Niche Followers

My children call it, quietly, “Dad’s obsession.” My dream is that they mean that fondly and are not suggesting that I suffer either from an organic disease, like early Alzheimer’s, or have an emotional disorder.

What stresses them is my habit of straining to see a “God-thing” in the most ordinary of circumstances. For instance, I enjoy thinking that the gifts bestowed by the Wizard of Oz on the scarecrow, the lion, and the tin man, are not brain, courage and heart, but rather, represent the gifts of faith, hope and love. Likewise, I claim that Superman is our culture’s effort to deal with the complexities of Jesus’ having both a human and a divine nature. I see The Lord of the Flies as a tale of good and evil that rivals Genesis, and ET as a resurrection story. You get the picture.

My kids avoid me like the plague during the season of Advent! Weary of my theological lenses, my now adult children have long tired of playing the game. “So, Dad, what are visions of sugar plums dancing in children’s heads really all about?” “Hey, Dad, when folks camp out all night on Thanksgiving to be the first inside a box store on ‘Black Friday,’ what sort of biblical wilderness event is that, Exodus, or Jesus in the desert?”

The season of Advent seems to be a good time to give those lenses a rest. Our culture doesn’t offer too many pre-Christmas experiences that make a pair of “God-thing” lenses useful. It’s a tough time to “sell” practices like waiting and preparing when everywhere we turn we’re seduced to make right-now purchases of ready-to-wrap products whose prices have been reduced.

There is, though, a fun quiz-show on National Public Radio. Its host asks questions of famous people to “fill-in the-blank” with names of significant persons, places, and events that average readers of newspapers and watchers of TV news could have, should have, noticed. The contestant with the most correct answers wins bragging rights. The show’s name is, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!”

While the show isn’t as famous as Desperate Housewives, it does have a niche market. That’s where those lenses may yet come in handy. Advent, too, has a niche following.

We still know believers eager to wait and prepare for the once again coming of Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Even the average among them refuse to play games, don’t need to win and reject bragging. Culture doesn’t easily seduce them. Without straining, they see a God-thing most everywhere. This time of year you’ll usually find them at ___________? Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!

The End is The Beginning

It's an odd way to begin a new year. (So-called liturgical churches follow a calendar that ends with the last Sunday in November and begins a New Year with the season of Advent on the first Sunday of December.) Rather than hearing songs of auld lang sine; or toasting with champagne, the church has us hear another version of Jesus' last will and testament. Like Matthew's parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25), Mark's Jesus speaks about what we've come to call, erroneously, the second coming. If Matthew's version of Jesus’ last words challenges his followers with the image of judgment, Luke's version (Luke 21:25-36 is a call to watch for signs of the end.

Speeches about the end of history often use the language of apocalyptic. Apocalypse means revelation and apocalyptic has been widely used to speak of the end of time and events leading up to it in colorful, sometimes coded, imagery. Old Testament images, such as those drawn from Isaiah 13, in Jesus' words about a darkened sun and dimmed moon, and falling stars, are very common. In the Book of Revelation we have elaborate descriptions of the end times. In Luke, Jesus is more restrained, sweetening the revelation with the parable of the fig tree.

Here Jesus is the focus, describing himself with apocalyptic imagery from Daniel, chapter 7, about a "son of man" receiving authority to rule after centuries of "animals," who symbolize foreign political powers. It's Jesus who subverted the powers which destroy people, as we heard Mark tell us in his account of Jesus ministry, throughout this past year. As we heard and saw that ministry unfold, we came to recognize that it's Jesus and his rule which will outlast all such oppressors.

The folks to whom Mark was writing were very familiar with that sort of oppression. In earlier verses of this chapter Mark refers to the horrendous consequences of the Jewish revolt in the years 66-70, which ended with the Romans starving out Jerusalem before breaking through the walls and destroying the Temple. With this horror fresh in their memory, Mark's first hearers would have been able to relate to warnings about false messiah's and false prophets. They were in a good position to read the signs of the times. In Mark's view their times must be the last times.

It's very hard for most of us to walk in those shoes, whether the cobbler is early-Mark or later-Luke. What does it mean to feel that things are so bad the only hope is a quick end to the world? The poetry of pain and despair, the fantasies of escape and resolution, challenge us to silence, to listening.

What do people in such a situation need to hear from their God? What would a faithful and loving God say to people in such despair?

Like those early church communities, we're living beyond what was for so many, the real and final end of days. Like Luke's community of faith, we, too, have some time to gather together and to hear. And in that hearing we need to listen to the clear and convincing word of Jesus that, energy spent trying to guess at the end, or chart the details of the final plot, is irrational. Jesus says, "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

The word from Jesus, the word which God's struggling people need to hear; the word from our faithful and loving God is this, "Beware, keep alert..." This isn't a mandate to focus on predicting the future in a kind of "I know something you don't know" game, where me and my group engage our powers of prediction or claims to privileged revelation, and get a religious buzz out of applying biblical prophecy and believing we know - like those folks who put a sticker on their bumper that says, "In case of rapture this car will become unoccupied."

The Word from our faithful and loving God, the Word we need to hear, and the Word God speaks in Jesus says, "Stand up; Raise your heads, Live! Live in the authority by which you can trust. Trust that the Lord is our Father, we are the clay, the Lord is the potter, and we are all the work of God's hands."

That's what we know. That's the bold claim on which it is our privilege to stand. We to whom God has given the time and the space to see, and to reflect on, and to speak against what's going on in the oppression of folks whose suffering makes it impossible to speak for themselves, have a crucial role for change in the world. "Be alert!"

Watchful living has less to do with speculation about the end of the world and more to do with carrying on in our trust. And carrying on, as Jesus tells it, makes the date of the end irrelevant. Readiness has as much to do with being ready for living as it has to do with being ready for its ending.

In every age, folks get misdirected here. When a brother working in the fields along side St. Francis asked what he'd do if he knew the end of the world was coming, Francis is alleged to have said, "Well, I'd really like to finish hoeing this row." When, one autumn afternoon, Luther was asked what he'd do if he knew that the end of the world was coming next Spring Luther is said to have replied, "I think I'd still like to plant a little fruit tree."

You see, we don't have to fear the end because we've already been through the end. In every new moment, the world as we know it has come to an end. And by that end, a new beginning has dawned; a beginning wherein God is still God - we the clay, God the potter.

Every day we live in and for that time when God will tear open the heavens and come down. Advent isn't a season of waiting; it's a lifetime of waiting. Watching for what we've already lived through to occur again. God tore open the heavens and came down:
• at creation
• to stay Abraham's hand and spare Isaac's life
• to tell Pharaoh, ten times, "Let my people go!"
• in a manger
• to unseal the tomb
• to fill the disciples' hearts with fire on Pentecost day.

In Luke's day, to watch was to live the life of a disciple, with an eye to what was happening in the world. Living as disciples of Jesus, in our day, means nothing less.

I wish 2000 years of failed predictions made us more sober. But, too often, we've given in to the fear and withdrawn from the world. Too often we've chosen not to speak against the cries of pain we hear all around us. Too often, we've narrowed our focus, watching only the private footsteps of our own moral goodness. It's an attractive religion that lulls us to sleep easy. It's a harmless religion that teaches us to live stress free. But that kind of religion doesn't have much to do with the kind of engaged alertness Jesus speaks about; the alertness by which we recognize new leaves, and take up the work given to us until the Master returns.

December 1st, marks the 51st anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Rosa Parks was tired. At the end of her long day at work as a seamstress, no one would have faulted her for movin' back. Was God indifferent to her oppression? Was God absent? Was God no longer at work for those who were waiting?

Somehow Miss Rosa came awake. Somehow she knew that the work needin' done had been entrusted to slaves until the master's return. So she sat, and the world she'd known so well, came to an end. This secretary to the NAACP was arrested and sat in a squad car. This woman who'd been denied voter registration sat in court and was convicted. This Sunday school teacher sat in jail. And for all of us, on the day that Rosa Parks sat, God had the last word, the world as we knew it ended, and a new world dawned.

Jesus' last words become our first words in the Church's New Year: a call to be awake to what's happening in our world and to be looking for and in tune with the One who comes, whether for the final time - as in traditional expectations about the Second Advent - or for any time, for now.

Now. Can we make the prayer of Isaiah our own? What would it feel like if God tore open the heavens and came down? Can we trust that we've already been through the end with this God? Can we yield, again, to the power of this God who has, with the gift of every new moment, ended the world as we know it?

We:
• leave home, and the world as we know it ends
• get married, and the world as we know it ends
• receive a diagnosis, and the world as we know it ends
• lose a parent, and the world as we know it ends
• divorce, and the world as we know it ends
• go to sleep at night and the world as we know it ends.

In such situations what do we need to hear from God? What would a faithful and loving God say to us? Can we trust that we've already been through the end with this God? This is what we mean when we make our Advent prayer: Come, Lord Jesus!

When Jesus comes into our hearts, he brings along all the needy of the world. To whom else would the God who works for those who wait for God bring those lost and least but to we whom God has called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ?

We who know so well this lesson, that some days God does seem indifferent and absent, cry out in our distress and in our longing, full of trust that Christ holds the future for ourselves and the world. We keep awake, not for the birth of an unknown babe whose life has yet to unfold, but for the return of the one who knows us and is known by us; for the One whose presence we feel and hear and touch, in Word and Sacrament, whenever the world as we know it ends and a new world dawns. We keep watch for the teller of parables, the banquet host, and the friend of sinners. We are waiting for the crucified and risen Lord, in whom we both know the sleep of heavenly peace, and the resurrection waking.

Not only don't we know the day or the hour, we also don't know whether or not God will ask us to stand up or sit down! Until we hear a clearer message from our faithful and loving God, Beware, as we hoe one more row against injustice. Keep alert, as we plant another fruit tree for the springtime of freedom. You see, the end, again, is the beginning, again!

King Jesus' Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

In a few weeks Mayor Peterson’s anti-violence task force will issue its report. At the three community meetings I’ve been part of, the emphasis has been on identifying concrete strategies, proven to reduce or to prevent violence.

Faith community’s face at least two challenges to join this focus. First, most of our programs don’t stress either crime prevention, or criminal justice activities. When we offer VBS, weekly bible study, Jabari Malevi, or think about launching 4-H, neither our vision - Sharin’ Plenty Good News - nor our core values - inviting, welcoming, discipling, nurturing, healing and rejoicing – keys in on reducing crime, or punishing and rehabilitating wrongdoers. Second, the outcomes we do aim for are, for the most part, either not measured easily, or identify effectiveness differently than those measuring reductions in crime.

Here’s an example. Let’s say one of our Jabari Malevi girls becomes a model school bus rider. She stops arguing with seatmates, chooses to ignore name-calling, and never again joins in fist-fights. Let’s also say that her change has come through contact with us. Trusting her identity as a child or God, she feels differently about herself and her future. She also recognizes her sister-hood with other girls, even those not yet on the same page as she is. In this new awareness, she is able to ignore other riders’ petty, disruptive behavior.

Three questions: (a) would we ever know she made that change, (b) if we did know, could we claim credit for her new behavior, and, (c) what world would we be living in such that we’d see that as a crime prevention outcome? As people of faith aren’t we more likely claim her new way of thinking and behaving as a sign of God’s life-changing presence?

Now I’ve been in this debate before. You’re aware of it too. At one level, it’s the old argument between so-called hard and soft sciences. It goes like this. Question: what’s the best way to cure alcoholism? Answer: (a) give the addict a different drug, Anabuse, which makes the body react violently to alcohol; or, (b) encourage participation in AA.

If we give the drug, we measure, biologically and objectively, its effects on the disease. If we push AA, the measures are subjective, what the addict tells us. Want to really cloud the bases for judgment? Substitute, or add into the mix, religious practices like anointing and laying on hands. What accounts for the change?

Most faith-filled folks take with a grain of salt research into the value of prayer as a treatment for illness. We look suspiciously at surveys claiming regular church-goers live longer than those who spend Sunday mornings at Starbucks, or at home.

We’re also wary of government and religion becoming too closely linked. That’s especially true in our country, where separation between church and state is both a core cultural value and a legal obligation.

I think it’s helpful, every Sunday, to have ideas like that play in our minds and tugging for the loyalty claims of our hearts. What we’re about here, in this assembly and in this larger community, as disciples of this Jesus, is to bring life and faith together. Part of the way we do that is to gather together to offer worship and praise to the God Jesus came to reveal to us. We give God thanks for all that’s happened to each of us, alone and together, in the week past. We also give God thanks - in advance - for all that will happen in the week ahead.

It’s especially helpful, I think, to have these conflicting thoughts and confounding feelings swirling in and around us as we celebrate the Kingship of Jesus. What on earth does that mean? I mean that, literally. What on earth does that mean?

Before we get there, here are a few other contradictory thoughts and confusing feelings. We’re Christians, citizens of a country governed by a constitutional democracy. This particular duly elected government, which campaigned against so-called nation-building, is committed to spreading democracy in other countries, steeped in very different cultures. Our president, also a Christian, is doing that by means of a war that’s never been declared formally by those representatives we elected to preserve, protect and defend that constitution.

This is the world in which we’re trying to bring life and faith together, celebrating the Kingship of Jesus. What on earth does that mean?

Part of what I hope you’ll see and hear here, as well as wrestle with for a while, is that while we may value and desire a constitutional separation between church and state, for disciples of Jesus, there can be no separation between life and faith!

Looking only at this one scene in John’s rather long drama of Jesus’ passion and death (John 18:33-37), we can learn some profound realities about both God and ourselves.

See all this shuttling back and forth Pilate does between the law-abiding Jewish leaders and the accused Jesus? That shows a piece of an unholy alliance between religion and government. The religious leaders are trying to get the government to execute someone whose “crime” violates a biblical, not a civil, law. The official religious charge is blasphemy (19:7).

To reach their goal, these religious leaders declare their civic allegiance to Pilate’s Roman Caesar. They then charge that his failure to see Jesus’ claim to be ushering in God’s new rule as treason against Caesar, makes Pilate a traitor.

The real verdict here is that whenever power is used to get something over on someone, power deals death. Pilate murdered his principles of Roman justice and fairness. The religious leaders slaughtered their claims to biblical integrity. Jesus was executed.

Listening closely to Pilate’s interrogation and Jesus’ answers, we learn something deeper. In reply to Pilate’s asking what Jesus has done to earn the chief priests’ disfavor, Jesus says, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over…But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Understanding, or misunderstanding, Jesus’ meaning has a huge impact on how we Christians bring life and faith together. Misunderstanding Jesus is the reason so many Christians live as the “frozen chosen.” It’s why so many of us are so heavenly minded we do no earthly good.

Way too many Christians imagine that Jesus means his kingdom is up in some far off heaven. It’s as though we imagine some angelic general holding back battalions of angels ready, willing and able to descend from the sky to smite those bad acting Romans, and to slay those bad believing Jews. Hooey!

Jesus isn’t some first century realtor shrieking, “Location; location; location!” He’s not talking about place; he’s talking about orientation, point of reference, direction, and course. My vision, the vision of the Father in whose:
- name I have come to speak
- rule I have come to bring in
- way I have come to reveal to you
- word I have come to make known for you
- truth I testify as witness for you
- life I have come to offer you,
is “otherwise” to your selfish claims and your death-dealing clamor. He says, everyone who brings life and faith together in this God’s vision for life and world keeps on listening to my voice.

Whose vision moves us to bring life and faith together? If it’s Jesus’ vision for world in which we live and move and have our being, if it’s Jesus’ truth about life that gives shape and meaning to who we are, if it’s Jesus voice to whom we keep listening; that’s got to mean something here and now, before it can possibly mean anything in any other there and then!

Jesus went to his death trusting that vision - not jumping on a heavenly hand-grenade so we’d escape God’s fury. He went to the cross to free us for a new way of seeing, hearing and relishing in what God’s desire for all God’s people has been all along. John told us as much in the prologue of his Gospel.

9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:9-13).

It’s a tall order: to identify concrete, proven strategies to reduce violence, then marshal the power over others to get the job done. The Caesars’ Pax Romana couldn’t do it. Herod was unable to pull it off. Pilate failed and the chief priests were unsuccessful. George Bush hasn’t fared much better and, like as not, Mayor Peterson and his task force will fall short, as well. See, it’s not the Christian thing to do.

The Christian thing to do, in a here and now world where life and faith come together, is to exercise our real power as children of God.

We keep gathering in Jesus’ name, openly and inclusively, in defiance of those who set race, gender, status, age and income standards for belonging.

We put all our trust in his good promises, avoiding fear, guilt and shame as means to speak to or hear from God.

We listen to his voice, to be certain our claims neither ambush the weak nor assault the suffering, because of unholy alliances we’re tempted to make.

We share his good news, comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable, in ways that focus our anger on negative results not responsible people.

We keep pouring water in here, so people are free enough to “walk wet” out there.

We keep welcoming sinners, outcasts and misfits to this table so each of us who fits those categories is brave enough to break ourselves open and to pour ourselves out, in the way Jesus went to the cross, knowing the grace that’s ours is costly.

You probably won’t see anything like this on the pages of The Indianapolis Star when the task force releases its report. But these are the concrete, proven strategies that bring about the godly neighborliness that reduces violence, because they make new world, where Jesus is Lord, and our loyalty to God’s vision for beloved community, as well as our high regard for all its holy citizens and its gracious King, speaks from and walks in that truth.

A Dining Hall's Windows and Mirrors

I've been helping a pastor at another church by officiating at some of the many non-member weddings scheduled there. Now, more often than not it feels as though I'm part of the complete rental package than someone who's been called to lead a community of believers to witness the couples' betrothal. In fact, between the day of rehearsal and the wedding day, some brides spend more time with the make-up artist and the hairdresser than they do with me in four pre-marital sessions. And it's not unusual at all for the bridal party to spend four times longer taking photos than we spent in the liturgical rite of marriage.

It wasn't the same with the last two couples. Somehow I made a different sort of connection with both Geoff & Monica, and Rian & Jennifer. Our pre-marital talks seemed more authentic and genuine. While we didn't spend a whole lot more time than usual with each other, we explored issues more genuinely and deeply. I was invited to both rehearsal dinners and to both wedding receptions. I enjoyed meeting their friends and family members. It was fun to hear different people reminisce about parts of the lives they'd shared with each of them, before they'd met the one whom they were to marry. The rehearsal dinners were casual and relaxed.

I can't say the same for the wedding receptions. Both couples chose to celebrate their marriages at the Columbia Club. I've been there twice before. A friend took me to lunch there. The same friend and his wife invited my wife and me to supper there. On both occasions the food was excellent, the service impeccable, the decor elegant, and the cocktails exquisite. But I've never been more uncomfortable.

Maybe I'm uncomfortable because you can't just walk in off the street and be served. The place is just what the name says it is. It's a Club. You can only go there if you're a member, or as a member's guest. When you go as a guest, the menu you're handed doesn't list the prices of the food. Frankly, I haven't wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what it is that makes me uncomfortable. Whatever the reason, I don't feel like myself there. I can't be myself there. It's just not my kind of place. So I've never been back. Not even to attend the wedding receptions of people I'd begun to fall in love with.

I doubt that I would have been invited to Herod's banquet (See Mark 6:14-29). Don't get me wrong. I have moments when I fancy myself as not only capable, but also deserving of hobnobbing with a tonier crowd. And I can't say I've never groveled to hold a place among the rich and famous. I remember feeling really hoy poloy at a luncheon Governor Bayh hosted for President Clinton - even though I was only asked to fill an empty seat. I don’t believe I’d do that again, not at the cost of not being able to be myself.

That's why I like being among the people at First Trinity. This isn't an exclusive club. You can come in here off the street. You don't need a host in order to feel welcome here. In fact, this is one of the few places I know where members don't have more privileges, they have more responsibilities. It's the members here who claim to be Sharin' Plenty Good News! It's the members here who pledge to be: inviting; welcoming; nurturing; discipling; healing; and, rejoicing.

That's really pretty cool. In a culture where we're so scared of each other we're puttin' electronic chips under our pets' skin in case they're stolen and where we're finger-printin' our kids in case they're kidnapped, we got this place organized differently. As nearly completely opposite of any: club; fraternity / sorority; league; union; or, association you can think of.

We're committed to lettin' folks be themselves here, because we're all the same here. The church is the assembly of those who have been dead and are alive. It is the company of those who were:
• banished and are restored
• in bondage to sin and are now forgiven
• unable to free themselves and are now empowered to liberate all God's children.

We hear this story of John's beheading on the heels of Jesus' sending the disciples off two by two, giving them power and authority over unclean spirits. Those whom Jesus had discipled, he now makes apostolos, sent ones.

That's what Herod had heard, that there were some folks out there who were goin' about his kingdom speakin' a different word. In a world organized for death, where folks were divided up as:
• men versus women
• masters versus slaves
• them that have versus them that have not,
those whom God had gathered as disciples were now sent as apostles with a different word, some new news, some Good News: God wants everyone to have life and have it more abundantly.

And nobody who runs a kingdom organized for death:
• not one person who benefits from systems organized for not Herod 2,000 years ago
• not Lester Maddox 52 years ago
• not the school textbook publishers who continue minimizing the contributions of African American inventors, artists and scientists
• not one person who benefits from systems organized for death
is interested in seeing a church like ours, a company of "the-dead-made-alive" - and entrusted with both a call from God and power from God to engage in life-giving, resurrection ministry - succeed.

That's what makes the story of Herod a window story and a mirror story. As a window story it lets us see what happens to us as individuals, to whole classes and races and countries of people when systems organize for death over life. As a mirror, the story of Herod makes us ask not only, when have I been victimized, but also:
• when has my failure to use power cost my kin his or her head
• when have I allowed myself to be sent not by life-giving Jesus, but by some death-wielding Herod
• when have I used my power to demand my enemy's head on a platter?

That's what makes what we do here week after week so cool. It's just so in your face. You see, we keep meetin' in dining halls that are open to everyone - where membership doesn't mean privilege it means responsibility. We keep tellin' the stories about who makes and keeps the promises the stories relate. We keep meetin' to have a banquet where everybody gets to eat and drink. We keep meetin' to keep on eatin' and drinkin' that which feeds us and nourishes us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out!

That's what makes this not only a different place – it makes us a different kind of folk. For us it's not just that we know about Jesus. For us it's not just that we heard the sayings and think they'd make our classrooms run better. For us it's not only that we're still pondering the clever things he did with sick folks. For us, it's finding ourselves in relationship with God in Jesus. For us it's not just knowing about Jesus - it's about knowing Jesus.

And when we know Jesus, we gotta know that a Gospel-life; a Sharin' Plenty Good News life, isn't primarily about life beyond death the way the world understands it. Neither is it about some private, or individualistic revelation that lets us walk la-di-da no matter how many banquet halls we get dis-invited to or how many times our enemies scream for our heads.

When we know Jesus and when Jesus knows us, we know that a Sharin' Plenty Good News life is about the restoration to full dignity and complete worth of the here and now community. Of course, this resurrection, this new life is personal. As individuals we're made new, made whole. That's very clear throughout Jesus' ministry. But the resurrection, the gift of life is also public because it concerns the restoration and transformation of public institutions for the sake of human well-being.

If the world still ain't gettin' it; if all those folks who stand by as silent witnesses to the stupid, self-serving, death-dealing, promise-breaking rulers like Herod, if whole bunches of folk still applaud when the dessert table serves up a prophet's silenced head, maybe it's cuz we're too busy holed up in the safety of our club-rooms, maybe it's cuz we're hoardin' our own banquet food.

If we really know Jesus and if Jesus really knows us; if we really believe we are the dead-made-alive; if we really are raised and empowered and sent:
• wouldn't the world see through the windows and mirrors of our lives a fresh picture of the self they, too, could become in Jesus
• wouldn't the world value, as we do, all sisters and brothers in new ways
• wouldn't the world join our faith-based efforts, to address public issues of justice and fairness boldly?

That's the gift we have. That's the gift we've been given to share. If you were to begin building' a church today; if you were to begin helping' to rebuild a church today; it could only be because God has brought you back from death to life. That's what the Bible says. The whole Bible is full of stories about people who have been out of covenant relationship with God being invited and included back into that same, intense, life-changing covenant. And you got to look pretty hard to find a story that isn't about the most unqualified, by either Herod's or the Columbia Club's standards, being especially sought after and welcomed!

This is God's own gift of grace. Both the church and the world need to see and experience that there is another way. Both the church and the world need to see and experience that God has always meant to - and God always will mean to - gather up all things in Jesus, things in heaven and things on earth. Not everybody will get that message from palaces like the Columbia Club - so if we who are quick to claim we're God's own heirs won't let 'em see through those mirrors and windows, who will?

Embracing Terror

Someone asked me to stop by her house Friday to check out an electrical problem. I should say it was a simple electrical problem. In about three minutes I was only able to verify what she already knew, then give her the name of an electrician I know.

As I made my way toward the door, she asked me to look at a broken drawer in the kitchen. Next, she wanted me to see a problem with a towel rack in the bathroom. After that, it was the non-starting vacuum cleaner. Finally, as I headed again for the door, for sure this time, she blocked my way and began sobbing.

She needs to spend two weeks in the hospital, but doesn’t know where to send her children. Her uncle is being discharged from a nursing home but has nowhere to live. It was obvious the woman is overcome with dread. She’s terrified.

The dictionary’s definition of terror is “an overwhelming fear.” It’s a noun, not a verb.

I’m not sure how you’d launch and sustain a war on terror. For that matter, I have no idea how one would launch and sustain a war drugs or a war on poverty – much less with those wars. I also don’t understand how greed seems to drive contestants on the TV show, “Fear Factor,” strengthens them to do what they do. What I do know is the two most common responses to overwhelming fear, among humans and even in the lowest forms of animal life, are fight or flight.

Brain research shows that those instincts reside in the most primitive part of the human brain. Located just above the part of our brain that keeps us breathing, this unsophisticated body part is called the reptilian brain. It requires neither thinking nor decision-making (higher brain functions) for the reptilian brain to become engaged and initiate the fight or flight response.

We also know that, using our higher brain, the cerebral cortex, humans are one of the few species that can bring fear onto ourselves. All we have to do is remember something or someone that frightened us yesterday, or imagine someone or something threatening us tomorrow, and boo; we’re scared.

More than that, we use still higher levels of brainpower to bring on what I’ll call conceptual fear to ourselves. Maybe you’re afraid of becoming senile. Maybe you fear a diagnosis of cancer. Perhaps you’re frightened you’ll lose your job, be mugged, walk into your house during a burglary, lose a child, become addicted to drugs or alcohol, be divorced, never find the right mate, or be abused by your mate. If any of that has already happened to you, you might still be carrying that fear with you in the present, as well as throwing that terror ahead of you, into your future.

Some of us are not only afraid of dying; we fear being dead. Others of us fear that the world will, or may, end. Many are also afraid both of being here when that happens, and/ or what will, or may, happen to them after that happens, even if they get their wish and are dead when that happens.

I want to suggest that much of this latter fear, the terror we associate with the so-called end of the world, is as manufactured as are our silly superstitions. A mix of both our higher and lower brains invents these practices. It’s a cross between our intellectual desire to control environments and events, as well as our feeling-fueled, magical thinking that some incantation or charm can stop forces we believe to be beyond our control. Like our superstitions, the fears we have and cultivate about the end of the world, or the end-times, are something we acquire by bad teaching.

Maybe we can God’s word to us in Psalm 16 and Mark 13:1-13 to experience what God’s word always intends, namely, grace.

Now, there’s a lot more than fear and superstition going on in this conversation between Jesus and his four most trusted disciples. There’s even more going on in the statement Jesus makes about the Temple, “…not one stone will be left on another.” To be sure, what Jesus said caused no small measure of terror in those who heard it then as well as those who’ve read it since. However, a good measure of that terror, as well as the fight or flight responses the terror has set off, is misplaced.

Right off the bat Jesus is saying, the world is not a secure place and, you ought not to bet the farm on those in charge of running it. He says this sitting opposite the Temple – not just across from the Temple, but also in opposition to the Temple.

Both the government officials, as well as the religious officials, have set up shady systems on what was already shifting sands. That reality wasn’t new news then, and it isn’t new news now. Still, it shook these disciples to their core. If the most significant sign of their identity as God’s chosen people was destroyed, could they continue to name and claim that identity.

Jesus continues to explain himself, implying that even within what would become the community of his followers, they, too, could construct the same shady systems. That, too, could hardly be new news to folks who’d experienced the kind of arguing and jockeying for position that these four had been part of. It’s not new news to us either, is it?

Jesus says when the insecurities of world are most apparent, when the shady systems are most oppressive, that’s not the end. Now, “end,” here doesn’t mean finale, it means full purpose or complete accomplishment. Jesus never says, “I know something you don’t know, it’s all gonna crash and burn.” He does say, this will all pass, through pain that’s as excruciating as maternal labor, and new birth will result – God’s full purpose, God’s complete accomplishment. You may not like the travel, but you’re gonna be thrilled with the destination.

For all that, the fear can be overwhelming, a terrible terror. In that emotional space, people of faith, those who’ve stood with Jesus opposite all manner of powers and principalities, have done much more than tear and tremble.

They have, like the psalmist, or like John in Revelation, used poetry, lyric, even fantasy, (that doesn’t mean bull-loney, it means imagination and allusion and metaphor) to enter into the terror. It’s neither fight, nor flight. It doesn’t come from sheer intellect. Neither does it rise from brute force. It wells up from deep within, sometimes we call it soul – that place where God speaks to us, each, a special name; holds us close in God’s own holy palms; and, lifts us up and calms us down with God’s own soothing breath.

Look at the godly, life-giving power of this ordinary language the Psalmist composes in Psalm 16.
Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2I say to the LORD, "You are my LORD;
I have no good apart from you."
3As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,
in whom is all my delight.
4Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names upon my lips.
5The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.
7I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
10For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
11You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

That’s all I could do for the dread-filled woman on Friday. I held her close. Leaned my cheek against hers, and whispered in her ear, over and over, “Breathe, Sister. God will get us through. You don’t have to go alone. We’re here with you.”

I never said I would, or we would, make it better. I didn’t even say that God would fix it. I did only what we do here, as followers of Jesus, trying to avoid constructing a shady system, seeking always to avoid banking on the insecurity of this world’s shifting sands.

I drew that from what a worshipping assembly gave me last Sunday, what I know they’ll have for me each time we gather and celebrate together the Lord’s Supper. See, we do here what Jesus’ followers have been doing since their world ended on Good Friday, and their terror drove them to a locked room on Saturday.

Each week, on the same day of the week that they met the risen Jesus, the one who said, “Peace be with you,” we stand in opposition to shady systems, and testify that our security does not come from this world. We face each other, one by one, reaching out to one another in the name of the source of our courage, standing firmly on the promise of the one who transforms world.

Newcomers might think our practice is chaotic. Even some of us may see it as a kind of commercial break, a chance to catch up. But it’s much more than that.

See, each of us has occasions to stand with someone out there who’s overwhelmed by fear, terrified. I also know that people treat religious officials like good luck charms, always ready to deliver a magical incantation to make everything all right. You know different, because you’ve done what I did last Friday.

It’s not the verse you quote that stands in opposition to terror, it’s the vigor of your voice that testifies to God’s otherwise. It’s not the melody of the song you sing that faces fear down; it’s your confidence in the lyric-maker helps you endure to the end, to God’s accomplishing desire. Where does that come from?

From your tender touch, in the graceful gaze of your eyes, with your breath-filled confident claim and blessing called down, “The peace of Christ be with you,” we draw strength and courage to face terror head on, and walk right into it.

Last Friday, everyday we rely on that Holy Spirit, there was no fight. There was no flight. No charm, not a single incantation, just breath, a simple claim, a powerful blessing: “It’s OK. God will see us through.” Nothing was changed and everything is new.

Jesus' Compassion Wears on You

Not long ago I had lunch with a woman I’ve known for awhile. Since then I’ve not been able to get the conversation we had out of my mind.

She told me that she deeply feels the concerns and pain others experience. It bothers her to see, on TV, refugees living in camps in Darfur. She doesn’t like reading stories in the newspaper about youngsters dropping out of high school.

Often she feels compelled to act. She’ll send money to relief agencies, or write a letter to her congressional representative. If she hears that a foundation was established to support the family of the Carmel schools police officer who was killed Thursday night, she’ll make a donation. Frequently she’ll call a friend or family member, and, with tears in her eyes and voice choked with sadness, ask them to do the same.

Now it gets a little heartbreaking. Several people she knows, including her children, have told her it’s abnormal to feel so deeply. When she had a similar conversation with her doctor, he said she might be depressed and offered her some Prozac. She asked me if I thought she was crazy and should see a therapist.

I suggested the more accurate description of her feeling is, likely, empathy. That means to feel WITH someone, rather than to feel FOR someone. Feeling for someone is usually described as sympathy or pity. Feeling WITH someone (empathy) has sits roots in compassion.

Compassion is an extraordinary, godly gift. Think of the number of times this trait is described as characterizing Jesus’ mood and response – four times in Matthew alone (9:36; 14:14; 15:32; and, 20:34). Like this text from Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, the evangelists usually say Jesus was “moved” with compassion.

That’s a good clue for coming to recognize the difference between compassion and sympathy. More often than not, feelings of sympathy lead to clucking the tongue, or shaking the head, in pity. Compassion, as a rule, causes the person who feels with someone else to act, immediately, in that person’s behalf.

It gets better! Compassion, according to a theologian whom I admire tremendously, is a radical form of social criticism. Compassion that’s moved to act on someone else’s behalf says, immediately and publicly, “This pain, or oppression, or injustice is a hurt that must be taken seriously.” The hurt can’t be dismissed as acceptable, normal and natural. Rather, this hurt is abnormal and unacceptable if humanity is to flourish.

Most societies establish laws and norms to keep the “empire / emperor” going, not to keep the people going. In these sorts of systems, the most looked-down upon quality is compassion. Having compassion makes it impossible to blame the victim, or encourage them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. But emperors and empires will not tolerate any solution that requires them to level the playing field by changing systems and structures so that opportunities and advantages are available to everyone, equally. Remember these presidential pronouncements:
• there’s no free lunch
• we have more will than wallet
• government is not the answer
• big government is the problem, not the solution.
These methods for maintaining the status quo are designed to keep hurt and pain hidden, and when that’s not possible, to show that those who experience them deserve them. Empires require the lack of compassion in order to maintain that neither the empire nor the emperor is part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Compassion refuses to let them get away with that. Compassion calls ‘em like it feels ‘em. Compassion says, for example, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles and swims like a duck, it’s not jumpstarting the economy, it’s a tax cut for the wealthy.

Showing the best traits of a biblical prophet – to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable – Jesus’ compassion, his feeling with and immediately taking action for those who were oppressed by sin, sickness and death, was a public announcement that God has reached his last nerve, and has come down to deliver all God’s people.

Jesus’ compassion is a public critique that the pain caused by oppression and injustice can no longer be hidden when the Kingdom (rule) of God begins, with Jesus’ his presence, to break in. Jesus’ presence, what he taught, the actions he took, were each a public critique against the way world is organized.

Emperors and empires structure world to deceive world-followers that God wants certain ones to suffer, and certain others to live in the lap of luxury. Emperors and empires are glad when loyal citizens keep up that illusion by saying that compassionate people aren’t normal, or ought to just get over it, or perhaps have their senses dulled by drugs.

Jesus is ushering in a new era so Jesus is acting in the fashion Jeremiah prescribed. Remember how this whole incident started? We heard it two weeks ago when Jesus sent the 12 out two-by-two. He sent them to deliver the very teaching he did, “Hey, turn around, don’t go that way anymore; come this way, the Kingdom of God is breaking in.” He empowered them to perform the same deeds he did; heal the sick, free the possessed.

Look at Psalm 23. Isn’t this what Mark is telling us Jesus is doing for these crowds who rush around the shore-line to greet him as he steps off the boat, spoiling the debriefing, celebration and time of reflection Jesus had planned for the disciples just returned from mission?

He immediately responds to their aimlessness like a shepherd toward his sheep. He makes them lie down in a fertile, life-giving place. He offers them the refreshment that comes from belonging. From within his own identity with his Father-God, he leads them in the direction of relationship and rootedness. They’re fearless in his company because he has a rod in one hand to fend off the wolves, and he’s got a staff in the other to coax straying sheep back into the flock. So they’re comfortable when he nourishes them, in a place where both Herod’s henchmen and the priests’ and Pharisees’ spies can see compassion’s critique on their system. He anoints them with healing and makes their cups overflow.

Now most of you know this is more than just tall-tales from long-ago. You’ve experienced this. You’ve been filled with worry, anxiety, and complete restlessness, then the Shepherd quieted your spirit. You’ve traveled down dead-end roads but the Shepherd met you there to bring you back to right paths. You’ve lived in parched places without loving and trustworthy companions, governed by enemies, and the Shepherd set up a table for you in a new home place. You’ve crossed into death-dealing territories and lived to tell the story because the Shepherd guarded your way, guiding you out of there. You know what it feels like to be anointed by the Shepherd so that your dis-ease is transformed.

That’s why we do most everything we do here. Remember what we did last summer during Vacation Bible School? For four nights we had over 50 children in here for a Fiesta – a Psalm 23 Fiesta. Now it’s time to debrief, rest up, and give thanks to God. But be sure of this, the crowds are still pressing in, like sheep without a shepherd. Out there, they’ll find cold shoulders and, once in a while, a pity party. In here, folks moved with compassion will surround them.

What would that look like today? Do you think it might look like this? We have all the influence and authority we need to:
• Heal a child from the afflictions that result from not being able to read (I’ll tell you his name and arrange a time for you to start tutoring him.)
• Liberate a man from the subjugation that results from unemployment (We’ll meet with him as soon as you’re available to put his resume together and you can introduce him to your network.)
• Free a mom from the oppression that results from not having adequate housing for her children (She needs a mentor to teach her to manage a household and prepare for home-ownership.)

That’s costly, tiresome work, all right. But it ain’t crazy; it’s Jesus, right here, right now. And his compassion looks mighty good on you!

God's Anger Management Plan

My seminary professors suggested I find a model, using a character from the Bible, to give form and shape to my Christian identity. It's a good idea. Through prayer; by inventorying your talents; discovering your passions; and in conversation with friends; it's possible for all of us to find a biblical character or role to imitate. You might be drawn to:
• Jesus the teacher or Jesus the healer
• Esther, the real power behind the throne
• Mary, the meditative pray-er
• Zaccheus, the repentant crook
• Joseph, (either Genesis or Luke) the crisis manager
• Martha, the never say no over-achiever.

The strategy is a sound way to experience what we call sanctification - a deepening relationship with God. As Saint Paul says, we can experience progress and joy in faith because we live lives worthy of the Gospel.

Growing up in the sixties, seeing racial injustice and the horrors of war in Viet Nam, I found a model that works for me. I've always felt drawn to the motives and actions of biblical prophets. Their motivation was to remind people of: God's faithfulness to us; God's love and care for us; God's desire for a just future for all people; and, God's reign of shalom over the universe.

The prophets seem to have achieved this by: comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable. There's also the idea that the roles Jesus used to declare and make present his vision of the reign of God was to act as priest, prophet and king. Some people recognize that all those baptized into the mission and ministry of Jesus must come to understand our identity and our roles that way.

Not only does the prophetic model suit my talents and my temperament, a way of seeing and acting that I'm drawn to and good at, it also seems to be a role that others call on me to perform. In most jobs, I've been a builder and a fixer. As a pastor I must analyze how our community of faith is organized; what's really getting done as opposed to what's supposed to be getting done. It's made me learn to pay attention to how each of us is functioning. Are we thriving as persons? Do we feel honored and cherished? As a group are we cooperating, supporting one another, challenging each other? Is this a congregation in which it's OK to take risks? If a person fails or a project misfires can we move on? Or do we sow doubt; practice distrust; count things against one another; carry tales; hold grudges? What holds us together? Are we operating from a clear consensus about strategies to achieve God's mission, or do we promote personal anxiety and corporate discontent when the compromises we reach create winners and losers?

Well, no matter how skilled and clever we are inside of our ministry model, we are, as Luther frequently points out, simul justus et peccatur, at once saints and sinners. And because of that, achieving the balance between the role shaping us, and our shaping the role can be tough.

That's a lesson we can't be sure Jonah ever learned (read especially 3:10-4:11). And we can use the fact that we're not sure he learned it to assess just how well we've learned it. Maybe I'm not the only one who could use a refresher course.

Prophets are often described as angry. We see that in our own day when advocates for justice demand that the United States send troops to stop ethnic cleansing. They use blistering words to goad our leaders out of paralysis by analysis and into decisive action. There is such a thing as righteous indignation and holy anger.

In a similar way the anger of Jeremiah or Amos was rooted in a love for God and love for the very people who were the object of their wrath. Their aim wasn't personal vindication but the vindication of God's truth and justice, by Israel's conversion to the same sort of faithfulness God had extended to the chosen people. If the prophets saw more clearly than other folks that Israel's real choice was life or death, their hope and prayer was that the people would choose life. And so their words -sometimes spoken angrily - at other times in heartbroken sobs - were directed to that end. Their witness wasn't motivated by anger, but by love.

But then there is a prophet like Jonah. He found his mission so unpleasant that when the word of God came to him to bear witness against Nineveh, he fled in the other direction. Now we all remember the unusual taxi ride by which Jonah got heaved up on the beach, but we don't always remember the lone sermon he delivered to the Ninevites. In all the woe sayings; the oracles; the judgments; we hear from the prophets, Jonah's stands as the most lame. It goes like this, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

Amos called Israel's women "cows of Babylon." Ezekiel called Israel "unfaithful harlots." Hosea called Israel a "temple prostitute." So Jonah's words lack the passion, not to mention the sincerity, necessary to get a whole country to change course. But Jonah's words have such an impact that the king and the nobles order even the animals to repent with fasting. So effective is Jonah's sermon that the people are thoroughly converted and receive God's forgiveness.

Is Jonah relieved? Uh-uhh. He's furious. And here we see the true source of Jonah's anger. Jonah is angry over God's mercy. That's why he got into the boat in the first place. He was afraid that his prophecy might work. He didn't want anything to do with a God who would let Nineveh escape what Jonah had determined was its just desserts. What kind of God is that? You can't predict what that kind o’ God is gonna do. You can't control a God like that. So God responds to Jonah's rage with a compassionate, almost parental question: "Do you do well to be angry?"

Like a two-year old child, Jonah storms off, putting distance between himself and God, once again. He goes outside the city, and builds an isolation booth, an outhouse, still hoping to see God's wrath blaze against Nineveh. But the only thing blazing is the scorching wind - in Hebrew - ruach. The same word used to describe God's breathing life, light and hope into every isolating booth, especially the one-person-tent we know as the unloving, unforgiving human heart - an outhouse of our own making.

Now we're not used to it, preachers don't help us see this often. But God does have a sense of humor. God's response to Jonah's tantrum, which has him all tangled up in knots; - has his bowels in an uproar - is to raise up a castor oil plant, at the threshold of this outhouse! It's as if God says,
"Get over it Jonah. Take a physic! This, too, shall pass!"

Like everything else, Jonah gets it wrong. He thinks the plant has more to do with his outsides than his insides. The only thing Jonah let's pass is another chance to see God's mercy and love. When the plant dies Jonah spins out of control. And God asks, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" Jonah replies on cue, "Angry enough to die." Jonah still can't stomach a merciful God. This is one angry prophet!

God tries to give Jonah some perspective. "OK, if you're willing to die for a castor oil plant, shouldn't I care for a whole city?" Do you see the contrast between Jonah's impotent, death-dealing rage and God's compassion - God's wombing the men, women and children back into life-giving relationship? God says, "Should I not pity Nineveh, a great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who don't know there right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

What's going on here isn't a story about Nineveh at all. It's a story of Jonah's own call to conversion. It's not enough to be an agent of God's anger. True prophets are called to be agents of God's love.

"Do you do well to be angry?" It's not whether Jonah's anger is justified. We all have cause to be angry sometimes, but does our anger do well? Does anger do anything but feed our sense of being absolutely right and our enemies absolutely wrong? Feeling that way, don't we get a kind of high by going off into some fantasy-land where we see ourselves heroically showing the whole world just how right we are? But do fantasies bring conversion, prompt reconciliation, or add an ounce of justice to the world?

We would rather vent our anger than convert enemies into friends. Often our words and actions suggest that the very last thing we want is for our enemies to admit they're wrong and change their ways. Convinced that we are agents of God's justice, we eagerly deliver a word of judgment. We're quick to pronounce the death sentence. We're not so eager to deliver the merciful words of clemency and relationship.

The story of Jonah's call to conversion reminds us of the many ways we prefer our ways over God's ways. We:
• flee to the east when God would have us go west
• run outside the city gates
• build us a one-person-tent to isolate our angry heart.

Jonah's call to conversion reminds us it's not enough to be an agent of God's anger. Anger may be necessary to point out a problem, but anger is never sufficient to birth a solution. There are many causes for anger in this world. But God's mercy isn't one of them.

What are we afraid of? What part of God's care for us and for this world do we think we have to predict? Do we think we should control God's care and love and mercy? What fears do we have of God that make us angry with God?

That's what the story of Jonah is all about. Do we do well to be angry? It doesn't matter. The good news is that, angry as we are, God's mercy extends to us as well:
• that might mean gettin' thrown overboard
• that might feel like bein' swallowed up by a monster
• it could come to gettin' coughed up onto a beach
• we may even look washed up and rung out.

It doesn't matter. This God is always for us. This God creates us in love, redeems us in Christ and sends the Spirit to call and gather us, alone and together, to join in telling others that same, simple Good News: "Look, I got myself all scared and angry and bound up, then this God sent me a castor oil plant and I got over it. God will help you get over it too!"

Jesus' Rant Against the Widow's Mite

This text has always bothered me. Whether we’re reading it from Mark12:38-44, or in Luke 10, it’s not one of my favorites.

38As Jesus taught [in the Temple], he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

41He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

It goes beyond the obvious. I mean, imagine standing in a pulpit, wearing a long robe, after you’ve prayed what anybody in this sanctuary might have said was a prayer too long, all the while trying to look twice as good as the scribes and half as good as the widow! Authenticity and genuineness are especially on my mind because of what happened at a restaurant this week.

I stopped for lunch at nearby Smokin’ Good Soul Food on 38th Street. As soon as I walked through the door three people - whose names I don’t know - called out to me, loudly, by name. It was like the TV show Cheers. Remember when Norm walked in? “Hey, Norm!”

The food is terrific, and though the price is more than I usually like to spend on lunch, the size of the helpings is more like a Sunday dinner. It was well worth the price.

As I left, the owner invited me to come back on a Sunday. She said that since they sell more meals then, the prices are actually lower. When they sell more, they buy more and pass their savings to the customers. I said, “Well isn’t it crowded?” (They only have 15 tables.) She said, yes, but most people get carryout. Then she said, “Don’t worry. When I see you in line I’ll just bring you up to the front.” Oh, yeah, I want that to happen.

Now I’m always glad we don’t get to this point in our weekly trek through the Gospels until we’re passed our annual stewardship campaign. Talk about an opportunity to try to shake down the shekels. Imagine the guilt a real money-grubbing preacher could put on a congregation with this text.
This time we’ve come round to the text, I decided to explore my unease with extra study. Let me share some of what I discovered and we’ll see how it strikes your walk in faith.

At first glance, this looks like two separate, unrelated stories. But since Jesus seems to stress the word, widow, in both of his observations, Jesus seems to want his hearers to see a link.

That’s another point. Jesus is no longer talking to scribes. Mark says Jesus is teaching in the Temple. He’s talking, perhaps, to some of his followers or maybe to some casual listeners, but he’s no longer speaking directly to any of the religious leaders.

Jesus offers these comments just after he’s told one scribe, we heard this last week, that he’s got it right when he says that loving God and loving neighbor as we love ourselves are the first of all commandments – that the law of love trumps every other one of God’s laws. In addition, whatever causes Jesus to speak this way about scribes and the widow; he doesn’t say it directly to them.

Interesting, too, is what Mark writes next. After this incident, Jesus leaves the Temple and on the way out says, very forcefully, that this Temple is doomed. It would seem, then, that whatever is on Jesus’ mind when it comes to the widow, is framed between Jesus disregard for these Temple authority figures, as well as for what they’ve done to warrant the Temple’s destruction.

Now, here are some details about language. The word translated here in verse 38, as “like,” is, in Greek, the word for want, or deep desire. We’d say it this way: Beware of scribes who really, really want and seek out attention on themselves by wearing long robes, receiving greetings, etc. Get the picture?

Look, too, at verse 41. The English translation says, He sat down…and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. The Greek says, He sat down and watched…how (or the way) the crowd put money into the treasury. Also, in verse 42, the word translated as “poor,” means, in reality, a destitute beggar. Think of those folks who rush to wash your windshield wneh you top at a redlight and expect you to pay real money for this "service."

So what do we have? Jesus is really honked off at the scribes’ self-centeredness, their self-aggrandizing, as well as their abuse of power and office. Some scribes had responsibility for managing widows’ assets. Jesus may be referring either to their overcharging for services or, perhaps, their embezzling, or both. As educated interpreters of God’s law, and as capable stewards for the welfare of God’s most vulnerable children, the scribes knew better and Jesus expected more of them.

That’s when Jesus begins looking at how, or the way, people are making their offerings to the Temple treasury. We know only two things for sure. First, Jesus determines that most givers make an offering out of their excess, their abundance. Their offering seems to cost them little. Second, he believes the two coins offered by the beggar widow cost her her very life. In Greek, the text says she gave her bios.

I want to suggest that what we hear Jesus say is an expression of his fury. Jesus does not, in this rant, commend, command, or suggest that anyone, including us, should imitate this woman’s way of giving.

All the ways we’re used to hearing Jesus commend or command an attitude or behavior are missing in this text. He doesn’t say things like:
• your faith is great
• I haven’t seen such faith in all Israel
• go and do likewise
• the widow has chosen the better part
• come follow me
• she’s not far from the kingdom of God.

It looks to me as though Jesus’ initial righteous anger at the scribes’ behavior moves to his outrage at the faulty notion of making offerings the begging widow has internalized. She believes, because she's been taught erroneously, that it’s more important for her to give all her money to the Temple treasury than it is for her to hold some back to keep herself alive. She’s been abused by her oppressors, and so, has taken on the value system of the oppressor class.

I think Jesus is saying here what we’ve heard him say elsewhere; the health and well-being of people before God’s law, can never become a rationale, even a pious one, for tormenting the people under - and with - God’s law. Up until now, Jesus has made a career of announcing the in-breaking of God’s rule (the Kingdom of God) that liberates God’s people from all oppression and injustice, including that which comes from misusing the real desires of God-for-us, unruly interpreters find in scripture.

Why would we think that here, near the end of his ministry, Jesus makes such a drastic change as to prefer the widow’s making an over-the-top offering to an enterprise he’s already judged to be death-dealing, in support of its religious personnel he’s already condemned as wolves in sheep’s clothing?

Before this scripture is our story, it’s God’s story. This scripture, like all scripture, tells us first, who God is and what God wants for us. Only then, knowing and trusting whose we are, does scripture offer us insight and truth about what God wants to lead us to become together, by grace through faith.

What this grief-laden, mourning-cry of Jesus offers us is an insight into how the God of Jesus would have us organize our common life, structure our walk in faith together. What this text gives us, as church, the called-out ones - able to name and claim the will and actions of the God broken open and poured out for us while we were yet sinners - is an opportunity to decide how we want to relate to one another, as well as what we’re willing to give and to do in order to make that happen.

As disciples of the son God sent to save, not to condemn, the world, whatever we do in here is supposed to relate to God’s saving intent out there (John 3:17). As believers in the life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making works Jesus did, whatever we do in here ought to strengthen us to perform even greater works out there (John 14:12).

That makes this a good time for us to ask, in light of Jesus’ critique of religious organizations, his condemnation of selfish religious leaders and bad religious teachings, as well as his compassion for those done in by the effects of those prior two; what do we want, now and what are we willing to do to get it.

At one level, we’ve already addressed that. We completed a very generous stewardship campaign (Consecration Sunday). More of you offered your time and talent in ways that stretch your energy and extend your commitment than ever before. More of you increased your monetary offerings to higher levels than ever before. We can all be grateful to a lavishing God and thankful to one another for our shared kindness.

Strengthened by that, this text invites us to go a bit deeper, to ask some harder questions about how we: organize church; what we teach, as church; what we do, as church in Jesus' name; and, how church leaders, especially pastors, are to serve by leading.

Does this expression of the body of Christ on earth teach and preach a life-giving message? Are we leaning into the living faith of the dead (standing on our traditions as we move forward into God’s future), or are we mired in the dead faith of the living hanging onto our traditions so we won’t have to face the present or deal with an uncertain future?

Are these core values of ours: inviting; welcoming; discipling; nurturing; healing; and, rejoicing attitudes that give meaning for our lives, furnish direction for our shared journey, and drive the shape of our ministries, or are they merely buzz words that look good on our stationery?

Do we keep alert for ways to actively, intentionally relate to and encourage those burdened and oppressed to experience what we have here, and enrich us with the ways God loves them, or are we content only to wait for folks to straggle in here, as if by accident?

Does this expression of the body of Christ on earth have appropriate pastoral leadership? Is my faith walk compatible with yours, individually and collectively? Am I painting a vision for our faith journey together that compels you to get jazzed up about what we’re doing in the name of Jesus? Or have we reached a time and place where new leadership is required?

Jesus, then, and now, would have all those - all of us - who stand this side of Psalm 146, to sing, to echo, to walk by, that very grace-filled tune:
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
8the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
9The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
10The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.

There really are no people better suited to do that than we are.

God's Peace

What do folks mean when they say, "God's peace be with you"? Will the phrase take on a different meaning now that Congress is led by the Democrat party? Or had the phrase already taken on a different meaning since the terrorizing events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent War-on-Terror?
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I believe that if your vision of God looks like this: He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you're awake; he knows if you've been bad or good. So, be good for goodness sake, you're probably real disappointed in the job God's doing!

An old Jewish proverb says, God is not a kindly old uncle, God is an earthquake. Beneath the saying are layers of meaning:
• Is God's "job" simply to keep the universe well-hinged so we can go on about our merry business without taking into account what God might intend for the universe?
• Is God so predictable that God is unwilling to shake things up to remind us that the universe's hinges don't swing as widely or as smoothly for all the creatures of the earth who are made in God's image and likeness?
• Is God's face and God's hand so good that we're only willing to look for, and discover, the face and grasp of God in what we define as comfortable?

What if the Lord's peace is mostly, and best, experienced when we participate in God's mission for the world? Where would you begin to look for what it is that God is doing in the world? How would you decide that God is inviting you to participate in this or that piece of God's total effort in behalf of the world?

If this all seems too complex - do yourself, the rest of us, and God a favor – narrow the focus. Sharpen it up a bit, too. Instead of looking at the whole wide world that's in God's hands, look to your own world, where the face of God shines on you - the apple of God's eye. Here's a way to do that.

For the next two days jot down on a piece of paper every irk, quirk, twitch, pang, and gasp you feel. Identify its source. What were you doing and thinking just before you felt it? What action did you most want to take because of what you felt? Take your list to God in prayer at the end of the day - Psalm 103 is good for this. Ask God to let you know where God might be leading you by means of these feelings. Is God drastically altering the tectonic plates of your life's foundation; or is God guiding your feet into a new faith's shifting sands?

You might also consider sharing your new found answers, as well as any new questions raised, with a trusted friend. That’s what a young girl named Mary, who was alert for God’s new-ways, and acutely interested in discerning her understanding, did. She reviewed her new insights with a trusted relative, her cousin, Elizabeth, another woman alert to and acute for the will of God breaking into her life in unexpected ways.

If you're used to looking for God in familiar places; if you've become accustomed to finding God in predictably safe places, God's got to do something unusual to let you know God has something new in mind to lead you through!

Writing to believers tempted by teachings of false certainty about their relationship with God, Paul wrote: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:4-7).

Even if your prayer causes you to say, "uncle," (or auntie) God won't let you go!

Growing Up Means Growing Deep

My daughter’s bike was stolen the other day. It was her own fault. She'd ridden to a nearby store with a friend and failed to lock the bike. She didn't lock the bike because she doesn't have a bike lock. I'd like to tell you exactly what her emotional reaction to the event was, but I can't.

You see, I got caught up in my own emotional reaction. Now the mature response would have been to listen to my daughter’s tale as calmly as possible, then ask questions about the experience. "Did someone take it from you, or was it taken while you were in the store?" After I heard her expound on the details, I could have explored her feelings with caring, sensitive questions that helped her to look deeper inside herself.

Even before the probing I could have encouraged her to do the deeper exploring by giving her some verbal cues. "Gosh, that might have scared me," or "How hard was it for you to tell me that?" Perhaps I could have told her that it made me sad to hear that she lost something she especially enjoyed. A kinder, gentler Dad would have done any of that. I didn't.

I got so caught up in my own feelings that I just unloaded on her. "Why did you go to the drugstore anyway? It's not a recreation center. What makes you think you can just park a bike and leave it alone in a parking lot? I'm not buying you another bike! Who told you that you could ride there by yourself? I don't care if your friends' parents allow them to do that. If you're friend jumps off a bridge are you gonna follow them?"

Mature for her age, my daughter simply said, "Sorry, Dad," and walked away. When a kid is out of control it's sometimes best to walk away and catch a breather. She seemed to recognize that the child within me was not fit to be around for awhile. Could be my daughter will make a pretty good parent someday!

Have you ever found yourself so obsessed with things at the surface that you fail to miss an opportunity to go deeper within? What buttons are on your surface such that when they get pushed you don't probe within but instead fly into orbit?

I'm pretty certain God wants us to know that there's more to both who we are and whose we are than what we see, alone and together, on the surface of things. There don't seem to be many good words in the English language to describe this either. I don't find it helpful to talk about mind and body; head and heart; or even body and soul.

Maybe that's why Jesus used so many different word pictures. "Jerusalem, I long to gather you under my wings like a hen gathers her chicks." "In a little while you won't see me anymore, but I won't leave you orphans." "I don't call you servants any more, you are my friends." "I will send you another Comforter."

It's pretty clear that Jesus went out of his way to let his followers know that whatever befell them; whatever mattered to them also matters to God. And it's also pretty clear that Jesus intended one of the signs of that reality to be the way we let each other know that what matters to each of us - anyone of us - matters to all of us. That means being ready, willing and able to let go of obsessions about the surface of things and being ready, willing and able to go deeper - with and for ourselves - with and for each other.

From my experience, that seems to be something kids know and do. "Unless you become like little children..." This isn't the time to say, Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten. But maybe that's not such a bad place to start!

What do we lose for ourselves and for each other when we let the seasons and years chip away at our ability to be thrilled, enthused, and open to new people and experiences? What does the world lose when we let events push us around like so many characters in episodes of a soap opera? What does God lose when we decide to decide for ourselves who we are and whose we are?

The Spirit of God, whose outpouring, abiding presence, and power to groan prayers deep within us, calls and gathers us into the future Jesus promised. And grace sets us free to let go of things on the surface that keep us from making the journey. What say we go together? Tag - you're IT!

How Do You Know When God is Calling?

Shouldn't this be a whole lot easier? I mean Moses had a bush, Jonah had a whale. What's goin' on? Has God's voice gone hoarse, or have I got bad ears?

Surely, I thought, God's voice would sound more loud, or at least be more clearly heard by a whole church full o’ listenin' folks! When I get confused this way I try to go back to the basics.

Whenever it seems that God's voice has grown faint, I go "back" to where God's voice was loudest the last time I heard it. Sometimes that's a favorite Bible verse, like Exodus chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, "I have observed the misery of my people...and I have come down to deliver them..." or, Luke chapter 4, verses 18 -19, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...to bring Good News to the poor..."

Besides returning to private devotions, I remember that the apostles, and those whom the Spirit gathered at the first Pentecost, remained faithful to the prayers and the breaking of the bread. That’s when I remember that even though I have special responsibilities at weekly worship, my first task is to make sure that I bring a thankful heart and a mind full of praise to the God who's seen me through another week.

Often I ask others to pray with me in this way, "It feels like God has laid a message on my heart, does it look to you as though God has equipped me, or this congregation, to take up that God-sized task?"

What a blessing when God reminds me that we're not made to go through life alone. In fact God's angel said that God's real name is Emmanuel, meaning GOD WITH US, not God-and-just-me.

And it's truly a miracle that God has set me in the middle of faithful people who are both able to share my struggle and say my "Amen!" whenever my ears are stopped, or my own voice quivers. Where is God calling you lately, and who helps you know for sure?

Saints Alive: Christians Vote Their Values!

You’d think, since we’re living in a Christian nation, that All Saints day would be a national holiday. Since the day isn’t a national holiday, maybe all this talk about the United States being a Christian nation is just that, all talk.

You’d have a challenge on your hands trying to prove that to an alien from another planet today. How would you justify folks applauding one of the most inspirational quotes, from one of our most recently popular presidents (Ronald Reagan’s, “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!”) and many of the same folks applauding the authorization of a fence between the U.S., and Mexico by one of our least popular presidents? How would you explain, in Christian language, the contradiction between the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor and the soon to be built wall near the Rio Grande? How would you claim that this Christian nation, overflowing with milk, honey and saints, puts up with – no – bases its political thinking and decision-making on these negative television ads? How would you explain that so many members of congress, elected based on their dedication to Christian values, have resigned from office because grand juries have indicted them?

What is it that the saints – we saints – and those who’ve gone before us – also touched by God – have in mind, heart, and voice when we make those sorts of claims? Are we Americans first or Christians first? Does that matter? To whom might it matter? How would anyone else, Christian or not, know that it matters?

What test, or tests, would the saints – we saints – and those who’ve gone before us – also touched by God – make and carry out to prove that this is a Christian nation? On what would we base such tests? Would we use, as benchmarks, our priorities and values, or should we use Jesus’ priorities and values?

That’s exactly what’s revealed in this dialogue between Jesus and this scribe in Mark 12:28-34. It’s right here, implied in the question. You always have to pay attention to the questions. The scribe asks, “…which is the first commandment.” (My Greek text seems to imply that the word protos, as in prototype, means foundational or primal command.) The answer is already in the question. The question says there is a hierarchy of God’s commands – what are those priorities. Jesus, if he disagreed with that conclusion, would have said, “Sorry, Charlie, every command of God is of equal value.” But he doesn’t. Jesus joins the scribe’s conclusion and delivers his own understanding of God’s priorities and values.

Now at one level, there’s nothing new here. I didn’t do all the research, but if you need me to do that, I will. There are many places, especially in the writings of the prophets and in the psalms, where the bible says God is much more interested in the status of our everyday hearts than the works of our occasional religious rituals. At the same time, there is quite a bit new in Jesus’ list of God’s priorities.

Let me say this clearly, so that if you want to disagree, or join in, you read me accurately. I believe Jesus is saying that his God, and he himself, are most interested in declaring and affirming a “sanctity of living,” than making any other claim. The “sanctity of living” is a priority over the sanctity of life, of marriage, of peace, of x, y, or z. Moreover, the “sanctity of living” springs from and leads toward the holy priority of holy loving. That means, when push comes to shove, the command to love trumps every other command.

Now, the truth is, we know exactly what that means. Most of us are willing to say that Jesus’ answer to the question, “which is the first / foundational /pivotal commandment – love God and love your neighbor as yourself,” is both clear and compelling. By that, I mean, simply, we get it and we want to do it.

This is exactly one of the texts that Mark Twain had in mind when he said something like this, “It’s not the bible verses I don’t understand which bother me, it’s the ones I do understand which bother me.” See, it’s not that we don’t get what Jesus says here; it’s that we have such a difficult time living up to it, or rather, living into it.

So we spend a whole lot of energy giving ourselves “free passes.” We build missionary ventures and ministerial opportunities to open our checkbooks without opening our hearts. We offer folks band-aids not justice. We deliver food baskets but fail to construct social systems that help them get what we have – love them as we love and care for ourselves - like cars that worth the price of the time-payment, insurance that’s affordable, schools that get all Hoosier kids through Core 40 classes, police protection so that the little money they have doesn’t have to be misspent on steel storm doors and burglar alarms. We lend our religious authority to a society that puts more faith in the just war theory than we put into the theory of evolution. What’s up with that? The abstract, conceptual, philosophical evidence for killing each other is more persuasive than the scientific knowledge about the origin of the universe; you buy that?

Jesus and the scribe, declaring a “sanctity of living” as God’s highest priority, offer us the good news, the freedom from living under the rule of a God whose motives are “gotcha” and whose methods are “getcha.” Do you see what that means? In that order of living by loving – living as loving – who’s excluded? Who’s left behind, called out, thrown out?

And where would we be, each of us, if God were a despot. If this congregation were run by and for those who always live up to a despot’s demands? If we, here, were to decide to run-off all the sinners, all the hypocrites, all those whose family values, Christian values, weren’t up to par, who’d be here today – down in our sanctuaries, or up in our pulpits?

Jesus begins his response to this sagacious questioner by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel…,” before he links it up with Leviticus 19:18, “…love your neighbor as yourself.” There are, it seems, THREE commandments. The first is: Hear, as in “keep on listening!”

That’s why, then as now, God gathers God’s people together in worship spaces; so, together, they can maintain and encourage the acuity and alertness required to fathom the rest, that is, the “sanctity of living” expressed in the command to love! We come here because, on our own, we put stuff between that word and our hearing / listening – and together we can re-tell and clarify what we have seen and heard. We come here because stuff happens that muffles the gentle, beckoning sound God whispers as command to all those God loves - when we find ourselves amidst the shock waves that world detonates and culture explodes to raise some folk up and to keep other folk down – and together we can re-tell and clarify what we have seen and heard. We come here because together we are led to stay, at least, “close to the kingdom of God.”

That’s right; only staying close. I don’t know why Jesus doesn’t affirm that this non-threatening scribe isn’t “in” the kingdom of God. Even reasonable speculation about that comment is just that.

Looking at Mark’s larger context does reveal this much. The scribes Jesus argues with before this conversation and those he describes after this encounter are, at least, passionate, albeit for the wrong things. This guy seems most dispassionate. For him the conversation about God and God’s greatest commands is a head-trip, not a heart trip. He appears out of nowhere and moves off in the same direction. Keen as his mind is, what he knows and believes doesn’t seem to move the fourteen inches from his brain to his heart.

Locked out of that space, what the scribe knows and believes doesn’t spawn compassion – that wombingness God has in God’s mind and God’s heart for all the ongoing creating, saving, and blessing God works and wills for all God’s children.

Imagine if we saints, like those who’ve gone before us – also touched by God – were alert and acute for the kingdom’s “sanctity of living” breaking into our everydayness. Imagine what could happen to us, to our communities, to our churches, in and for our world every day, and, especially, on Election Day in the USA!