What follows are some cursory thoughts, it's certainly not an end all, be all conversation, but rather a lengthened version of Jared's morning coffee musings. A lot comes from what I preached on Sunday and a lot also comes from the following Ted Talk, which I've found to be really interesting and perhaps helpful.
I think the church could stand to learn a little bit about death and resurrection from the LGBTQ community.
And by that, I mean the church should spend some time coming out.
I cannot speak for the whole community, but I can speak about what coming out was like for me. And coming out felt an awful lot like death and resurrection.
When I came out, I had to let a lot of things I previously thought or wanted to believe about myself to death. When I came out, I also got to have a lot of myself resurrected and restored into a new creation.
And while this is a long and interesting story, which I would be happy to share at a later time, I will skip to my main point, which is that the church should spend some time coming out, itself.
And by that, I mean the church needs to let go some ideas of what and who it is, let some ideas about itself die, so that God can resurrect the Body of Christ. You know, that business that God has been in for 2000 years or so.
The church has been telling all sorts of nasty lies about itself, and none of them are really helping the Body of Christ live and thrive.
Lies that include:
We are a church that belongs in authority.
We are a church that has all the answers.
We are the owners of the exclusive path to salvation.
We are the church of the 1950s (ok, so maybe this one belongs to my denomination more than most.)
The list can go on and on.
But the point is, these lies need to go. We need to stop clinging so tightly to them that we choke out any points for us to grow and be transformed into who God is calling us to be.
We need to come out, to stop trying to be those things, and start being who and whose we are, rooted in scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.
We need to stop being something we're not and start being who we have always been created to be.
And maybe, just maybe, when we start doing that, we'll find that we no longer are in a struggle to survive but find ourselves thriving.
That's probably enough rambling for a Tuesday morning. I'm sure this conversation is one that can be held again and again and again.
Cause coming out is a process that you have to do over and over again. Because who we are changes over time as we grow and transform.
So, maybe, just maybe, we should stop being afraid of it and learn to love it?
I know I have learned to love coming out. Why can't the church?
Part of the summer lectionary at Nativity has included an emphasis on 1 John. An incredibly complex and sometimes hard to read (because it is condemning) epistle that is tied to the Johanine community that produced the Gospel of John that is so familiar on Palm Sunday and the weeks following Easter.
In 1 John, there is a lot of talk about what it means to be human.
Does it mean to be a sinner? To be in the dark and completely depraved? To continually choose what is good for ourselves over and above what is good for the larger community?
Or does it mean to be a saint? To live in the light? To be forgiven of all sins? To be able to choose what is good for all instead of what is good for one?
In my sermon from July 6th, I posited that it was actually both. That we are, to quote Martin Luther, simul ustus et pecator, that is, that we are simmultaneously saint and sinner.
I even have a tattoo to remind ourselves of this very fact.
But, in a book that I had to read for my Theology class in the Spring of 2013 for Dan Bell, the author posited meant that to be truly human was to be completely saint. That the reason Jesus was fully human was because he was fully in relationship with God. And that by his incarnation, we understand what it means to be human.
This means that human nature isn't greedy or selfish. It would mean that we no longer get to use the excuse "I'm only human, when we make a mistake." Because to be human means to have the capactity for good and altruism.
It also means that there are no saints, in the sense that we have come to understand them. Instead, they are just people who are living into their humanity - the humanity that is made possible through the Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That means, they are, at their core, people like you and me. People who were born into this world, but desired something better. And instead of choking up their failings to "human nature," they realized that they had the capacity to do better.
They had the capactiy to do good.
We have the capactiy to good.
And we don't really have a good reason as to why we continue to make choices that are terrible for us. We can't keep blaming it on "human nature" because in the Incarnation, we see that human nature is actually altruistic and desires to sacrifice itself.
Instead, we continue to make terrible choice after terrible choice. We continue to blame our mistakes on something else. We continue to give ourselves an out for not doing better.
But we can. We are freed in baptism to become truly human.
And when we are truly human, we also know what it means to abide with God (to use the Johanine community's favorite verb).
This sermon was delivered to the people of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity on Sunday, June 1, 2014. The texts for the sermon are Philippians 2:1-13 and Luke 6:27-31.
Before you get too comfortable, I want you to grab a pencil and your bulletins, and jot down some things that make up your definition of “you.” The parts of you that are foundational to your identity. Go ahead, write them down -- because we’re going to come back to this, but it’ll take us a few minutes to get there.
As you’re thinking and writing, I want to share this parable from Peter Rollins with you that I came across while preparing for this week’s sermon:
IN THE CENTER OF A ONCE-GREAT CITY THERE STOOD A MAGNIFICENT CATHEDRAL that was cared for by a kindly old priest who spent his days praying in the vestry and caring for the poor. As a result of the priest’s tireless work, the cathedral was known throughout the land as a true sanctuary. The priest welcomed all who came to his door and gave completely without prejudice or restraint. Each stranger was, to the priest, a neighbor in need and thus the incoming of Christ. His hospitality was famous and his heart was known to be pure. No one could steal from this old man, for he considered no possession his own, and while thieves sometimes left that place with items pillaged from the sanctuary, the priest never grew concerned: he had given everything to God and knew that these people needed such items more than the church did. Early one evening in the middle of winter, while the priest was praying before the cross, there was a loud and ominous knock on the cathedral door. The priest quickly got to his feet and went to the entrance, as he knew it was a terrible night and reasoned that his visitor might be in need of shelter. Upon opening the door he was surprised to find a terrifying demon towering over him with large dead eyes and rotting flesh. “Old man,” the demon hissed, “I have traveled many miles to seek your shelter. Will you welcome me in?” Without hesitation, the priest bid this hideous demon welcome and beckoned him into the church. The evil demon stooped down and stepped across the threshold, spitting venom onto the tiled floor as he went. In full view of the priest, the demon proceeded to tear down the various icons that adorned the walls and rip the fine linens that hung around the sanctuary, while screaming blasphemy and curses. During this time the priest knelt silently on the floor and continued in his devotions until it was time for him to retire for the night. “Old man,” cried the demon, “where are you going now?” “I am returning home to rest, for it has been a long day,” replied the kindly priest. “May I come with you?” spat the demon. “I too am tired and in need of a place to lay my head.” “Why, of course,” replied the priest. “Come, and I will prepare a meal.” On returning to his house, the priest prepared some food while the evil demon mocked the priest and broke the various religious artifacts that adorned his humble dwelling. The demon then ate the meal that was provided and afterward turned his attention to the priest, “Old man, you welcomed me first into your church and then into your house. I have one more request for you: will you now welcome me into your heart?” “Why, of course,” said the priest, “what I have is yours and what I am is yours.” This heartfelt response brought the demon to a standstill, for by giving everything the priest had retained the very thing that the demon sought to take. For the demon was unable to rob him of his kindness and his hospitality, his love and his compassion. And so the great demon left in defeat, never to return. What happened to that demon after this meeting with the elderly priest is anyone’s guess. Some say that although he left that place empty-handed he received more than he could ever have imagined. And the priest? He simply ascended his stairs, got into bed and drifted off to sleep, all the time wondering what guise his Christ would take next. - Peter Rollins, The Orthodox Heretic
And as I was reading this parable, and reading this text, I wondered if I would be able to live as this priest lived. To be open and willing to serve all that came to my door that even in the midst of being taken advantage of, being abused, and even at the risk of letting evil into my heart. Would I be as kind and hospitable as the priest in this story? Would I be able to empty myself of the things that I hold near and dear to my identity and allow Christ’s love and grace to flow through me?
And then I wondered what are those things that I hold near and dear to my identity? Is it my name? My job? My gender? My relationships? What were those things that you hold near and dear to your identity -- what did you put on your list?
Does your list read something along the lines of: I’m Jared, a 25 year old male vicar, who is the first born son, and an older brother. I’m a student and a teacher. I am a bookworm, tv junkie, and movie buff. I’m a best friend. I own a dog, and am comfortably middle class. I’m an American of Norwegian descent. I’m a little ADD and a little OCD. I’m a Lutheran.
All of these are ways that I identify myself. All of these are things that I hold near and dear to my heart. All of these things are things I would be terrified to give up. I hold on to these things to measure my success and place in the world. They are how I know where I stand compared to other people.
Except, Paul calls me, and us, to emulate Christ in all things, to be in the same mind as Christ. To be of the same love as Christ. To:
“empty ourselves,
take the form of a slave,
humble ourselves
and become obedient to the point of death”
That’s terrifying. To empty ourselves of all of these pieces of our identity. To let go of the ways that we measure success. To stand back and let God work in our lives. To live as the priest lived in the parable I told at the beginning did, giving away everything, holding on to nothing. Not being afraid, even in the presence of evil and threat of harm. To have nothing inside his heart but love and grace and forgiveness and joy. To have so much love to be willing “go the extra mile” so to speak. To have so much forgiveness that we can turn the other cheek. To have so much grace, that everything we do is a reflection of what God does for us.
I know it sounds impossible. It sounds like I (and Paul and Jesus) are talking about something that is ideal, but not realistic. I mean, what happens when we offer grace? We get taken advantage of, right? Or our identities get in the way. I can’t do this, because of x, y, or z. I know this, because I do it all the time. I think that I’m “too busy” to go out and help someone build a house. Or that I’m “too afraid” for my life to help the homeless person with the cardboard sign because he might be crazy. Or whatever...we all have our reasons, our identities that we cling so tightly to, and impact how we are able to love one another.
And still, Paul - who wasn’t exactly the most charitable person at times, writes again and again that we need to emulate Christ. He even writes at one point that we “lose our identities” in the waters of Baptism. That we aren’t “ Jew nor Greek” - national identities, “slave or free” - occupational identities, or “male and female” - that one’s a little obvious. That these incredibly powerful cultural, occupational, and gender identities are no longer the things that define us. That we can let them go, we empty ourselves of them because they get in the way of the work of God flowing through us. That instead, we are children of God.
And we see this happen. We’ve seen people who have let go of their identities to bring love and grace to those they meet. They aren’t just found in parables, like the one I just read from Peter Rollins. Instead they are people like Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Pope Francis. They are the nurses who work at free clinics, the teachers who stay after school to tutor those who struggle, the veterans who worked to build relationships with those who differ from us, the construction workers who dedicate their time to Habitat for Humanity, the people who would rather go unnamed and unrecognized as they offer up their gifts and service. We all know these people. These women and men who emptied themselves of their identities and allowed themselves to be vessels of God’s grace. Women and men, who truly were of the same mind as Christ. Who weren’t afraid of anything to live into God’s kingdom. And more importantly, they were just ordinary women and men.
Women and men, like you and me. They just emptied themselves of their identities and became instruments of God’s grace. And in the emptying, the humility, the service, the love, the being taken advantage of, the threat of death, they lifted up Christ. They showed all the world how the power of sin was broken and that God’s kingdom is with us here and now. Thanks be to God.
I'm currently working my way through Peter Rollins' The Orthodox Heretic, and it's given me pause to think about my own privilege and my own relationship with the subversive message that is Christianity. Which is to say that I'll probably be wrestling with a lot of these parables on here.
So you should go out and buy the book.
No seriously...I'll wait. It's that good.
Looks like this
Got it?
Ok. Good.
The first parable is a play on that well known bumper sticker, "If Christianity was a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"
This one
And, true to form, Rollins twists this bumper sticker on its head.
The judge (and the court) look through footage of the one convicted (that's us, by the way) and see what we would consider evidence: reading scripture, speaking in church, praying before meals, etc...
And then...after all of this "evidence" the judge pronounces us "not guilty."
And of course, we as the one on trial demand to know what's going on. We're left saying, "wait, what?"
The response from the judge is that we haven't done enough to really fight the system, that we aren't actually bothering anybody. Just making ourselves feel good.
And at the end of the parable, I'm left going...wait, what?
Is that all I'm doing?
Am I just working within a system to keep the status quo alive?
Am I just making myself feel good?
Or...
Am I thorn in the side of an unjust system?
What am I doing?
I think I like to tell myself that I'm the latter, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's actually one of the first two.
And then I wonder...
How do I become the thorn in the side of an unjust system?
Is it by preaching sermons that challenge the status quo?
Is it by preaching sermons that affirm the place of doubt in religion?
Refusing to give in to violence?
Advocating for others to be treated equally regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation?
Living as if death isn't the defining force in the world?
Fighting to take care of the earth, and all that is in it?
Having a conversation with an ex-drug addict at the YMCA?
Losing my own ego, so that I can be fully present with someone else?
Ignoring the "rules" of retribution and recompense?
Offering forgiveness, not just seven times, but seventy times seven?
If yes, then those are all incredibly easy things to say.
But when I try to live them out, I find myself going, "wait, what?"
During the Festival of Homiletics, Otis Moss III gave a lecture titled "Preaching the Prophetic Blues in the Post-Modern World." This is my brief reflection on his lecture.
"Blues is a motif to deal with life in a world that refuses to recognize tragedy." - Otis Moss III
"Blues looks tragedy in the face, and refuses to give in to despair." - Otis Moss III
These two sentences about the blues embrace the message of the Gospel.
In fact, if we were to switch blues with "The Gospel" we would have two equally important and powerful statements.
"The Gospel is a motif to deal with life in a world that refuses to recognize tragedy." "The Gospel looks tragedy in the face, and refuses to give in to despair."
What incredibly powerful and liberating sentences. The Gospel embraces the terribleness of the world and refuses to give in to it.
The Gospel refuses to let death have the final say, but the Gospel does not deny the reality of tragedy. The Gospel is grounded in Good Friday and Holy Saturday in all things. God embraces the pain of the cross, completely.
Jesus doesn't abandon the pain and suffering of the cross - even though he had the power to remove himself from the cross at any point.
Instead, Jesus opens himself up to the horror of the cross.
Jesus deals with life in a world that refuses to recognize tragedy. Jesus looks tragedy in the face.
Jesus embraces the dissonance of the world - the pain, the suffering, the horror and shows us the terrible beauty of God that is still present in the midst of it all.
Isn't that why the blues are so effective?
They embrace the dissonance of the way the world is - in their very chords, and then have lyrics that continue to say "this is not the end."
Are we doing this?
Are we naming the pains and fears? The sufferings? Are we able to look them in the face and say, "You are not how the world is supposed to be."
Can we take these dissonant chords that we find in life and see that there is deep beauty in spite of, or perhaps because of, them?
Can we preach the blues? Or perhaps, we should allow the blues to preach to us?
This morning at the Festival of Homiletics, Dr. Walter Brueggemann preached a sermon about treasure and clay jars. Specifically the ways in which we confuse our treasure with the clay jars that hold them.
For some reason this seems painfully obvious.
Is it painful because it's true?
Do we confuse our churches for the Gospel that is preached there? Do we confuse the number of people in our pews for the size of the Body of Christ?
Or perhaps, the better question is why are we doing these things?
Why are these clay jars, fragile vessels that are meant to be broken and smashed to let the contents flow freely, so protected?
Why are we afraid to be broken in order for true healing to occur?
It's not because we're afraid of death, is it?
We proclaim loudly every Sunday that Christ has destroyed death, that there is no final separation between us and God, that even in the midst of tragedy there is still beauty and grace and love - because God is in those moments.
We profess it with the words of the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds. Christ died to destroy death.
We hear it all over the Epistles of Paul.
We sing it loudly, using some of my favorite Easter hymns (among others)
And yet, even in the light of Easter change is still painful and scary.
How do we embrace the fear of change and let it go?
How do we stare this fear and death in the face, and in spite of that still live as God invites us to live?
And that living invitation looks like:
Loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Feeding the hungry. Caring for the sick. Dining with outcasts.
We are invited to live in God's kingdom, where death has no power.
And that is the treasure. Everything else is just a clay jar.
This sermon was delivered to the people of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity on Sunday March 9, 2013. The texts for the sermon were Job 30:16-23 and John 11:1-44.
When was the last time you were honest with God? Can you think of a time in the past six months or so? A time when you were so frustrated with God that you yelled? Cried? Maybe even swore a little bit? Or a time when you broke down and really prayed for what was on your heart, instead of what we all think “we’re supposed to pray for”? A time when we told God that we felt that the Lord of all the universe had “turned cruel to us, that we have been lifted on the wind, and tossed about in the roar of the storm.”
Job’s prayer has never been my prayer, even when I felt like it should be. Instead, I take on the tone of Martha in our Gospel lesson this morning. “God, I’m a little ticked, but I know that you’re going to do what’s best for me.” It’s almost honest, but I cover up my honesty with flattery. I’m not allowing myself to be honest before God, fully. To just be angry and emotional and let God deal with that. That’s scary. For some reason, I - and I don’t think I’m alone here - think that God is going to smite me for yelling or swearing.
Like God cares about the language I use in a prayer, and not how I talk and act for the rest of the day. Right…
But my reluctance to be honest with God says something about my relationship (and quite possibly our relationships) with prayer. That it’s a special sacred time, and that everything has to be just right or God won’t listen. That if I don’t take the time to flatter God, then whatever I have to say will be passed over in favor of one of the other billion people on this planet. That I have to craft my prayers like the ones on Sunday morning are crafted - with flowery language and a recognition that God is God, and I am not.
And yet…That’s not exactly what prayer looks like in our texts this morning. In fact, all three of our examples of prayer (one from Job and two from John) all begin with accusations. You did this God. Or you failed to act. God if you had just been paying attention, this terrible bad, no good thing would not have happened. Lazarus would not have died. My life would not feel over. There wouldn’t be a war looming in Ukraine. There wouldn’t be millions of starving children in this world. My grandfather would not have died when I was a baby. I’d still have the dog I grew up with. My friend would not have had to deal with cancer and the consequences of that for her whole life. I wouldn’t live in a world that has been broken apart by sin.
God, if you had been here, these things all would not have happened.
What if those were our prayers?
God I’m mad. no, not just mad. I’m pissed at what I’ve had to go through. God I’m sad. No, not just mad. I’m depressed. I’m grieving the loss of someone close to me, or someone far away. Where were you God? Where were you?
In this time of Lent, we are also entering into a time of honesty. As we journey ahead together over the next 40 days (give or take), we will spend a lot of time holding ourselves accountable to God. Where we have betrayed God, where we have turned away from God, and where we have killed God. But I think, before we get there, we need to make God accountable to us - to have these brutally honest prayers where we demand to know where God was and is in our lives.
Because it’s only when Mary accuses Jesus of failing to save her brother, that we see Jesus’ emotions. It’s there, in the face of the accusation - with no flattery that Jesus weeps. That the Word made Flesh reveals where God has been in the midst of this family’s grief - right there in the middle of it. That only by allowing herself to be honest and vulnerable before God, does Mary see that Jesus has been present in their grief this whole time. That God has been here in the face of this tragedy. And, I think, that God is present in all of our tragedies.
In Job, it’s Job’s honesty in the question that provokes a reaction from God. And God’s answer, in more or less sarcastic phrasing says, “I’ve been here since the beginning. I’ve been present in everything. Every gift of life, that was me. So don’t act like I was never there.” Ok, so maybe God is a significantly snarkier than my paraphrase.
But do we allow ourselves to feel God in our journeys? To see that God feels with us in our grief? And in our anger? And in our joys? Do we allow ourselves to be honest with God, and in our honesty, we become open to see God with us? I hope so.
Because when we are open to God’s presence here and now - when we enter into a relationship with God through honest prayers - we get to be a part of the resurrection that Jesus talks about when he says the those who believe in him will never die. Because being connected to God’s presence gives life on both sides of the graves.
And we get a foretaste of what the life on the other side of the grave is when Jesus commands Lazarus to come out of that tomb. That even death cannot stop God from being connected to each and every one of us. And when we reach the end of our Lenten journey, we see how our real and powerful and honest relationships with God will bring about new life for all of God’s people. Amen.
Over the past year or so, I've found that my heart and mind are being drawn to the book in the Bible known as Job.
Specifically, the last little bit of Job, where God comes out of the whirlwind and tells Job to "gird his loins" and basically get a tongue lashing from above.
And it's taken me some time to figure out why this passage speaks to me. Why do I keep coming back to God's series of questions for Job over and over again.
Certainly it has something to do with the imagery. God asks some very impressive questions. Questions like:
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? (38:4)
Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep? (38:16)
Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
or loose the cords of Orion? (38:31 - maybe my favorite)
Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishook,
or press down its tongue with a cord? (41:1)
The rest of God's response to Job is similar to these questions. There are three chapters filled with lots of questions to which Job is unable to answer.
I love each and every one of them. And I have no idea why I love them.
Or I didn't until I was reading Rob Bell's What We Talk About When We Talk About God.
Great book. Picture from Amazon.com
In the second chapter, Rob Bell talks about how we as humans are driven to have the answers to everything.
We need to know how things work.
We need to know why things work.
We need to know everything about everything.
And our need to know isn't bad.
In fact, our need to know has brought us great scientific achievements. It's brought us modern medicine. Great architectural structures. Cars. And my personal favorite, the iPhone.
But, we get ourselves into trouble with our insatiable curiosity. We think that everything can be explained. And that everything will be explained if we just think on the problem hard enough for long enough.
But, as science is quickly teaching us, there are some things we will just be unable to explain. Ever.
Just observing something to see how it acts (here's looking at you quantum mechanics) changes how that object acts.
So we will never know how or why things behave even at their most basic level.
We will always have unsolved mysteries.
And I think this is why I love God's response to Job.
Job just wants to know why bad things happened to him. He lost everything and there wasn't a reason for it.
Job needs to know.
And God shows up and says, essentially, "You will never be able to understand. This is one great big mystery. And you need to accept that."
"I am God, and you are not."
God basically tells Job that life is mysterious. Things happen, good or bad, and they aren't punishments or rewards, they're just things.
Bad things happen to the good and bad alike.
Good things happen to the bad and good alike.
And they don't have any bearing on God's presence or activity in the world.
God is intimately involved in all of these wonderful and terrible things. Providing comfort and grace. Giving hope. Being life.
And any attempts to understand these great mysteries without making room for God to provide comfort and grace, hope and life is just going to leave us banging our heads against the wall.
We just can't comprehend how deeply God is present in all of these situations. Because we weren't there.
We weren't there when God made the foundations of the earth.
We (for the most part) haven't been to the recesses of the seas. We can't bind the Pleaides. We haven't caught a Leviathan.
We are not God. We cannot fathom being present in all things - especially when most of us have trouble being present in the here and now.
And the good news is we don't have to know how all of these divine and eternal mysteries work in order for them to work. My chair is still going to sit here and be a "chair" whether I understand the physics of it or not.
God is still going to be present in my day to day life, even if I don't always know where or how.
This piece tells a story. It is shouting at us to see this man waiting for his lover by the club door. We don't know why he's waiting. We don't know who he is. And yet, in this waiting man we are able to see more than just the man. We see his love. We see his grief over the absence of his lover. We see parts of ourselves in this work that we can relate to.
This picture tells a story of the human condition. In this man we see our neighbors, our friends, our family.
In this man we see ourselves.
We are drawn to portraits like this one because in the subject of the portrait we can see a glimpse of ourselves. In their portraits we see their humanity.
And in their humanity, we see art.
There is precedent for looking at humanity as an art.
"So God created humankind in God's image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them." (Genesis 1:27)
The image of God.
Images. Icons. Photographs. Portraits. People.
All of humanity is created in the image of God.
Do we stop to take the time to seek this image of God in our neighbor? Do we only see the image of God in icons, or photographs, or portraits? Do we listen to what God says outside of scripture?
We look people who surround us, at the theater, at the coffee shop, at the bar, at work, on the side of the road, but do we see them?
Do we stop to talk to them? Do we see their faces? Do we listen to stories?
Do we find the image of God in them?
Or do we need someone to take their picture like Brandon from Humans of New York? Someone who is willing to stop, look at these women and men who get passed by day after day, listen to their stories, and then take their picture? Someone who shouts that we might stop, look, and listen ourselves?
"I'm homeless, and I'm an alcoholic. But I have a dream."
"What's that?"
"I wanna go fishing."
"It's kinda weird having a child of my own, because I'm seeing all the things that my father missed."
Stop. Look. Listen.
It doesn't seem that hard, but we miss these opportunities all the time.
We make excuses. We tell ourselves we don't have time to stop. We tell ourselves that we have already seen our neighbor. We tell ourselves that we can't talk to the stranger. We say we're doing it to protect ourselves or our families.
We tell ourselves anything to avoid someone who is different from us.
How many different encounters of God are we missing when we do this though?
I've already talked about the "cacophony of voices" that Scripture uses to help us understand bits and pieces of God. But what about the beautiful collage of images that God has created in each and every people that we encounter each and every day?
In this guy?
Or these children?
Or this woman?
All of these people, and many more reflect God in their appearance, in their actions, and in their lives. They all have families, friends, hopes, dreams, fears, joys, griefs, trials, tribulations, and celebrations - stories that are important and powerful. They live complex and complicated lives that mirror our very own. They walk the same journey that you and I will walk every day.
But we get so caught up in our journeys that we simply walk past them, even though we're all walking through life together. We miss out on hearing and being a part of their stories, that are just as delightful, terrifying, or heartbreaking as our own.
"If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing."
When we don't stop, we walk past God.
When we don't look, we miss seeing God's face.
When we don't listen, we deafen ourselves to God's story.
Let's stop making excuses.
Let's stop looking at people as objects that are either in our way or are a means to an end.
Let's start looking at people as subjects worthy of the same care, attention, and devotion that any artist puts into their work.
Let's start looking at people with the same awe and reverence we give to works of art such as the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel. Let's start appreciating the living art that God creates and places in our lives every day.
This is part one of a two part series on art and theology.
Last Thursday, I joined Instagram.
I'm not really sure why I did it because I use Facebook to share my pictures and Twitter to participate in instantaneous communication. Being on Instagram seemed a little excessive to me.
Yet, even though I've only Instagramed one picture (as of writing this), having Instagram on my phone helps me start paying attention to things. I'm able to start noticing things that I see every day and frame them in such a way that they say something.
#nofilter
This picture, for example. Every night I walk my dog and I usually notice the moon, stars, clouds, etc.. But when I took the picture, I was paying attention to just how the clouds interacted with the light of the moon. I was paying attention to how the moonlight created shadows with the branches of the trees. I was paying attention to something that I see every day.
I've noticed this happens with many photographs that appear on Instagram. There are tons of pictures of food, pets, family, friends, trash, and so on. Sometimes it seem foolish or ridiculous. When I would see these photos on Facebook, my first thought was, "Nobody cares what you had for lunch today!"
Not anymore.
Instagram's greatest strength is that everyone can become a photographer. Everyone can take an ordinary object and frame it in such a way that people to notice it. That people pay attention to it. That people truly see it.
Frederick Buechner, in his book Whistling in the Dark, says that this about art.
Literature, painting, music - the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.
Stop. Look. Listen.
Three simple commands. Why do we have such a hard time with them?
We pause, but rarely stop. We look, but seldom see. We hear, but hardly listen.
We need artists from all walks of life to shout, "Look over here! See what great mystery is present! Listen to the holy rhythms of life!"
About a month ago, I stumbled on to the blog done by the NY Graffiti artist Banksy. While not strictly legal (as evidenced by some of the posts related to being pursued by the NYPD) I admire what this mysterious artist is trying to do. An anonymous figure quitely encouraging people to stop, look, and listen to the life of the city; to see something in a new and exciting way that might have scared them before.
This piece tells a story. It is shouting at us to see this man waiting for his lover by the club door. We don't know why he's waiting. We don't know who he is. And yet, in this waiting man we are able to see more than just the man. We see his love. We see his grief over the absence of his lover. We see parts of ourselves in this work that we can relate to.
And yet, people walk by this beautiful story without a second glance day after day.
I'm not sure I would have noticed it if I hadn't come across it online. I'm not sure I would pay it any attention. I would have passed it by without a second glance. I needed a "frame" to encourage me to stop, look, and listen.
Instagram and Banksy's Graffiti give us opportunities to stop, look, and listen to the extraordinary aspects of our lives that are extraordinary only because of their ordinariness.
Too often we let these extraordinary moments go by without noting them.
Holy moments of creation slip by without a second glance.
We expect God to swoop down with a smartphone and Instagram these moments for us. We want God to put a frame around what God has done. And we do get these experiences occasionally. We have moments where we see God's presence in nature - in our "mountaintop experiences."
And yet.
I have a sneaking suspicion that God works more like our Graffiti artist, Banksy. God is subtly working within creation to quietly encourage us to stop, look, and listen.
It's never anything fancy or "loud" but it's quiet, subtle, and simple.
And yet.
Its quietness draws us in, closer and closer.
Its subtlety allows it to speak to us time and time again.
Its simplicity allows us to see this message of creation again and again and again, everywhere we go.
So it's up to us to frame some of these quiet moments for one another. It's up to us to shout on their behalf. It's up to us to ask people to stop, look, and listen to these holy moments where God has created beautiful works of art that have been passed without a second glance time and time again.
Why is the sky blue?
Why is the grass green?
Why do we go to church?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why is the most basic of human questions. From an early age, we want to know why. Why do things work the way that they work? Why do we do the things we do?
And it's also one of the most frustrating questions that humans ask. Too often when asked why, we respond with "Because I said so." Or maybe if we're feeling frustrated we reply, "Because."
So I repeat, why do we go to church?
Is it just "because?"
I hope not.
But, I feel, for many people in churches across the country and maybe even around the world, the answer really is, "because we've always done it."
We go because mom and dad took us.
We go because we want our kids to be raised in the church environment, even though it's not really important for us.
We go because it's what society expects of us.
We go because our friends are there.
We go just because.
Unfortunately our reasons for going to church don't cut it anymore. People don't buy into this idea that church is something that we just do.
Our society is saying, "You keep giving us explanations that fall short. We don't buy it anymore."
Church isn't something that mom and dad do with their children anymore.
Church isn't the only place for moral formation any more.
Church isn't expected of us from society.
Church isn't the only place we find friends and family.
Church isn't somewhere we go just because.
I'm not saying the church is dying. That's not true. We see it flourishing in many emerging communities.
I'm not saying anyone is "killing the church" by using outdated language and music - that's not true. People will find meaningfulness in any language and music as long as they have a reason to search.
I am saying that we need to think about the reasons why we gather as the body of Christ.
Why do we gather on Sunday mornings? Why do we want to talk to people about our faith? Why do we help others?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Is it because we encounter God? Is it because we want to surround ourselves with the faithful when we experience doubt?
Is it because we want to lose our sense of self in the mystery of God?
Is it because we desire true community that tears down walls between "you and me"?
Is it because we yearn to erase labels of race, gender, and sexuality?
Is it because we long to call ourselves Children of God?
As we remember Martin Luther's act of defiance today when he nailed the 95 Theses to the church, I think we need to remember exactly why we're celebrating.
Are we doing it to celebrate the victory of Luther over Roman Catholicism?
Are we doing it to celebrate Luther's writings and teachings?
Are we doing it to remember God's ongoing revelation and work within our lives today?
I hope it's that third option.
I appreciate Martin Luther, and I value the work that he and the other reformers did to shake up the way church has been done, so that more and more people might find engagement with God where God has already been meeting them.
I think Martin Luther had some serious complaints about how the Catholic church was handling their responsibility as the church of God's people, and they needed to be shaken out of their complacency with some systems that were hurting the very people the church was supposed to be helping.
I think it's always important to remember that we cannot earn our salvation and that we do good works out of a response to the very thing that God has done.
I also think we've turned Martin Luther's legacy into something that itself is becoming an hindrance to the body of Christ.
Any time we celebrate the Reformation and celebrate Luther instead of God, we're doing it wrong.
Rather, we must be looking to see how God has worked, is working, and will continue to work to re-form our faith. A living God requires a living faith. A living faith requires pruning and growing. A living faith sometimes requires dying and being resurrected.
Is our faith really a living faith?
We want to say "Yes!" We want to believe that we are able to let go of some things in order to try something new. We want to say that we are willing to lose ourselves, so that we might be found by God.
But I'm not so sure this is the case.
I know that every time I read a new book and come across a new idea I have a really hard time carrying that idea into action - especially if I like what the day communicates about God.
For example, part of Peter Rollins' book How (Not) to Speak of God includes ten service descriptions from his ikon community in Belfast. Each service is radically different from what mainline churches in North America is doing.
And there are parts of his services that I really like. The messages and themes that Rollins is communicating are exciting - they provide an opportunity to shift our perceptions of God ever so slightly and grow from the experience.
I am terrified to let go of my familiar worship patterns.
As much as I would love to implement the ideas and themes and develop thoughtful ways to integrate them into my own spiritual/prayer life, I am much more terrified of letting go of something that has shaped my identity for almost 25 years.
I am terrified to let go.
I have to let go.
I have to trust that God will still show up when I take away something near and dear to whom I perceive myself to be.
I have to trust that God is going to make me stretch and grow into a new and better identity when I let go of something that has defined who I am.
I have to take a leap of faith.
That's not to say I must rush into it without thinking - but at some point (soon) I need to start acting on what I'm thinking. I have to experiement. I have to try something new. I have to learn to fail and let God succeed.
I hope that's where the church is being called - to let go and let God take hold.
As we walk on this journey together, what are some other places where we should let go and let God take over?
What scares you or those you know about letting go?
What are some ways you've experienced that in your own faith journeys?
This is my second engagement with Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity. This section deals with his second question for the new church, "How should the Bible be understood?"
Thinking about the Bible's overarching narrative of "Who are we as God's people?" helps me think about how we should read and interpret this collection of stories.
Instead of thinking of these stories as a constitutional how-to guide for living faithfully as God's people, it is helpful to think of them as we do many stories - they help us understand a little more about who we are and how we live, rather than tell us what to do.
When thinking about how we understand scripture, I tend to think of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and the famous quote: "I cannot tell a lie."
Yet, that story is false.
Yep. Never happened.
However, the deeper truth that is conveyed by this familiar story is true. The idea that the father of our country was honest and valued his integrity is true. The idea that we should emulate that honesty and integrity is even more true. The story resonates with us because we have been in situations that are similar.
This is how our stories in scripture work with us. Some of my personal favorites are Jacob wrestling with God and the story of Job, are just a couple of these stories that really resonate with the truth of what it means to be a child of God.
Jacob wrestles with God and is forever changed by that experience, as noted in the story by the limp and the name change. When we hear this story it resonates with us.
We encounter God.
We wrestle with God.
We are changed by challenging, questioning, and engaging God.
Job experiences great tragedy, and struggles to understand how such a thing could happen to him. Even though those who are around him encourage him to renounce God or confess his (imaginary) sins before God, Job maintains his innocence and refuses to turn his back on God. Yet, God comes to Job and informs him, none too kindly, that trying to pin down how God works is not a good plan.
We experience tragedy.
We hear people tell us that it is because of our sins. We hear people encourage us to turn our backs on God.
We don't understand how God works.
These stories speak to us with an authority beyond that of a "how-to guide." These stories speak to our hearts and are given authority by their power as stories of the human condition.
Why do we need to give them authority beyond that? Isn't the fact that thousands of years later, these stories still resonate with the hearts and minds of their audience authoritative enough?
For example, when we read Leviticus or some of the Epistles as a set of laws instead of hearing a story of how people tried to define themselves as God's people, we lose something in the cultural translation.
We think slavery is bad, so the rules for slavery are out of date.
We believe women should have equal voice and rights, so the rules about women are out of date.
However, when we see how the rest of the Middle Eastern world, the Jewish (and Paul's) ideas on how to treat slaves indicates that we should treat them respectfully and break societal conventions with how we should treat those over whom we have authority.
When we look at how women were being treated in the Greco-Roman world, we see how the authors are trying to wrestle with being a child of God in that time period.
Just as we wrestle with what it means to be a child of God in our time.
We might never come up with a satisfactory answer, but then again, Jacob didn't really get an answer when he wrestled with God. In fact, Jacob got a limp and a name change.
It was the wrestling that was important.
The desire to engage God is what gives the scriptures their authority, and as long as we do that in love we listen to the authority of God.
This sermon was delivered to the people of The Lutheran Church of the Nativity on October, 27, 2013. This is Reformation Sunday for many Protestants, and the text was 1 Kings 5:1-5; 8:1-13.
Our journey through the narrative lectionary continues this morning with the next step on the faith journey of the Israelites. They have had two kings, who while they both had their flaws, helped unite Israel and bring peace. Now, they are on their third king, Solomon who takes it upon himself to build a house for the Lord.
And this was some house. It took Solomon seven years to design, gather materials, and build. The people made large pots, huge candlesticks, and even decorated the innermost dwelling place with golden cherubim. This is a house fit for a king. And God does come to dwell among the people. God’s presence fills the house of the Lord - God’s presence is so great that the priests cannot stand to minister there. Solomon explains for us that “The Lord has said he would dwell in thick darkness.”
And the form of Judaism that we come to recognize with the High Priests in Jesus’ day slowly begins to form. For this particular group of people, the temple is no longer a place to signify God’s presence in and among the people. Rather, for them worship becomes all about saying the words just right, making sure the animals are sacrificed in just the right spot, and that people give enough to pay for the priests’ food and the upkeep of the temple.
Sounds a little familiar right? For those of us who grew up Lutheran, every year on Reformation Sunday, we hear about how the Catholic church was worrying more and more about money, worrying more and more about saying the right things, and worrying more and more about making sure everything was in its proper place. We associate these with bad things, because our superhero, Martin Luther, comes in with his mighty hammer - reminiscent of Thor - and starts pounding his 95 Theses to the door of the high and mighty Catholic church in Wittenberg. Luther wants to reform these things within the Catholic church, much like the prophets of Israel wanted to reform the Jewish faith as we’ll see in the next couple of weeks.
For the prophets and for Luther, it wasn’t about making sure that things were said just right, or that the building was perfect. Like Pastor Mark said last week, God doesn’t care about outward appearance. God is concerned with the heart of the individual. Luther and the prophets were concerned about the hearts of the people who were claiming to be children of God, but weren’t acting like it. They said that God doesn’t dwell only in a building, or in the priests, or in the pastors, but that the Spirit of God dwells with each and every one of us. God dwells in the thick darkness, not in some building that humans have built.
We have been blessed with an opportunity to live through a period of re-formation of the church today. There are several authors writing right now that talk about how the church is in a period of upheaval. We’re beginning to let go of some of these things that don’t matter, an institutionalized faith focused on blind participation rather than the heart, mind, and soul’s engagement with God. We too, have lost sight of what’s important to God - our heart - in favor of this great institution that we have built out of Martin Luther, who would likely shudder to hear us call ourselves Lutheran after him.
That’s not to say that what Martin Luther did for the church was bad, no he put the scriptures in the hands of everyone, so that all might have a personal experience with God, and he tried to show that God dwells with each and every one of us when he uses one of his popular phrases, “priesthood of all believers.” Martin Luther reminds us that we cannot earn our salvation, and to borrow the phrase from The Princess Bride, “and anyone who says differently, princess, is selling you something.” Martin Luther and those who are working alongside him, John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon, and others, are trying to remind the church that it’s about the heart.
This is similar to the religion associated with the temple, because this form of Judaism didn’t start out as this institutionalized Judaism that would focus exclusively on right worship, with disregard for the poor or oppressed. Instead, this temple was built out of love for God, out of gratitude for what God has done, and out of desire to let people see that God dwells among them. It was a physical icon, or worship aid, to help people focus their hearts and minds to be with God, and to be transformed by God.
Unfortunately, as is the problem with many icons, these worship aids to help us focus our hearts and minds to be present with God, the people started to think of the temple as THE place where God was present, to the exclusion of everything else. Those who followed about 150-200 years after Martin Luther started to think of the icons that he developed in his writings to help people dwell with God, began to think of those icons as the only ways that people could dwell with God. Just as there are many worship aids that we have developed over the past 50 years, that have been seen as the only way to worship or be with God.
Yet, now we are seeing people pick up hammers and smash these idols, which once were icons, just as Martin Luther did almost 500 years ago. We are able to let go of some of these things that were created to help us worship, but now hinder the worship of others. We see people pick up things that haven’t been used for a thousand years, and say “This is a place where God’s light shines through.” That’s why we celebrate the Reformation today, why we celebrate the building and dedication of Solomon’s temple. We celebrate the fact that God continually inspires us to re-form, re-think, and re-build icons that help us see God more clearly. We also celebrate the fact that God encourages us to challenge, question, and smash the icons that have become idols, so that we might let go of something that stands between our hearts and God. Amen.
This is my last engagement with Peter Rollins' How (Not) to Speak of God.
After many conversations about this a/theological approach to our faith, we cannot help but beg the question, "Which interpretation is the right one?"
After all, my dis/belief might be very different from your dis/belief.
Are they equally valid?
Am I right?
Are you?
How do we determine what is a helpful look at a/theology that allows God to speak to us where we are in our lives?
Peter Rollins posits that we look through all of these questions through a lens of love. That is, is our interpretation of an experience/text done in such a way that love is the primary message being conveyed through our interpretation.
However, it is impossible for us to define how to interpret through a lens of self-giving and Christ-like love. The Christ-like love we are to emulate in our interpretations is one that is charitable "above and beyond" what any instruction manual could ever say. Trying to pin down precisely what is required - to turn the "above and beyond" into the norm - fails to recognize the radicalness of self-giving love.
This means, that we aren't able to concretely nail down one correct way to interpret scripture and ethics. Instead, it's something that we must be able to feel through and work out on a case by case basis.
Our interpretation in love in one situation isn't always going to be our interpretation in love in another situation.
This brings us to the importance of the community's role in faith. We must continue to talk through our struggles with one another - to continually be re-interpreting our faith through the lens of love. And we must continue to hold up all of these interpretations together in a dis/unity that allows us to embrace the mystery that God presents to us through scripture, tradition, and experience.
As one thinking about how to accompany people as we all continue to walk on our faith journey, this presents a tremendous challenge but also a wonderful opportunity.
The challenge is that simply talking about people about God is not the solution. It never was, isn't now, and won't be in the future. Instead we must listen to where people are; we must listen to where God is working in the lives of those around us. We start our conversations about God where the other person is - and not from the belief that they should be where we are now, but rather that we can find a new direction together.
Finding that new direction together is the wonderful opportunity that we have been given. We are on the frontier of a new conversation about God and it's one that will allow us freedom to play and explore God's mystery and hypernymity together.
We need not speak of God, but rather allow God to speak through us - our thoughts, words, and deeds.
I recently started Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity. The book raises ten questions that are at the forefront of the emerging conversation regarding the future of Christianity in a postmodern world.
The first question that Brian McLaren engages in his book is, "What is the overarching story of the Bible?"
This is an excellent question to bring up, because humans are creatures of stories. When we are little, we want to hear the same story again and again. We have favorite stories that describe what's going on in our lives. We love to listen and tell the stories that have impacted us.
After reflecting on this fact and this section of the book for a few days, I think that the overarching story of the Bible is...wait for it...
"Who am I?"
The whole of scripture is an exploration of what it means to be God's people. The Old Testament wrestles with creation as God's creation and how a certain people came to know and experience God. It continues as they wrestle with what God wants them to do because they have been chosen as God's people.
The different books and stories explore how their trials and tribulations, as well as their causes for celebration engage with God's promises.
The Old Testament (for Christians) culminates with an experience of God in Jesus Christ, as witnessed to by the Gospels. The letters of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles are also written wrestling as those who followed Jesus Christ try to understand what exactly their faith means based on the crucifixion and resurrection.
The whole story culminates in the Revelation of John as John writes down about the end of human history as God's chosen people.
"Who are we?"
When we think about the scriptures as a series of stories that wrestle with this question, it helps us to make them more applicable to our daily lives. Instead of being stories that are about a place long long ago in a galaxy far away, they are stories that mirror stages of our very own lives.
We want to know what we're supposed to be when we grow up.
We want to know what it means to be a child, a sister, a father, a mother, a brother, a grandparent, a friend.
We want to know what it means to be a Child of God - claimed by God's own act.
By interpreting the scriptures as a story that wrestles with a peoples' identity, we allow the scripture to be more than just a record or a fact. Opening up the scripture to answer an overarching question - this struggle with identity - we open ourselves up to the larger meaningfulness of the story.
I can picture the Hebrew people and their ancestors sitting around a fire or a meal to share these stories about who they are, and where they came from. Just like our stories at Thanksgiving or Christmas.
These stories are an important part of who we are as Children of God. More importantly though, through the telling of stories that central message can be passed from generation to generation.
The Levitical laws, for example, aren't just good suggestions or commands to not eat bacon. No, they are stories that emphasize how the children of God are set apart from other peoples.
The story of Abraham and Sarah isn't a story that's just about the father of a nation. No it's a story about how experiences with God bring life, sometimes laughter, and change.
All of these are stories that say being chosen as God's people means something tangible in our lives as part of the mystery and beauty of creation.
And so, armed with these beautiful stories we engage in conversations with one another in our communities - just like we did in high school English Lit classes, as we try to understand how these stories are our stories.
