40 Frames and 40 Nights?

Lent is weird.

There.  I said it.

This period of giving things up - usually things we ought to give up anyway like chocolate or soda - in order to offer a great big apology to God for messing up during the year has always felt a little off.

That being said, recently I've seen some articles and blog posts being written that highlight taking something on as a Lenten discipline.  Things like reading scripture, praying more, exercising, volunteering.  All of which are good things, but again, feel like those are things we should be doing on a daily basis, much like saying no to that second piece of chocolate.

As this Lent has approached, I've felt that maybe there's another way.  That perhaps there's a way to give up/take on something new, that will be more than an apology, but rather as an intentional way to step outside of myself and my mistakes and focus on the larger human community and the larger human experience.

That is to say, to be more mindful of the ways that I have unwittingly participated in perpetuating larger systems of sin in our world.  Those big things, like racism, patriarchy, ableism, and yes, even heteronormativity.

How do I participate in these things the most, you may ask?

Well, like any good investigator, I followed the money.  And where did my money trail lead?  To movies and television shows.  Those two things have been where I've consistently spent my money for several years now.

I took stock of my collection and I noticed a sadly overwhelming theme which is that I was swallowing whole-heartedly the world that Hollywood was trying to sell me.  White guy and white girl, guy saves girl, guy gets girl, they live happily ever after with their 2.4 kids in their suburban house (insert my hyperbolic voice here).

So this Lent, I'm going to try something different.  I'm going to start spending my time/money/energy watching films that feel unfamiliar to me.  The films that challenge my views about how the world works.

Over the next week, I'm going to compile a post with 5 (or more) different movies on it - each movie being one that in some way challenges or tells a story different from the ones most of my movie collection has to offer right now.

I'm going to watch each of these movies and invite you to watch them too so together we can explore a different way of seeing the world.

My hope is that by spending our time/energy with these films, we can learn to celebrate the plurality of the human experience instead of trying to highlight one over and against the others.

Sin is Sin

These two guys walk in to a church, ok.  And the one guy is dressed in a sharp suit, smells good, looks good.  He’s got a short, neat haircut with a perfectly groomed beard.  On his left wrist, he’s got a Rolex the size of a pocket watch with a wedding band to match.  You can almost smell the money oozing off of him.  The other guy is obviously homeless.  As soon as he walks in you can tell it’s been awhile since he’s used deodorant.  If you were to get close, but you probably wouldn’t, you’d notice the outline of dog tags under his shirt.

Which one do you say hello to first?

Honestly, which one do you smile at?  Which one do you kindly ask how his weekend is going?  Which one do you try to get to know and be extra friendly with?  And then which one do you kindly ignore and hope they go away?    

I’ll tell you which one I choose.  As much as I hate to admit it, especially considering what James just wrote to us this morning, I spend more time with the guy in the suit and tie.  I naturally gravitate to him.  I want him to like me, I want him to like this church, and I want him to continue coming here.  I don’t think I’d make this decision consciously, but if I’m going to be truly and deeply honest with myself, of the two, he’s the one I go to.

And then I need to hear these words from James and I need to ask myself why?  Why am I avoiding the person that looks probably a lot like Jesus did during his ministry?  Why am I avoiding the very person that Jesus would have sought out on his travels?  Why am I gravitating towards the person that would likely have shunned Jesus’ message to “sell all that he has and give it to the poor?”  

And if I’m going to be honest, it’s because going to the richer person is easier.  It’s more comfortable.  It’s not going to result in me getting dirty.  It’s not going to result in me risking my social standing.  It’s what the world expects me to do, and I feel absolutely no qualms about doing it.  It’s more acceptable for me to ignore the homeless person and hope he goes away than it is for me to treat him like a person, welcome him into the building, offer him some money, and sit and talk to him for a while.  It’s more acceptable for me to ignore him than it is for me to love him.

And if I’m not loving him, if I’m not loving my neighbor, then what am I doing calling myself a Christian?  Isn’t that part of the greatest commandment?  That I love God with all my heart, soul, and mind AND love my neighbor as myself?  At best by ignoring him I am apathetic towards him, which feels so much worse than outright hating him.  At worst, by ignoring him, I am causing him harm.

Either way I’m breaking God’s commandments and living in sin.  I’m living into a broken relationship with this person that I’m not particularly interested in mending.  And if I’m doing that, I might as well have killed him - I’ve broken the relationship and refused to repair it or restore it.  That’s why James says, perhaps counterintuitively, that there are no gradients of sin.  Sin doesn’t operate like our legal system.  There are no 1st degree or 2nd degree offenses.  All sin is a break in a relationship.  And all sin that is unrepented of is considered to be murder - because you’ve killed that relationship with that person: their life is cut off from yours.  

Bear with me, I know this sounds counterintuitive.  Trust me, I was a philosophy major who loved his ethics classes.  I really want one evil to be lesser than another because it makes the world a better place.  I want to say well of course lying is better than killing - it just makes sense, according to this world.  But what if we looked at sin in a way that was different from our current legal system?  What if we looked at sin the way we look at cutting string?

Once you make a cut of thread, you can’t undo it.  No cut can be any less thorough than any other cut.  I can’t half-cut a piece of thread, once I start that whole thing is cut into two pieces.  Sin is kind of like that.  Each sin cuts the thread of our relationships.  Now sin can cut the relationship in lots of places.  But certain sins can’t cut more or less than other sins.  

Especially for God.  Because God doesn’t see sins as individual acts that we do, God sees all sin as something that breaks relationships between the Trinity and between humanity.  That’s part of why we word our confession the way that we do.  We’re not confessing to this sin, this sin, and this sin, but for all the complete breaks in relationships that we need God to help us mend.

It’s confusing, I know.  It doesn’t quite make sense, I know.  It’s not how the world views things, I know.  But bear with me.  Because it only gets weirder.  Remember how I said God’s weird?  Well, here’s a piece of that.  

So we’re a part of God’s world, and when we play by God’s rules, our sins aren’t any better or worse than say, Hitler’s sins.  Because, remember, God doesn’t qualify or quantify sin.  For God, it’s all a break.  This sounds bad, I know.  We like to think that we’re at least a little better than Hitler, but remember sin is sin.  It’s all equally bad.  But wait, there’s more.  Because God isn’t content to let us sit here in our sin.  Instead of judging us, God offers another way.  Instead of divinely punishing everybody, God chooses mercy.  To quote James, mercy triumphs over judgement.  And Lutherans say James doesn’t have good news!

God chooses to redeem us in our sin.  God chooses to offer us mercy and grace time and time again even when we make mistakes and love ourselves more than our neighbors.  And because God doesn’t qualify or quantify sin, that offer of love and mercy and grace goes to every single person on earth.  Even Hitler.  To each and every person, which means each and every person is worthy of being welcomed into the kingdom of God.  Every one.  Rich and poor.  Black and white.  Republican and Democrat.  Liberal and conservative.  Male and female.  These binaries aren’t exclusive, instead all are brought into the church.  

Which is to say, James isn’t saying kick the rich person out of the church.  Instead, he’s saying to welcome the poor person in.  The rich person gets treated well 24/7/365, so they can wait a little bit to be welcomed into conversation, instead start with the person who is mistreated and abused.  Let them know that they are welcome and that there is nothing they have done, are doing, or could do that would keep them out of the kingdom of God.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.  

Ain't it a Shame

Sermon from Sunday March 23, 2014.  This sermon was delivered to the people of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity.  The text for the sermon is John 18:12-27.

I think it’s all too easy for us to give Peter a hard time in this text.  We listen to these women and men question his association with Jesus, and hear Peter’s denial of it, and we think…”really, you’re going to just straight up deny that you traveled with him? Really?”  And then it’s easy for us to harshly judge Peter.  To assume that if we were in his position we would stand up for Jesus right there in the courtyard.  That even if we knew that it meant that we too would be arrested and possibly killed, we would stand with Jesus to the end.  

And yet, it’s not that easy after all.  Perhaps there is more going on here in Peter’s relationship with these people that we can’t see on the surface.  Perhaps we need to dig a little deeper this morning.

Perhaps Peter isn’t at fault for his responses to these questions.  Maybe the world has “conspired against him” so to speak, so that Peter is being forced to answer negatively.  It’s not even that peer pressure we are all so familiar with, but it is something close.

If we take a minute and think back to our childhoods for a minute - for some of that won’t take as long as others...and we think about a time one of our parents tries to get us to do something.  I can think of a couple times when I would try and leave the kitchen before I had cleared my place at the table.  Instead of being asked to pick up my plate and silverware, I would sometimes get a question.  A question that goes, and perhaps many of you have heard it asked or asked it yourselves, “You’re not going to leave those there, are you?”  Or maybe with a messy room, “you’re not going to leave those Legos out are you?”

Well..of course I was going to leave my dishes on the table.  And of course I was going to leave the Legos out.  But the question is asked in such a way that I have no other answer than the one I was given in the question.  “No mom, I’ll clear my place.”  “Of course not dad, I’ll pick them up right away.”  Even though in my heart of hearts, I wanted to answer differently, I was trapped by the question and didn’t have a choice.

And I think that’s what happens to Peter this morning.  The phrasing of these questions is done in such a way that Peter can only answer in the negative.  “You aren’t one of *them* are you?”  Peter has been trapped.  He feels like he doesn’t have a choice.  He has to go along with the crowd’s opinion.  He is trapped by a language that should allow him to freely answer.  Even if he wanted to affirm his status as Jesus’ disciple, and I think he just might have wanted to do that very thing, he was forced into denying something very real about his identity.  

How many times do these similar things happen to us in our own lives?  In my experience, they happen more often than we like to think.  Such as when you’re in a conversation with friends about Clemson’s chances in the upcoming game, and all of a sudden they are looking at you to make sure that you root for Clemson and heaven help you if you say any other ACC team, or worse USC.  So, despite your own loyalty to Duke, you say, “Of course.  Go Tigers!”  

Or perhaps someone is talking about universal healthcare.  And they’ve torn everything about the new policies up one side and down the other.  And all of a sudden you’re being asked if you agree with their arguments and think the whole idea is terrible.  And you’re trapped into agreeing even though you think healthcare is actually a pretty good thing for everyone to have.

And when we feel the need to tell these “little white lies” that deny our identity we see one more glimpse of the brokenness of the world in sin.  We feel deeply that we are disconnected from one another.  We feel that we have to hide bits and pieces of ourselves.  And we feel like we aren’t going to be accepted by the world for being anything but normal - and nevermind that there’s no such thing as normal.

And yet, even the sin that permeates so much of how we talk, act, and live in our relationships with one another, that’s not what makes the problem worse.  Instead it’s the feeling of shame that comes with sin that causes the most damage.  The sense that we now have to hide our sins and brokenness - even if it’s a small one such as lying about cheering for Clemson.  We feel that we now have to be alone in our sins.  We can’t tell anyone that we struggle with sins - and nevermind that everyone struggles with some sins.

We want to sit alone and be left by ourselves - much like those who feel depressed feel.  For one of the major symptoms for many types of depression is feeling isolated and alone.  Feeling disconnected and feeling like you have to hide these feelings in shame.  And for many depressed women and men, it’s only when they realize that they are not alone in their journeys that they can begin to seek healing and therapy.  It’s only by having someone share their own struggles with loneliness and shame that a healing connection can be made.

The same goes with sin.  Unless someone comes to us and shows us that we do not have to be defined by our sin and the accompanying sense of shame we feel like we must struggle alone.  We feel like we have to stay pressured and bullied by a system that forces us to make hard choices.  And that even though we might have been trapped by the system we still made the mistake and we must feel bad about that.  

And because of that very one Peter ends up denying, we do not have to sit alone in our sin and we do have a chance to be healed.  For Peter this healing comes after Easter Sunday when “spoiler alert” Jesus is raised from the dead.  Peter is sitting on a beach having breakfast with Jesus when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him - no tricks, no traps, just a simple question about love.  And Peter replies that of course he does.  And this happens three times.  Just like Peter’s three denials.  Three moments of forgiveness and healing and connection to overcome the guilt and shame Peter probably felt after the night of Jesus’ arrest.  

And then for us, these moments of grace happen at the beginning of our worship services every Sunday.  We stand together and look at our baptismal font and say the same words recognizing that we have sinned and are broken, and need the one who works through the waters of baptism to heal us and make us whole.  

And even though there’s grace in the absolution that is proclaimed after our confession, I think we sometimes overlook the other moment of grace in our confession.  Confession together isn’t this time to feel ashamed because of the brokenness we feel inside, but rather it’s an opportunity to celebrate because we can see that everyone feels broken in some part of their lives too.  That we aren’t alone in this.  We don’t have to live in depression or sadness.  We don’t need to feel ashamed.  We have a whole community that has been joined together through the waters of baptism and we can begin to see each other as brothers and sisters - and see each other as only brothers and sisters can.  That way we look at our siblings, see their flaws and imperfections, and then love them anyways.  

And then we hear together that God comes to us, and forgives the sin, takes away the shame, and helps us the next time we are faced with impossible choices.  And then continues to forgive us when we feel like we need to hide and live in shame.  And God has promised to do this forever and ever.  Amen.