could see something like that!” I wonder how we would react in the moment? The people were amazed and they were afraid. The boy sat upright and started to talk. This sounds more like a Stephen King novel than good news.

The healing is creepy but there is more than death and life. There is also restoration. A child wasn’t just a nice blessing. People relied on children to help them in their old age. This widow had no one else. When she lost her son, she lost all hope of income and status. No one would care for her. She would be dependent on charity.

Jesus has compassion. He crosses all the barriers and taboos. He intrudes on the funeral rites. He touches the bier – the body – making himself unclean. He commands the boy to live and he restores him to his mother. The first reaction is fear – then rejoicing. But why the fear? What are they afraid of? What are we afraid of? We rejoice in any healing or restoration that comes our way. We want to feel better and to be in good relationship with those close to us. Our discomfort comes from acknowledging our dependence on God, and on our dependence on others.

The sin of Ahab is his idolatry. The deeper sin is turning away from God and raising up a God of Ahab’s own making. He wants to control God. He wants a God who will do what Ahab wants. He wants a God that is perhaps a servant of the state, to enlarge and extend the power of his kingship. We are in no danger of setting up idols, however, we often attempt to define God on our terms. We think we know what we need from God. We think we can tame God to do only what we need God to do.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way at all. We only fool ourselves. God will not live in the little square box we create for God. God continues to create and save and love the world. God crosses every barrier, every wall we create to contain God. God stubbornly refuses to live into our narrow job description. When we see this, when we know this, we often rejoice. If we consider the implications, there might be a little fear as well.

God is closer than we like to admit. Between us and God there is no private space where we can really have our way. We are always being pursued, wooed, invited by God into new life. God invites us to cross the comfortable walls we have created or accepted. There is nothing that keeps us from our neighbors except habit and fear. We are afraid of what people will think of us. We are afraid of offending. We are afraid of the implications.

If we were to offer our hands and our hearts to our neighbors, they very well might think we were a little off, or a little presumptuous. I don’t think this is our primary fear. If we were to extend ourselves to our neighbors, we would acknowledge our connection – a connection that demands accountability. We can no longer live as if we do not need one another. We cannot live as if our actions do not matter.

This is what scares us. We all construct a world that we think we can manage. We have an illusion of control. If we act as if our neighbors matter to us, then we admit we are not in control. I cannot control what my neighbor does. I cannot control what God will create in this new relationship. I cannot determine the outcome. I can only be open to what might be possible. Who knows what might happen?

God knows. This is what God asks us to do. God asks us to trust. This is the essence of faith – not a series of statements I agree might be true. Faith is acting on what we believe. Will we cross the barrier that separates us and discover what love means?