What are we going to do with you?

Today I led the worship service at Life's Journey United Church of Christ, where my friend Micah Royal is pastor. Micah was at the UCC Synod Gathering and trusted me with his flock. What a delightful congregation and a beautiful worship space! It was an honor and a delight. I remembered to record it - there is a little glitchiness at the beginning when my microphone wasn't working, but it evens out pretty quickly. The recording is here.

Micah is preaching a series on Acts so instead of following the lectionary I preached on Acts 4:1-22, and the other reading was from the Psalms. The NRSV versions of the texts are linked below. In the service, however, I read from the Inclusive Bible. Unfortunately I forgot to announce the version that I was reading. If you listen to the recording, you will hear the Inclusive Bible text; it will not be a perfect match to the NRSV version linked below. Similarly, the lector read the Psalm from the NIV translation, so there will be some difference there, too. 

Psalm 118:14-29

Acts 4:1-22

Come Holy Spirit! Settle into our hearts and minds, and give us courage to be the people you are calling us to be. Amen

TWENTY MONTHS AGO…

My bishop was at the church where I was working and I told him

I’m going to be a mission developer.

He responded without missing a beat (because he’s that kind of guy)…

What mission are you going to develop?

I knew what the seeds looked like but I wasn’t sure what the fruit would be, so I did not answer. But Bishop Tim said “well, at least missions don’t have baggage… at least not for the first six months.”

Now fast forward to February of this year. That same bishop (and his staff) saw the foliage of those seeds from 15 months before, and they funded six months of work to figure out exactly what the fruit might be. I had an idea that I could not shake, a 1/3-time salary, and surprisingly large program budget that I thought I would never be able to spend. God, however, was preparing plenty of ways to use those funds.

The bishop’s office funded the work and let me loose to follow whatever calling there might be. This is, I believe, one of the larger small miracles that have pervaded my life.

Fast forward again to this past week. There is general agreement that the fruit looks like a food pantry expansion in South Durham where community members who have resources like professional skills, money, and in-kind gifts (including garden vegetables) will have an opportunity to walk alongside people who for a wide variety of reasons do not have enough to eat. 

There will be opportunities to learn with and about each other in session like the one we are holding today at 2 pm, called “What It’s Like To Be An Atheist.” Chances to listen and get to know each other as people, around food, nourishing each other in all the ways.

I believe it is true that God writes straight with crooked lines, and this path and process has been astonishingly delightful and miraculous. But it was not always easy or smooth.

For example, almost everyone I talked with about my original dream – this annoyingly persistent calling from God – misinterpreted, questioned, or dismissed what I had to say. I got used to comments like

• Oh yeah, I’ve done that (when in fact they had not even listened to what I said – much less understood). I know they did not understand because when I would engage they would always back pedal with something like “oh, I did not know THAT’S what you meant… usually with a tone of accusation that it was my fault they did not understand.
• Another prominent one was “Oh yeah, RIGHT, nobody will ever fund THAT.” (which, of course, they did)
• Or the most recent one: “you are doing it ALL WRONG” – because apparently the women who started the work were not worthy of attention until they connect to a group with some resources, and then all of a sudden folks start to notice – and criticize.

It was often hard and frustrating, because after HOURS and HOURS of prayer and struggle and conversations with people I trust, I simply could not think of things any other way. There was nothing else I could see myself doing.

***

So this week, as the Parktown Food Hub was coming together, and volunteers were showing up, and 80 moving boxes of donated food was brought to our (VERY UNFINISHED) space, and then 12 middle schoolers showed up to sort all that food, I was reading Peter tell the church leaders

Why should I listen to you? Look what God has done!

It made me think. It most definitely made me think. 

It made me think of how the critics of my work were juxtaposed against that insistent sense of calling.

It made me think about how the 6 months of funding came at the EXACT time when the community was starving – starving for food or for community or for places to share their hearts.

It made me hear Peter’s words a new way.

I heard Peter say “LOOK, you killed Jesus. But God is more powerful than death. And if God can beat DEATH, then why should I worry about you??  What can YOU do to US?”

And, in fact, the religious leaders ended up asking almost that exact question of themselves: “What will we do with them?”

The leaders did not like it, the did not want it to be true, but they recognized that God had indeed won. In the public opinion, in the Resurrection of Jesus, and now in their power to control Peter and John.

GOD. HAD. WON.

Peter did not even bother to argue. He just said “it’s up to you to decide whether you think God wants me to listen to YOU or to GOD… but my decision is made. I am going to tell everyone that I encounter that

God has won.

***

So where does that leave us today?

Does each of us have a chance to decide to live life as if GOD HAS WON even in the face of a whole bunch of negative cultural messages?

Maybe it’s living a faithful life as a person in a same sex marriage. There are plenty of people who will howl NOOOOO!!!!! But in your struggles, your get-real moments with God, you have found that following God means being the exact person that seems to upset a certain set of folks.

Or maybe you keep feeling that you could really help a child learn to read.

Or you dream of rocking preemie babies in the neonatal ICU

Or you love sitting with people who are struggling with dementia

But the messages of our culture are so loud and strong:

• Not enough time!
• Not enough money!
• Not enough skill
• Not enough… YOU.

How would your response to those dreams differ if your first priority was to remember that in the Resurrection God has won! That God’s win is still totally relevant today? That you are enough, just as you are.

Or maybe… maybe you are weary. Maybe you need a break – sabbath – a day to catch your breath and take care of yourself and reacquaint yourself with God and others. But you are pretty sure you simply can’t. Maybe you think that if you take that break the game would be lost – whatever game it is.

Except here’s the thing:  God has won.

I think those rulers and religious leaders were completely taken aback that Peter and John did not bow down to their power (and threat of imprisonment, or possibility of death).

I suspect they wondered where plain old Peter and John got the confidence that seemed to be so independent of what ANYONE thought.

Of course, if you take steps to live out the fact that God has won, you might get that same sort of bewildered response. But it will be ok!!

Because if you are walking the path along which God is leading you – no matter how counterintuitive, or even crazy it seems – it will all work out. Because we know what Peter and John knew:

God. Has. Won. 

Amen

The Love Whisperer

I wondered about what the weather was like for the first Pentecost but that is not part of today's message. Nope, today was a day to focus on how languages divide us, and how the Holy Spirit brings us together.

Today is Pentecost. The day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised it. In contrast to the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel in which people were split up into different language groups, at Pentecost, people heard their own languages coming from the mouths of people who did not speak those languages. It was a wild time.

This message was preached at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village on June 9 and will be preached again at Atria Southpoint on June 11. No recording is available from Springmoor because the Holy Spirit was swirling around in ways that meant none of the technology worked right! If I get a recording at Atria I will post it here.

The texts used for this message are:
Genesis 11:1-9
Acts 2:1-21

Holy Spirit, once before you swept through your people and let them all hear your love. Sweep through us today and whisper your marvelous goodness and love to each of us in whatever voice we need to hear. Amen.

What is your native tongue? The language you were born into? Your mother tongue?

Mine is English… but it was English with a lot of German flavor because my parents learned German before they learned English, and they would say things in German that they did not want me or my brother or my cousins to hear. There were a lot of German words around Christmas time, when secrets about presents were everywhere.

I’m thinking about languages, of course, because in the reading from Acts today the Holy Spirit comes and all of a sudden everyone hears the disciples speaking… but they are hearing it in their own mother tongues!

The disciples were not fancy educated world travelers. They were fishermen, and tax collectors. Maybe tent makers. Local people with every day jobs who knew the language they were born into and that’s probably about all. It made absolutely no sense that people from all over the world - whose mother tongues were all different – could understand everything those local folks were saying.

Now I’m pretty sure that the plain meaning of the text in Acts is intended to be about actual human languages… the ones that started when God split up all the human beings for working together and leaving God out as in today’s story about the Tower of Babel. Those languages, according to Scripture, came about so that people would stay focused on God instead of going off to do things without God.

So isn’t it just like us humans to use the thing that was supposed to keep us focused on God as an excuse for keeping others away from God? 

Especially since God – that God who is the only unchanging thing – the one who is present in any changing circumstance – went and changed things up at Pentecost. Because even though all the people were speaking different languages, God was saying the same thing to everybody. And they all understood the message!

As I was thinking about this business of languages, I wondered if perhaps the whole set of stories might be about more than whether we were born speaking English or Spanish, German or Arabic. It seems like there is a lot we can learn about division and unity here, too.

Because have you ever noticed how we SAY we speak the same language, but then we misunderstand each other all the time? Even English – we all speak English, right? But is it 

* England English?

* Irish English?

* Pittsburgh English?

* New York English?

* Mississippi English?

* Texas English?

Try to indicate a group of folks and you could get 

* You

* Y’all

* Yinz

* Youse 

* You guys

* Youse guys

And let’s not even get into what we call soft drinks! Coke? Pop? Soda? Sody pop?

When my friend Madeline got a Ph.D. and moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to be a college professor after living her whole life in Pittsburgh, she couldn’t understand what her students said. Between their accents, how slowly they spoke, the drawl, and local idiom, she was lost. It was very distressing, and her students were as frustrated as she was. They knew exactly what they were talking about and didn’t see the problem.

But language also goes so far beyond accents and idioms! Language is an expression of how we understand the world. It also forms how we see the world. For example, growing up in Texas I learned that greeting people is important and that even if you are mad at somebody you say hello and shake hands. When I got to Pittsburgh, people didn’t understand what I was doing. I thought my students were rude, but they did not understand what I meant when I talked about manners. They were being courteous and friendly in every way they knew. Things were just different in Pittsburgh than they had been in small town Texas!

Then I came South and learned that ‘Bless your heart!’ is as likely to be an insult as a blessing! Oh, yeah. The opportunities for miscommunication are everywhere.

Language carries with it information about cultural priorities, world views, attitudes, history, and all sorts of other things but we don’t always remember that. In fact, it’s really HARD to remember. Our languages divide us because we assume (or insist) that OUR language captures reality best… that it captures God the best. 

We speak of unity, assuming (or at least hoping) that if we can all use the same words then we will all be saying the same thing. And then OVER and OVER we are disappointed because that’s now how it works out at all.

In fact, a very basic activity given to couples in couples counseling is to talk with each other, and after one person has spoken, the other person says what he/she heard. And often what people hear is not at all what their partners have said. If the intimacy of marriage doesn’t guarantee understanding, then what chance do the rest of us have?

I could go on and on with examples and you could probably come up with hundreds of your own because our worlds are filled with different ways to mean and understand language. Even if we think we are talking the same language.

Now, that is not a new phenomenon. Jesus told his disciples things over and over. He talked about who he was, what would happen to him, and how human beings were created to live. Those disciples could not understand what he said, though. The meanings of the words were too new. The disciples did not have the mental slots for what Jesus said, because their mental slots were all shaped based on how they had grown up.

So Jesus said “this Temple will be torn down and then raised up in three days” but all the disciples could think about was a building. Jesus said he would die, and they argued with him (at least some of them did.)

When Jesus prioritized compassion and love and caring for everyone – even the prostitutes and demon-possessed and children and yes, even women. But when the time came, Peter pulled out his sword and cut off a man’s ear. Did Jesus get mad at Peter? Nope. Jesus just healed that man’s ear. Because Jesus was going to show us how to live a live of love.

But then he died – essentially, the church leadership killed him for loving the wrong people. And THEN he came back to life. He was Resurrected. Is it any wonder that when Jesus ascended back to heaven, his disciples expected him back any day? Before they had thought he was DEAD and then 3 days later he was very much alive and eating fish with them. Just like it had always been. 

Of course, Jesus did tell them that he would send the Spirit – an Advocate – and they should stay in Jerusalem. And they did! Amazing, right? I do wonder if they stayed because Jesus told them to or if they were just scared and didn’t know what else to do.

For whatever reason, though, they stayed.

And in the middle of ALL THE LANGUAGES AND TONGUES the Holy Spirit showed up. Just as Jesus had promised.

And the Holy Spirit spoke to everyone with ears to hear.

The Holy Spirit demonstrated (because words would never be enough) that the Word of God does not depend on our language. There were scornful folks who accused the disciples of being drunk. But I’ve never understood that… since when does getting drunk give people the gift of speaking in multiple languages? Those people did not have ears to hear. They did not understand the Holy Spirit’s language. Or maybe they did, and they were just mad that others also understood it.

So, let me ask again.

WHAT IS YOUR LANGUAGE?

Are you Southern or from the Midwest?

Were you born a lot of decades ago or just a few?

Do you tend to be conservative or liberal?

Is your lens of experience from a rural upbringing, or are you a city kid?

Is your ancestry from Africa, or Europe, or Central America?

We all speak different languages. But the Holy Spirit – the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speaks only one language. It is a language that we were all created to hear, and I believe the best word to describe that language is…

LOVE.

Because love never fails.

Love shines in and through all the other languages.

Our differences fall away into unimportance in the face of love.

Regardless of our native tongues, love is always stronger.

So today we gather here as the apostles did on the first Pentecost and the Holy Spirit is among us, speaking the language that we can all hear and understand.

I say it clearly:  I love you.

God says it even more clearly:  I love you.

May your language always be the language of love. The language we can all understand. The language we were born to know first and last.

Amen.

It all depends where you start

Today is the last Sunday of Easter, and my text was the last verses of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible. That's a lot of ending! But the ending is also a beginning - the beginning of eternity and living forever in the presence of Jesus.

I was thrilled to share this message with the people of Peace Covenant Church of the Brethren. Their kindness, openness, welcome, and delightfulness make every visit there a joy, and being invited to preach for them today just made all those good things better. You can hear a voice recording of the sermon here.

The lectionary texts for today are:
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21 (although I read all the verses, so 22:12-21)
John 17:20-26

You call us to you, Lord. You embrace us in spite of ourselves. Open our ears to your summons and our hearts to your will. Amen

Thank you for hosting me and for giving me this opportunity to speak with you. I am so happy to be here!  Y’know, back when Pastor Dana invited me to preach here on this day, I did not know that I would be bringing home a series she has been preaching on Revelation. But here we are, at the very end of the book that is the very end of the Bible and talks about the very end as it goes on forever (also known as eternity).

And the first thing I noticed is that this passage – the end of the end – is missing some verses in the Revised Common Lectionary version, in particular verses 15, 18, and 19.

You may have noticed them as I read them a few minutes ago, because they seem… harsher… than the other verses.

Verse 15:
15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

And

Verses 18-19:
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:
if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book;
19 if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city,
which are described in this book.

That one – verses 18 and 19 – particularly amuses me. Because leaving out the verse that says “do not take away from the words…” seems just, well, nervy to say the least!

Is it because they are too harsh?
Because they seem like an invitation to get mean and judgey?

I don’t know. I really do not know why these verses got left out, but unlike Christians all over the world… you are not being deprived of those daunting verses. We are going to be fearless together. We are going to trust that there is more to be had than some judginess.

So, let’s dive right into those problematic verses and see if there is more than there seems to be on the surface.


First… verse 15… “outside are dogs and sorcerers…”

Dogs? Like my beloved pup Lindy? Like Pastor Dana’s Franny? What did they do wrong to be left out? Clearly this is talking about a metaphorical dog, and we don’t want to spend our time on it.
Instead, let’s look at the last part of the verse: “everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”

Do you suppose that is some kind of “Thou shalt not lie” test for redemption?

Or a list to go with the promise from God in verse 12 that people will be repaid according to everyone’s work?

Y’all know that I am a Lutheran and when Lutherans hear “repayment according to works” we get itchy. Really itchy. Think HIVES.

So even if it is everyone’s work – some kind of corporate community thing – I really do not care for linking living in God’s presence for eternity with works. Of any kind. By anybody.

BUT if we start at the end… with Jesus coming again… when I see that part about robes being washed that sounds an awful lot like baptism…

I remember that this Jesus who is coming back is the same one who was not held down by death.

The one who said “I have come not to abolish but fulfill” the Law.

And all of a sudden it cannot be a reference to a “Thou shalt not lie” test for redemption. Because that work is done. God is no longer particularly interested in whether I lie or not, because all those requirements have been met by Jesus. In Jesus, we have all aced that test.

Instead, I expect it to be more about how loving and practicing falsehood is the opposite of loving and following Jesus. And through that lens, we see that

Dogs are not human – the do not live as human beings were created to live
Sorcerers call on spirits other than God and outside of natural reality
Fornicators disrespect faithfulness in our most intimate relationships
Murderers deign to control another’s right to life
Idolaters put something else into the role reserved for God

In all those cases, they behaviors refer to falsehood – putting human power and authority where God’s power and authority (that is, God’s love) should reign.

Being outside, then, isn’t a matter of actions and checklists, it’s a matter of not receiving the love Jesus wants to slather all over all of everyone. It’s not about what we DO… it’s about how we reflect and share and honor the love that God makes so lavishly available.


Which brings us to the other verses – the kind of funny ones to leave out.

Here they are again:  18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book:
if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book;
19 if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city,
which are described in this book.


They seem pretty harsh, too! But it turns out the words are not some special Revelatory warning from John, they are a trope – a common way of ending really, really important letters and messages. It appears twice in Deuteronomy and would have been well known to the apostles. It is a bit of hyperbole intended to make it VERY CLEAR that this is SERIOUS BUSINESS to be pondered carefully.

And after a whole book, made of 66 (give or take) individual books, where over and over and over and over we read of God’s over-the-top love for God’s people, the ways that great falls are followed by tremendous, every-greater-and-newer blessings…

It seems unlikely that all the law-giving and fulfilling will be replaced by two verses in a book written, not as a general message (like the other great apocalyptic book of Daniel) but as a message to people in a particular time and place.

If, instead of starting at the harsh and punitive, we start at GOD IS LOVE, then the well-known trope that is used to emphasize that the accompanying message is serious business, perhaps we should consider what that message is:

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

What if those loving, open, generous words are the ones that should be following without editing? Not some words about works and the Law (which Jesus has fulfilled) or some words about punishment (which is in contrast to pretty much the whole rest of the Bible), but the words that tell us:

EVERYONE, not just some who fit a certain physical profile.
EVERYONE who is thirsty, not just the ones who can afford water.
EVERYONE who hears, regardless of their language or phrasing.

The water of life is a gift.

Not a quid pro quo in which we are called to do a thing – anything – in order to get the water of life.
Nope.

It’s free.

Starting with a loving God who bends over backwards, forgives, redeems, gives another chance over and over and over, and sent us Jesus – the Son – one of the Trinity – to show us how to live, to die, and to break the shackles of death once, forever, and for all…

It’s hard to see this as anything but a wide open invitation.

It’s also hard to see how we can ignore the call on our lives to live free of the petty checklists of legalism

Free to do our best, and fail and start over in the pursuit of sharing the abundant, amazing, astounding, surprising joy that comes to us in Jesus.

Do we HAVE to do certain things,
Behave a certain way
Have a certain gender or race or ethnicity or… I DON’T KNOW… food fave?

to be graced with living in God’s love forever?

NO.

In that way, God’s love is universal.

Does that mean we can lead lives of selfishness and cruelty, thoughtlessness and faithlessness, lies and expedient half-truths and selfishness?

Well, judging by Jesus’ response to the criminal on the cross, potentially…

but it isn’t about DOING.

Remember there were two criminals and only one was invited to Paradise – the one who acknowledged his need to Jesus.

Because Jesus doesn’t look at our “permanent record.” Jesus loves us. Jesus says COME.

Our response – our actions – our good works – are just that. A response to the gift of Christ, not a reason for that response.

And it is for YOU. The God who keeps loving and blessing and responding in radically not-human ways is saying this to you (not your parents, or your spouse, or your friend, or some random person that you are thinking of but you… well, ok, to them also… but particularly for YOU)

Come!
Take the water of life!
It’s free.
For you.

Amen.