On Leading with Kindness…

Tags

act, Community of Kindness, conflict, God, hesed, inspire, kindness, lead, loving kindness, transform, Williamsburg

Photo credit:  https://www.mediumsizedfamily.com/acts-of-kindness-in-words/

Recently I have been feeling pretty defeated about the ways we have been treating one another in our country.  It happens in all sorts of ways.  It happens in the tribalism in politics that makes us unable to even listen to alternate perspectives or work toward respectful compromise.  It happens in the ways in which we give ourselves permission to believe stereotypes instead of getting to know individuals.  It happens in the ways in which truth is distorted and disregarded.  It even happens in our wonderful hometown, when people submit hateful, anonymous comments in what our local paper calls “The Last Word.”

I think that is why I have been finding such joy in a new endeavor here in this same hometown.  I am a part of the LEAD Greater Williamsburg program, a community immersion program that provides opportunities for recognized and emergent leaders to collaborate on issues of importance to the region, run through the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance.  The issue that our class is working on is kindness.  I know that may sound simple or even too ephemeral, but the more we work on helping the Greater Williamsburg Area become the next Community of Kindness, the more excited I become.

The program will launch on February 1, 2019, but already I am seeing the power of kindness.  First, the LEAD with Kindness program is already uncovering all kinds of efforts by schools, businesses, and non-profit organizations to promote kindness.  Just learning about these efforts has lifted some of that defeatedness I had been feeling.  But it has not stopped there.  The more we talk about promoting, developing, and honoring kindness, the more I have started seeing kindness.  I see it in my parishioners at Hickory Neck, I see it in my family members, and I even see it in that “Last Word” column in the paper.  And the more I see kindness, the more inspired I become to live into kindness – in fact, the more I see the loving-kindness, or hesed, of our God in others.

You will be hearing a lot more from me about this kindness project, my dreams for seeing the Greater Williamsburg area become the next Community of Kindness, and our church’s role in the movement.  But for now, I invite you to try a few things.  First, put on your “kindness glasses,” and just start looking around you for acts of kindness you see every day.  Two, acknowledge the kindness you see around you – whether it’s a high five, a pat on the back, or even a note about how someone’s kindness inspired you.  And three, perform one act of kindness today.  It does not have to be anything grandiose.  Just one small act of kindness.  And then let me know about it.  Let’s let God’s loving-kindness take root in us, transforming our community, our region, and maybe even the world!

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On Race and the Pilgrimage Ahead…

Tags

action, call, God, journey, pilgrimage, race, racism, sin, transform

Photo credit:  parentingsquad.com/6-ways-to-improve-race-relations-at-home

Last summer a confluence of events happened.  I heard an interview with the author of Homegoing that made me want to read her novel about the history of the slave trade in Ghana and America.  I learned of a Diocesan pilgrimage to Ghana.  I was invited to a racial reconciliation discussion group in the community.  And my Netflix queue brought up two movies in a row – Lee Daniel’s The Butler and Straight Outta Compton.  As I read, watched, listened, and prayed, I wondered if God might be inviting me and our church community to talk more deeply about race.

So we did.  We read Homegoing at our church and our discussions were vulnerable and beautiful.  We went to a play in Colonial Williamsburg about the difficulty of serving as black and white interpreters in a time of slavery.  We hosted an Anglican priest from Ghana, prayed for this year’s Ghanaian pilgrims, and encouraged parishioners to consider a pilgrimage themselves.  We hosted a Bible Study with a predominantly African-American church. And we watched sports films that addressed racial relations.  At some point this summer, about a year after my initial epiphany, I began to wonder if I were beating the same drum too often.  Maybe race was a conversation we needed to give a rest.

And then the protests and counter-protests happened in Charlottesville.  As I watched hatred, racism, and violence on full display, as I saw rage, indignation, and entitlement in protestors’ eyes, and as I watched peaceful resistance dissolve into violent resistance, I knew we were not done with this race topic.  The scars are so deep and the impact is so rampant that we may never be done.  But fatigue, especially by white people, is not an excuse to disengage.  This week, I invite you to consider what you want to do in your life and in your community about racism.  If you are looking for suggestions, I commend the concrete suggestions by the Diocese of Virginia found here.

For me, I am committing to staying involved in our local ecumenical racial reconciliation discussion group.  I will keep inviting our church into race-related conversations, and encourage our exploration of our own complicity with the sin of racism.  I will keep reading and learning.  And I want to commit to going to Ghana with our Diocesan pilgrimage group.  I am not sure our family can afford it (I guess you know what to get me for my birthday!), but I feel God pushing me to walk through those slave castles, to learn in-person our shared history, and see the impact of slavery on another country.  I feel drawn to walking with fellow pilgrims of both white and black races, seeing how God might transform me on the journey.  If you feel similarly called, please join us next summer.  Or if you know you cannot make the pilgrimage, but want to financially support our engagement, I will help you become a partner with us.  Whatever you choose, do something.  I look forward to hearing about how God is calling you or how God is already using you for change.

Sermon – Genesis 18.1-1, 21-1-7, P6, YA, June 18, 2017

Tags

Abraham, anger, conversation, doubt, dream, faith, frustration, God, honor, lack of faith, laugh, laughter, promise, Sarah, Sermon, share, transform

Today we get one of my favorite stories in scripture – Sarah’s laughter at God’s promise.  The story is perfectly crafted.  The story with a flurry of activity.  Abraham is sitting in his tent in the heat of the day when three guests suddenly appear.  As soon as Abraham sees them, he runs to greet them, begging them to stay.  Then Abraham sends the entire household into a tizzy.  He barks orders about baking cakes, grabs a calf and commands the calf be prepared for the guests.  He gets curds and milk and rushes to plate the feast for the guests.  We can almost imagine Abraham panting as he finally delivers the meals to the guests.

But then the story comes to a screeching halt, with a question that tells us what is really important.  “Where is your wife, Sarah?”  And slowly, the promise of a child to a barren, post-menopausal woman unfolds.  Abraham and Sarah were promised long ago to be the parents of a great nation.  But Sarah had given up on that dream.  She had already asked Abraham to go to her slave-girl and have a child with Hagar as a representative child for her.  Her action with Hagar had been a desperate move, but what else could she have done?  So when this guest, or God, as the text later tells us, says that Sarah will conceive herself, after years of longing, hoping, feeling devastated and powerless, Sarah does what we all might do.  She laughs.  She laughs at the prospect of pleasure in her marriage when she and Abraham are so advanced in age.  She laughs at the impossibility that their pleasure might lead to progeny.  She laughs at the promise because believing the promise would mean opening herself up to unfilled dreams yet again.

Sarah’s laughter has long been used as a criticism for a lack of faith in God.  When God asks, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” and when Sarah quickly denies her laughter, countless readers have wagged their fingers at Sarah as if to say, “Oh ye of little faith.”  And I can see how we get there.  The exchange between Sarah and God – the laughter that bubbles out from years of hurt and disappointment, the scolding by God, the attempt to lie to cover up embarrassment, and the scolding yet again when God calls Sarah on her dishonesty – is all too familiar to us.  What the accusation of lacking faith forgets is how terribly vulnerable and resigned Sarah is.  I cannot tell you the number of people I have counseled who at the end of second marriage have begun to doubt God’s presence.  I cannot tell you the number of people I have sat with after receiving a bad diagnosis for themselves or their loved one who has begun to whether God has abandoned them.  I cannot tell you the number of people have received yet another rejection letter who have begun to question God’s call on their life.  When Sarah laughs, I do not feel justification for judgment against her level of faith.  When Sarah laughs, I hear the ache of countless believers who know how ludicrous God’s promises can be.

What gets me about the judgment of Sarah is the short memory of scripture readers.  In the chapter before what we heard today, Abraham is given the same promise that Sarah hears – a child by Sarah.  And his reaction?  He does not simply laugh quietly to himself as Sarah does in that tent.  He falls on his face and laughs full-bodied at God.  The only difference in laughter between Abraham and Sarah is that Abraham laughs in front of God where Sarah tries to hide her laughter.  Both are an acknowledgement of doubt about what God can do.  Both take all their disappointment, pain, and hurt, and dissolve into laughter because, quite frankly, sometimes God is laughable.  Sometimes God makes no sense at all, and laughing is the only release and protection from more hurt.  Humans questioning God is a natural part of a genuine God-human conversation, a conventional motif we see throughout the Old Testament.[i]

This week, I stumbled on an Old Testament scholar, Kathryn Shifferdecker, who suggests that God may not be a God of judgment in this passage.  In fact, she sees God as fully understanding the comedy of the situation.  She sees a God with a sense of humor, who when God says, “Oh yes you did laugh,” says so with a twinkle in his eye.[ii]  The theory totally shifted the reading for me.  Suddenly the pieces all fit together.  Instead of an angry or disappointed God, who judges disbelief, our God is a God who understands that God’s promises are sometimes laughable – even if they are true.  Why else would God tell Abraham to name his son Isaac, which means, “he laughs,” in Hebrew?[iii]  As Schifferdecker explains, “Abraham falls on his face in a fit of laughter.  Sarah laughs behind the tent door.  And the LORD (I believe) laughs with them at the divine, wonderful absurdity of it all.  Given the humor of the scene under the oaks of Mamre, and the comedy of a God who acts in unexpected ways to fulfill God’s promises, it is entirely appropriate that the child of the promise should be named ‘Laughter.’”[iv]

The image of the three of them laughing – Sarah, Abraham, and God, makes a lot of sense once we hear the final words of Sarah.  In chapter 21, Sarah, perhaps initially embarrassed or doubtful of God, now says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”  This story is not a story of shame for those of us who struggle with doubt, anger, or frustration with God.  This is not a story of an unfaithful follower of God.  This is a story about a woman and a man who look at the absurdity of God’s promise with the fullness of their humanity and laugh – hard, belly-shaking, on-the-floor laughter that only comes when the divine finally breaks through our disappointment, shame, and anger, and brings us to laughter.

I love this story even more as I think about the trinity of Abraham, Sarah, and God laughing.  Their laughter affirms our own incredulous walks with God.  Their laughter takes those moments when we no long trust God’s promises, and transforms them.  No longer do we need to hide away our deepest doubts, but instead we honor them.  We share them.  And we create communities of laughter with them.  Amen.

[i] Leander E. Keck, ed., New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. I (Abingdon Press, 1994), 465.

[ii] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Commentary on Genesis 18:1-15 [21:1-7],” June 18, 2017, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3301 on June 14, 2017.

[iii] Tamara Cohn Eshkenazi, ed., The Torah:  A Women’s Commentary, (Women of Reform Judaism URJ Press, 2008), 97.

[iv] Schifferdecker.

Sermon – John 18.1-19.42, GF, YA, April 14, 2017

Tags

betrayal, blasphemy, chief priests, confession, cross, denial, evil, failure, God, Good Friday, Jesus, Judas, passion narrative, Peter, scapegoat, Sermon, sinfulness, transform

I have been thinking this week about how every year we read the same story of Jesus’ death.  Unlike the Christmas story that we eagerly anticipate hearing each year, this story seems like a masochistic practice of hearing the same devastating story over and over again.  And we do not just read this story on Good Friday.  In addition to John’s version of the passion narrative, we read one of the synoptic versions on Palm Sunday.  Twice in one week we relive the painful story, catching interesting variations.  But the ending is always the same:  death, finality, failure.  At least on Palm Sunday, we use various voices, making the story feel like a performance.  But today, one sole voice, tells the achingly raw story – a story we would rather skip, or soften, or cry out to the reader, “Please stop!”

In hearing the story this year, I was struck by the failures of three characters.  The first is probably the easiest culprit:  Judas.  In Mathew’s gospel there is at least a feigning of loyalty as Judas greets Jesus as “Rabbi,” and kisses his cheek.  But John does not play such games.  In John’s narrative, Judas is fully on the side of the persecutors.  He boldly brings and stands with the soldiers and police.  He does not greet Jesus, or apologize.  He is confident in his decision.  He stands proud, even as we now are able to see his profound failure.  His ignorance of the depth of his betrayal is almost worse than the actual betrayal.  His confidence that this is for the best, is the first crack in our hearts as we hear this painful story.

Then we have Peter – precious, passionate, pitiful Peter.  For all the times he gets things right, and all the endearing times he gets things wrong, today is just a spirit-crushing failure.  In Matthew’s gospel, Peter denies knowing Jesus.  In John’s gospel, Peter denies his discipleship – his very relationship with and dedication to the Messiah.  In the face of Jesus’ “I am,” claim[i] today, Peter’s claim is “I am not.”[ii]  For all the wonderful, powerful, sacrificial moments in Jesus today, Peter is shameful, cowardly, and self-serving.  Even after being warned that he will deny Christ, Peter denies Christ in spite of himself.  That cock’s crow is the second crack in our hearts as we hear this brutal story.

The third character today does not always get as much attention, but their failure is perhaps the worst.  Whereas Judas and Peter deny and betray a friend, the chief priests deny their very God.  They say seven words to Pilate today that should be more shocking than anything said.  “We have no king but the emperor.”  We often get distracted by their words, because we know that they are meant manipulate Pilate’s sense of authority.  But the chief priests, the religious, moral guides of the people of faith say today, “We have no king but the emperor.”  Of course, we have to think back to remember why this statement is so profoundly painful.  You see, once upon a time, God was the king of Israel.  The people worshiped Yahweh, and Yahweh alone.  But the people got greedy, and begged Yahweh for a king like the other nations.  And so God anointed kings through God’s prophets.  But the chief priests take their self-centered sinfulness a step further than our ancestors.  They deny God today.  Their claim to have no king but the emperor is treason against our God – blasphemy.  And with their claim, our heart lies cracked in two as we hear the rest of the awful story.

Of course, blaming Judas, Peter, and the chief priests would be an easy way to scapegoat our way out of this dark day.  There are even Christians who claim that the Jews crucified our Lord.  But we know the truth.  We know that we are the Jews.  We know that we are Judas and Peter and the chief priests.  We know that our heart fractures with each vignette because they remind us of times when we have stood on our soapboxes, certain of our moral claims, only to later look back and see whom we betrayed and trampled in the process.  We know that that our heart fractures because we are reminded of those times when we knew the right thing to do, said we were going to do the right thing, and then failed to do the right thing – over, and over, and over again.  We have heard that same cock crowing.  We know that our heart fractures because we have put other gods before our God.  Sure, the gods have varied:  money, power, security, ego.  But we have gotten so lost in our gods that we said and did things that would have inspired a gasp from anyone more faithful than ourselves.  The failures of Judas, Peter, and the chief priests are not just failures of those men, two thousand years ago.  The failures of Judas, Peter, and the chief priests are our failures.[iii]

I think that is why we tell this story year after year, twice a week from different gospels.  We tell this story over and over again because we fail over and over again.  Though the specific characters are important, the characters live and operate in us centuries later.  That is why the story is so compelling – not because we can gather together and wag our fingers at those people.  The story is compelling because the story is eerily close to our own sinfulness.  Part of the devastating nature of this story is how complicit we are in the story.  Though the powers of evil might want us to deny our culpability in this story, what is hardest about this story is how close to home the story really is.

Now, you I do not ever like to leave the pulpit without a word of hope, a reminder that risen Lord redeems us all.  But today, I encourage you not to rush to the empty tomb.  Take time to sit in our collective confession, to tarry on those things done and left undone which are separating you from God and one another.  Bring your failures or sense of failure to the cross and lay them there today.  Grieve the ways that you cannot help yourself, year after year, from sin and shame.  The whole season of Lent has been building up to this day.  The whole reason we took on those disciplines and came to church for confession was because we knew, ultimately, that this is where we keep tripping up:  in betrayal and denial of our very identity as beloved disciples and children of God.  We are the ones bombing others.  We are the ones racially profiling.  We are the ones denigrating women, the poor, and the oppressed.  We are the ones, century after century repeating the sins of the faithful.

Lay all that sinfulness at the cross today.  Whether you venerate the cross in the liturgy today, wear a cross around your neck, or pray with the cross on your prayer beads, the power of the cross is to absorb all those failures and to transform them into something worth living.  You can, and perhaps should, feel the powerful weight of your sinful patterns today.  But let them die at the foot of the cross with Jesus.  Lay them naked at the cross, for all the world to see.  There is relief in that confession, the depth of which you may not feel fully until our Easter proclamation.

[i] Susan E. Hylen, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 299.

[ii] Karoline Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 222.

[iii] Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, and Matt Skinner, “SB 535, Good Friday,” April 7, 2017, found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=873 on April 8, 2017.

Sermon – Job 42.1-6, 10-17, P25, YB, October 25, 2015

Tags

abundance, faithfulness, gift, God, happily ever after, happy, Job, new normal, opportunity, Sermon, stewardship, suffering, theology of gratitude, transform, wealth

I remember well the reentry experience I had after my first major international mission trip.  A team of about 20 of us traveled to Honduras for ten days, spending seven of those days in a rural, impoverished village.  When I came back to Duke, I came back a changed person.  Suddenly the mounds of food available in the dining hall seemed exorbitant, if not wasteful when I remembered the hungry children of the village.  Although the long, hot showers felt glorious, I also could not help but feeling guilty for using so much water and having that water so ready at my fingertips when I had become so accustomed to having only a bucket of water to bathe with every other day – a bucket that I had to share with someone else.  Even being able to go to the student health center for the stomach bug I brought back with me felt like a luxury after having run a health clinic with meager supplies and only one doctor.

All that would be enough to make me feel out of place.  But what made the experience worse was that I felt like a transformed, confused, vulnerable person in a sea of people going about their everyday lives.  In fact, I was very clear that I was the weird one.  All I had to do was have the basic, “What did you do for Spring Break?” conversation, and I could tell that no one could relate to my new reality.  They had been to Cancun, Cabo, or Costa Rica for Spring Break.  They had stories about partying, pools, and pina coladas.  There biggest stressors were navigating taxis without speaking Spanish, haggling with shop owners about prices, and trying to figure out how much to tip the cabana guys.  My stories about a lack of indoor plumbing, sleeping on cement floors, and boiling water to drink just led to blank stares and quick exits.  Instead, I was left alone, on a campus full of abundance, with students who have never had to worry about money or even their basic needs being met, in a place where my only responsibility was to study and attend classes.  Having seen real poverty, I would never again be able to look at the campus and people and privilege around me and see all of that in the same way again.

I think that is what makes me so uncomfortable about the happily-ever-after ending we get in Job today.  These last few weeks we have been reading through Job.  We hear the confusing conversation between the Adversary and God about how the Adversary will test Job’s righteousness by taking everything away – his children, his livestock, his home.  We remember how his friends try to tell him he must have done something to deserve his suffering.  We hear Job lash out at God, demanding to know why he is suffering so.  And last week we heard God put Job in his place, asking how Job thought he had any right to presume he knew God’s ways.  The today, when Job humbly confesses and submits to God, God suddenly relieves Job of his suffering.  He brings back his wealth – twice as much as he had before.  He blesses Job with children and livestock again.  On the surface, the whole story sounds so simple.  Job has everything taken away, he remains faithful, and then is restored his fortunes.  But something about that ending does not sit well with me.  How could Job ever look at his ten children without remembering the ten he had before?  How could Job ever look at that livestock and wealth without remembering how he once had nothing?  How could Job receive his consoling brothers and sisters without remembering how they had all deserted him and left him to sit with his sores and grief?  For some reason, I just cannot imagine how all that abundance in the face of recent tragedy somehow makes up for all his suffering.

Of course, we all try to make that transition in life.  I know widowers or divorcees who have had countless people ask why they do not start dating – as if a new spouse could ever make them forget the one with whom they shared a lifetime.  I know pet owners who have lost a beloved pet, only to have someone say, “You should just get a new puppy.  A puppy will make you forget your old dog.”  I even know young mothers who have lost a pregnancy or even an infant, only to have someone say, “You’re young.  You can always have another.”  To their credit, I genuinely think our friends and family are trying to say something that they think is helpful.  They are facing the abyss of pain too, and simply want to make everything okay.  And so they, and we, say something that even sounds awful to us coming out of our mouths.  But we do not know what else to say.

As I have thought about Job this week, I realized the end of his story is not a happily-ever-after ending.  The end of his story is a story about the new normal.  The new normal is not just a return to the same – or even a doubling of what was before.  The new normal for Job is learning how to be a person of faith in the midst of abundance.  Job teaches us a lot about living in the new normal.  Job prays for his friends who tried to blame Job’s suffering on Job.  Job eats with his siblings who disappeared during his suffering.  And Job does something radical.  When he has those ten children, three of them are daughters.  The text tells us that he gives the daughters an inheritance along with their brothers.  That kind of action was unheard of in Job’s day.[i]  Women were not given inheritances.  If they wanted security, they got married.  But Job, in his new normal, decides not just to enjoy his wealth, but to make his wealth count for others – for the most vulnerable:  for women.

Though I would never wish Job’s fate on anyone, Job’s suffering and trials teach him something about faithfulness.  Job moves from basically espousing a prosperity gospel – one in which he was blessed with good things because of his faithfulness – to espousing a theology of gratitude.  His wealth is no longer something for him to possess as a reward, but is now a tool for making a difference in the world.  That is not to say that Job is not a righteous man before his trials.  The text tells us he is.  What the text does infer is that Job’s relationship with his wealth is transformed, along with his faith.[ii]

A few weeks ago, Deacon Anthony told us about an experience of a man in New York City that he saw on the website, “Humans of New York.”  The story about the man in his own words goes like this, “Not long ago it looked like I was about to get everything.  I was one of the first employees at a company that sold for a billion dollars.  So I started a new company, and everything seemed to be going perfectly, but suddenly everything came apart.  This has been the toughest year of my adult life.  I went bankrupt, my company failed, and a person I loved died.  I didn’t commit suicide—though I considered it.  But my ideas of myself have definitely died.  I thought I was better than everyone.  I saw my success as the culmination of all my positive merits.  Losing everything forced me to realize how much of my good fortune was due to things that had been given to me.”[iii]  I think that man from New York understood Job’s reality deeply.  His year of tragedy taught him the same thing that Job’s time of tragedy taught him.  Everything is a gift:  our wealth, our abundance, our comfort, our security.  Everything is a gift.  And once we realize that everything is a gift, we are irrevocably changed.  We cannot go back to living life in a haphazard, oblivious way.  Our perspective toward abundance, and our responsibility to manage that abundance, changes.

Job found a way to transform the lives of his daughters with his wealth – even though society would have never have considered asking him, let alone expected him to do so.  Often we talk about wealth being a burden or a responsibility.  All we need to do is think about the lesson we heard recently about the rich getting into heaven being like a camel going through the eye of a needle.  Or we know those familiar words from Luke, “to whom much is given, much is required.”  But Job does not teach us that lesson today.  Wealth is not a burden or a responsibility.  Wealth frees us for opportunity – opportunities to bless, to transform, and to flourish.  Like that man in New York understood, wealth is a gift.  Our invitation this week is to consider how we might use our wealth as a gift.  Instead of seeing this stewardship season as a reminder of the burden we all have to support the operating budget of the church, I invite you to consider this stewardship season as a gift – an invitation to use your wealth to create opportunities to bless, to transform, and to flourish the ministries of this place.  Like Job joyfully watched his daughters experience a new freedom, I wonder what new opportunities your wealth might create in this community.  Amen.

[i] Dale P. Andrews, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 199.

[ii] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Commentary on Job 42:1-6, 10-17,” October 28, 2012, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1455 on October 22, 2015.

[iii] Found at “Humans of New York,” October 10, 2015, found at https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/1105944539479645/?type=3&fref=nf on October 23, 2015.

Sermon – Matthew 2.1-12, Epiphany (transferred), YB, January 4, 2015

Tags

change, Christ, Epiphany, eventful, God, Holy Spirit, magi, observant, seeker, Sermon, transform

At St. Margaret’s, one of the things we talk about a lot is being a seeker.  In fact, our motto is that we are a community of faith seeking, serving, and sharing Christ in Plainview.  Though we talk about being seekers or being a people who are seeking Christ, sometimes I am not sure we are all on board about what that actually means.  That is why I love this story of the magi today in our gospel lesson.  Though we may not feel like we have much in common with wise men from the East who have expensive gifts, the gift of the wise men for us today is that they show us what the experience of being a seeker is really like.

First, the magi show us that being a seeker means being observant.[i]  The text from Matthew today says that the wise men observe the king’s star at its rising.  Now, in order to observe a star, one must be paying attention.  One must be on the lookout for the movement of God in order to have an encounter with God.

We have a group within our parish who has taken to looking at the stars too.  Our Praying with the Stars offering is a way for us to connect with God through the observation of the stars.  That offering is one more way that St. Margaret’s helps us seek Christ in creation.  But the truth is that Praying with the Stars is about more than astrology.  Praying with the Stars is about creating space to observe the movement of the Holy Spirit.  If stars are not your thing, that is fine.  Perhaps movies or books or music is more your thing.  The point is that one can never really be a seeker unless one is attuned to the movement of God – or at least creates opportunities to open oneself to the movement of God.  The magi offer us that gentle push to create space in our own spiritual lives for observing, watching, and listening for the movement of the Spirit.

Next, the magi show us that being a seeker means that our journey will be eventful.  In this story alone, the wise men have two very different encounters.  First, they encounter those who are resistant to their journey.  King Herod on the surface seems quite inquisitive and eager to hear about the magi’s journey.  But we learn from the text that Herod acts more out of fear for his own power and control.  What was good news to the wise men was not seen as good news by all.  Second, the wise men experience being overwhelmed by joy.  When they encounter the Christ Child, the wise me are so overwhelmed that they are brought to their knees, pay homage, and pour out abundant gifts.  Experiencing Christ is so overwhelming that these men find themselves doing things they may not have expected.

Many of us know exactly what this experience is like.  We get roped into volunteering for a workday at Habitat for Humanity, and in the middle of the workday, as we are hanging drywall with a prospective homeowner, the homeowner says something that stops us in our tracks.  We are so overwhelmed by the encounter that all we can do is marvel at God working in our midst.  Or we are sitting in worship for the millionth time, hearing the same Eucharistic prayer again, when a word or a phrase catches us up short.  Suddenly, what we are doing at the Eucharistic table takes on a fresh, jarring perspective.  Or maybe we are having a simple conversation with a fellow parishioner about the way that their sacrificial giving has changed their walk with Christ.  The next time we write our pledge check, something is changed in us forever – even the sensation of the pen on the paper of our check feels different.

Finally, the magi show us that being a seeker means that our lives will be changed.  When the wise men are done with their visit with the holy family, they do not simply return home the same way that they came.  They do not even return to Herod as Herod had asked them to return.  No, in the midst of their visit, the wise men have a dream that warns them to go another way.  And so, they return home, but by a way that is not familiar.  The magi teach us that when you meet Christ, “Nothing is ever the same.  You don’t take the old road any longer.  You unfold a new map, and discover an alternate path.”[ii]

For those of us who have assumed the life of the seeker, we know this truth all too well.  If we commit our lives to truly seeking God, not idly going through the motions, we experience things that are just too transformative to leave us the same.  We can no longer be the old selves that we once were.  My friends who are vegetarians all have a story.  Whether they read The Jungle in high school, or they saw Fast Food Nation after college, some experience led them to disavow the eating of meat.  Whatever they learned or experienced, they could not unlearn.  And so they were transformed and their eating life was transformed.  The same is true for us.  When we seek and experience Christ – whether in our experiences with the poor, in our experiences with fellow parishioners, or even as we taste Christ in the holy meal – we too are transformed into something that cannot be undone.

That is the gift of the magi for us today.  They show us how to be seekers:  seekers who are observant, seekers who expect eventfulness, and seekers who realize they will be forever changed.  As the drama of their journey unfolds, they invite us to allow our own spiritual journey of seeking to unfold.  The promise is that the Holy Spirit will transform us, over and over again.  We only need to take the first step.  Amen.

[i] Steve Pankey, “Are You Paying Attention?” December 29, 2014 at https://draughtingtheology.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/are-you-paying-attention/.

[ii] James C. Howell, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 216.

On the in-between…

Tags

God, holy, pregnancy, ready, suffering, transform, waiting

As I approach my delivery date, many people have asked me whether I am ready.  I think they usually are asking one of two things (or both):  1) Have I accomplished everything I need to do to welcome the baby?, and/or 2) Am I ready to no longer be bearing the physical burden of pregnancy?  It is the second question that has me in a quandary lately.  In many ways, I am so ready to be done with the physical discomfort of these last weeks.  My body is constantly hurting, I cannot seem to get a good night’s sleep, I cannot find a good balance between not enough exercise and too much exercise, and the kicking in the womb lately takes my breath away.  So in that way, I feel so ready to be done with this part of the pregnancy.

But there is another part of me that is quite sad at the prospect of this pregnancy being over.  This is the last time my husband and I expect to be pregnant, and so this is the last time I will ever experience the miracle of having a baby kick me from the inside.  This is the last time I will see my body expand in ways I never imagined possible.  This is the last time that I will be able to enjoy the sacred moment of rubbing my belly and knowing the two of us are sharing in life.  So in that way, I am not at all ready for this to all be over.

Where I struggle is in finding the balance between the two.  More often I find myself wishing days away and complaining than I do soaking in every last moment of pregnancy.  Once I realized the pattern, I began to wonder how often I do that with God.  I pray for some trial to end, I pray to just get through something, or I pray for more knowledge and experience so that I can do better the next time.  The truth is, perhaps I could consider being more grateful for the trying, challenging, painful times, knowing they will transform me into something different and better.  Perhaps I could consider looking for those beacons of hope in the midst of darkness in life – the way suffering can bring me closer to others who suffer; the people God puts in my path who offer comfort – even if I am not good at receiving that comfort; the intimacy I experience with God in the tortured prayers of the experience.

Perhaps what I am talking about sounds trite – consider the silver lining, or when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  But what I am slowly realizing is that God can sanctify those difficult times, transforming them and us into something entirely different.  But God requires of us many things – to be vulnerable, to be more critically observant, to expect God to be pointing to something small, but something really great.  I do not know if I will ever master this way of being, particularly in difficult times, but I appreciate the reminder this week.  And now, I’m off to go rub my belly and smile some more.

Sermon – Jeremiah 18.1-11, P18, YC, September 8, 2013

Tags

change, covenant, God, Jeremiah, potter, pottery, Sermon, transform, vessel

I am a huge fan of pottery.  I have been given many gifts of pottery, my favorite being a chalice and paten upon my graduation from seminary.  When most of us think of pottery, we immediately think of a beautiful finished product:  the smooth texture, the radiant glaze, or the hands that carefully formed the bowl or other item.  We imagine the potter at his wheel, gracefully shaping clay into a work of art.  We might even recall the intimate scene from the movie “Ghost” where Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze romantically shape a piece of pottery together.

But the more I have read about potters and pottery this week, the more I realize how flawed this romantic image is of a potter.  First of all, potters begin their work with about a two pound chunk of clay that they then have to knead and work into a more elastic form.  They eventually have to throw the clay onto a wheel and get the clay centered.  This work is so difficult that new potters can take hours just to get the clay centered before they even begin the messy work of forming the clay.  Once they figure out the centering, then there is the work of using water, the spraying of wet clay everywhere, and of course the endless mistakes.  Exerting too much or too little pressure, making a wall too thin, or creating an unintended shape can mean starting all over.  One woman watched a man form a beautiful bowl, only to have the whole thing collapse when he tried to take the bowl off the wheel.  The man destroyed five bowls before he finally removed a perfect bowl properly – each time having to start from the messy beginning.[i]

This much more realistic version of a potter making pottery is what the Lord uses as a metaphor today for how God will treat the Israelites.  The Lord sends the prophet Jeremiah down to the potter’s house to hear God’s words.  Jeremiah says, “So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel.  The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.”  Jeremiah immediately recognizes the metaphor God is trying to communicate.  God is the potter and Israel is the vessel.  Clearly Israel has veered off course – in fact, Israel has already fallen at this point in history, and Judah is the only group of God’s people left who are still in active covenantal relationship with God.  So this people, who have journeyed from Sinai to the present, who have lived a covenantal life of reciprocal obligation and blessing, have hit yet another point in life where they have fallen away from their covenantal promises and face the option of being destroyed and discarded or being taken back to that compressed version of clay and being shaped into something more pleasing to God.[ii]

Knowing what we know about the potter’s work, we immediately see that this will not be easy work for God’s people.  Life as they know life will be collapsed, and new life with God will take a very different shape.  That transformation will be messy and uncomfortable, and in fact may take multiple attempts at reshaping.  Though the Israelites are offered a way out of destruction, the way out will be painful, disheartening, and disorienting.  All that is familiar will be changed, and though God is holding the Israelites in God’s hands, those hands do not promise to be gentle or permissive.

I have been thinking a lot this week about St. Margaret’s journey with the potter these last fifty years.  We were first centered as a rag tag team of Episcopalians at a local American Legion Hall.  Then the potter reshaped us time and again with various vicars.  When we called our first rector, we started all over again, finding new life and new ministries, God’s hands exerting pressure on us in various ways.  Even as we faced difficult times with our second rector, God’s hand was ever with us.  I am sure many of us felt like we were being compressed down into a clay heap, only to start being shaped again by God in these last couple of years.

Of course, all of that sounds a bit too much like the glossed over version of some of our favorite hymns.  In “Spirit of the Living God,” we hear, “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.  Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me…”  Similarly, in “Have Thine Own Way Lord,” we hear, “Have thine own way, Lord!  Have thine own way!  Thou art the potter, I am the clay.  Mold me and make me after thy will; While I am waiting, yielded and still.”  Those are the old timey hymns I grew up singing, and I always remember singing them with heartfelt desire.  Of course, now that I know a little bit more about the pottery-making process, I am not sure how wholeheartedly I could sing those hymns.  Those hymns are calling on God to do exactly what God suggests in Jeremiah – that God will reshape us, remold us, and require us to be pliable, cooperative subjects in the process.

Since I entered the search process here about two years ago, we have been talking about change.  Change is a word we throw around a lot, that most of say we are ready for, but the majority of us secretly and not-so-secretly hate.  We know that change is necessary and inevitable, but we will fight change with every ounce of our being – even sometime unconsciously or at least without malicious intentions.  And yet change is what we have all been undergoing for the past two years, and the change does not seem to be stopping.  If we were to imagine St. Margaret’s on God’s Pottery Wheel, we might be able to think about the ways God keeps adding water to us, keeps exerting pressure, and keeps pushing us this way and that way.  It is entirely possible that God has even crumpled us down into a heap again and started afresh with us within the last two years.  I know we have all felt that potter’s work.  Every single person here, including me, at some point in the last two years has groaned under God’s constant shaping and molding.  This kind of shaping is not pretty, is messy and painful, and quite frankly is hard.  Most of us do not prefer to stand, “waiting, yielded and still.”  We prefer that God back off and just go ahead and declare us a beautiful bowl, and be done with us.

Now you have probably learned by now that I always like to give us a bit of good news on Sundays to take home.  I am going to try to give you a little taste of good news, but I have to warn you that today’s good news is a little bitter sweet.  The good news is that the metaphor the Lord gives to Jeremiah is one of promise.  God does not say that the potter takes the spoiled vessel and throws the vessel into the trash.  The promise to Israel is that God, despite all their sinfulness and evil ways, still gives the Israelites another chance to return to God and to the covenantal promises they have made to be in relationship with God.  But God does not promise that their misshapen selves get to stay misshapen.  They will still need to bend to the potter, and be willing to be shaped into something new and beautiful.

This is the colored promise for us as well.  God does not abandon us when we resist God and the changes God wants to make in this community.  God does not lose hope on our complaining selves that would much rather do things the way we have always done them.  God promises to keep God’s powerful hands around us, holding us with the seasoned hands of a potter.  God will be with us.  But God is also going to keep pushing us, and keep painfully shaping us, and artfully bending us into beautiful vessels that can glorify God and show Christ’s light to our community.  So maybe this week, we need to pick up our Lift Every Voice and Sing hymnals and start singing “Have thine own way, Lord!  Have thine own way!  Thou art the potter, I am the clay.  Mold me and make me after thy will; While I am waiting, yielded and still.”  Perhaps if we sing that old hymn enough, we might actually start yielding to the potter who loves us, is always with us, and who desires for us to be a beautiful vessel of God.  Amen.

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[i] Christy Jo Waltersdorff, “Centering the Clay,” Brethren Life and Thought, vol. 50, no. 1-2, Wint. – Spr. 2005, 53.

[ii] Bruce C. Birch, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 29.