What my cat taught me about trusting Jesus

This message was written for the congregation at Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Durham for the October 6, 2019 Blessing of the Animals service at 8:30 am. I was going to share it at the 10:30 am service as well. But then the plumbing broke and services had to be cancelled. So here is what I would have said, or at least a mostly-finished draft of it.

The texts on which is based are:
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

In what have you put your trust?

In whom have you put your trust?

Maybe it’s politics! That’s a very popular topic in our world today.

Some people put their trust in the current state and federal administrations. Other people put their trust in anything BUT the current administrations. The trust doesn’t – in either direction – doesn’t seem to be bearing much good fruit, though. 

Maybe it’s your family. The history, traditions, sense of where you are from. If you are from Durham or North Carolina, you may feel the specialness of being native to the area. If you are from some other place, you may cling tenaciously to the traditions and customs that you grew up with, because things are so different here. There’s no place like home, right?

Or maybe it’s social position! Do you have “security” for retirement? Or a good house? Or maybe the right car? Maybe you are healthy enough to not worry about all the things that people who are sick or have disabilities face daily. You might even be healthy enough to not realize how good things are, and so you trust that all will always be well.

Or are you a hard worker? A person who struggled through to achieve an education? Maybe you worked hard all your life, did your homework, fulfilled the requirements. Are you part of the Greatest Generation? Or the Generation That Really Made A Difference? Does that feel like a safety and comfort?

Is the one, the thing, the circumstances that you trust able to guard what you have trusted to it forever?

Let me say that another way… 

Whatever you trust, whomever you trust, the thing you count on, do you trust it the same way my cat trusts me?

I know, cats get a bad rap in the relationship department. But every morning, as soon as I get up, my cat stalks over (and it cannot be described any other way)… she STALKS over and starts YELLING for her breakfast. 

There is no trace of doubt in that sound. It is abundantly clear that she is saying

HEY YOU! Up there with the thumbs! You know good and well it is time that there is food in my bowl. NOW! 

And then she STALKS over and sits in front of her bowl. She has told me of her need and is completely confident that I will fill that need. I might be standing at the coffeemaker, or gathering the clothes I will wear for the day, but she is at that bowl. Sitting. Waiting in the certain hope that she will be fed soon.

I wonder if the confidence and power – the kind my cat shows every day - is what Paul is talking about in his statement to Timothy. Paul KNOWS who he has trusted and has absolute confidence in that trust. 

But here is a big way that Paul’s trust is different than mine, and might be different than yours, too. My cat’s trust – and my trust – is in a context of a pretty good life, in a pretty safe place, where I have pretty good access to clothing and food and other basic needs, including people who care.

But Paul’s trust was so powerful that when things went really wrong, 

When Paul got beaten up and put in prison

When he was put in jail

When his friends disappointed him

Paul kept right on doing what he KNEW was true and correct. 

     He kept right on trusting his God. 

     Believing in what Jesus had done for him.

KNOWING that in spite of what was happening in the world around him, he could trust that his God was there and shaping the path.

Paul could trust that God would come through in the same way that my cat trusts that I will come through with the cat food. Maybe not this exact second… but soon. Reliably. With great certainty.

And I am going to be bold and tell you right now that I have had SO MANY MOMENTS, especially in the last six years, where I am not sure that I was as confident as Paul that things were really going in the direction that will keep me.

I want to say “well, yeah, of course, because y’know… God is God.”

But is it that easy? 

Sometimes it is… but sometimes it gets a lot more complicated. Because sometimes I get confused about who is in control, and what is causing the good things.

Take, for example, all the good things happening in South Durham right now, the things that this congregation participates in: sharing food with strangers, caring for a beautiful building and the lands around it, growing food for neighbors to access freely, taking meals to people faced with illness or injury, inviting children to music camp, making quilts to cover people in all parts of the earth. This is a vital congregation and I know the list of things you do to share God’s love for you is long.

And I know the world says WOW! Look at that group of people over at Christus Victor!

I’ve met you. I know the love you share and I know you are humble and generous.

And that’s why it is so hard to read the words of Jesus in today’s gospel. The part where Jesus says… yeah… ummmm… well…. It’s not really all that much. It’s certainly not any more than I call you to do.

And when I read that I think…. WAIT… WHAT????

I’m supposed to call myself a worthless slave? 

But…

But…

But…

Yeah. I know.

But setting aside our temptation to read this literally based on what those words mean today…

What Jesus is getting at is the same thing Paul is talking about.

Do you trust your own goodness?

Do you put your trust in this building?

Or in your service activities?

What if the building disappeared?

Or your family could no longer be there for you because of health reasons, or the kinds of pain and arguments that families are so good at falling into?

Or you had a brain injury or stroke that prevented you from relying on your education?

What if you were unjustly thrown into prison?

WHAT IF EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD ABOUT LIFE GOT TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AND BROUGHT INTO DOUBT?

Would you still know in whom – in what – you put your trust?

Well, siblings and friends and people I have not yet met, I am here to share with you the BEST NEWS EVER. 

Literally.

Seriously.

It is not about beating yourself up and thinking of yourself as worthless, because in God’s eyes you have INFINITE worth.  It’s just that if you put your trust in Jesus, completely, utterly, crazy-like (by the world’s standards) in Jesus, everything else will pale.

Your gardens can win community engagement awards but you will say, well, YEAH, but that’s NOTHING compared to what Jesus did… what Jesus made possible.

Because Jesus lived the way we were created to live.

Jesus walked with the poor and sick and hurting… but he never got too busy to go off and pray in a quiet place.

And it got him killed. Dead.

But it could not keep him dead.  In living that perfect life, and dying a real human death, Jesus broke the spell that required us to be good enough… to do good enough.

Jesus made everything right. We continue our broken and imperfect attempts at living like Jesus did (and I believe we really do yearn to live like Jesus did) but our actions are no longer the main thing. We don’t have to get it perfectly right, because Jesus did that for us.

We are free now.

We are free to put our trust in Jesus.

We are free to know that NO MATTER WHAT ELSE HAPPENS we are freed. Redeemed. No longer under that spell of trying to be good enough – or if not good enough, then at least better than…  well… pick someone that has a different weakness than you do.

You no longer have to work at being good enough because in Jesus you ARE good enough.

You are freed to maintain the building the best you can, to feed the neighbors the best you can, to give comfort to those in your community the best you can. 

And it will be the least you can do.

Because the real work is done and in Jesus you are free to love. Free to go where the Holy Spirit leads. Free to break human rules that contradict God’s loving will because you KNOW where you can put your trust and the Most Important Thing is to follow the Spirits’ calling. 

No matter how bad things look – or how good. Your situation is the same. You are a beloved, free, redeemed, treasured, and absolutely good-enough Child of God.

Amen.

BIG BIG NEWS! And an invitation

On Saturday, September 21 the Synod Council of the North Carolina Synod voted to extend to me a call to Parkwood United Methodist Church and South Durham Connections. That is a very good thing – the thing I have been moving towards for awhile now.

I will be serving as a mission developer for South Durham Connections, working in particular with people who are not participating in traditional churches. My work will be anchored in the Parktown Food Hub. Parkwood UMC is the congregation that will be sponsoring me and in which the Parktown Food Hub is housed.

This is the vision that has been growing since I told Bishop Tim Smith on October 28, 2017 that I was going to be a mission developer. At that time he looked at me and asked “what kind of mission are you going to develop?” and I could not articulate an answer - it was a calling but I did not know how I would be answering it. I know now, though! Thanks be to God who has brought this thing to pass and patiently worked with everyone involved to bring us together into this opportunity to share Christ with a hurting world.

Now, two years later, I will be ordained in a service at 4:00 pm on October 27, 2019 - Reformation Sunday - at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Durham. St. Paul’s is my home congregation and there are many details that ordination at St. Paul’s will bring full circle.

You are all invited and I hope you can all attend. I love it that my first day as an ordained mission developer will be exactly two years after that conversation with Bishop Tim. God has left no detail untended. I am currently feeling all that love in a very particular and wonderful way.

Thank you all for your support and kindness, for the forms you filled out, the feedback you offered, the opportunities you provided, and the shoulders you shared so generously.

St. Paul’s address is 1200 West Cornwallis Road, at the corner of Pickett and Cornwallis Roads. There will be a reception after the service. All are welcome to attend. If you are a clergy member, please wear the vestments of your tradition. The color of the day is red, the color of the fire, hope, and power of the Holy Spirit.

Wait... hate?

This weeks message came at an interesting time. I was visiting my father in Texas. He lives in an independent living facility and so as I was studying for this message I was surrounded by old people. Parents. Loved ones. People who share aches and pains and frustrations that younger people can't quite imagine. Many are gracious and patient in a way that only time can develop. Others are irritated and angry and wonder how they got where they are. But all of them touched my heart, and thinking about hating these beautiful people to follow Jesus gave me pause.

On top of that, this message was delivered twice - to people in two different facilities for older people. The Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village hosted me on Sunday, September 8 and the kind people at Atria Southpoint Walk welcomed me on Tuesday, September 10. There are a lot of things I could have said differently, and many other directions this message could have gone. But here is the text from which I spoke.

The texts for this week are:
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

I have an odd request today… will you take a moment and think about a time that you hated someone?

You don’t have to say it out loud and I promise I won’t ask who! But can you remember that moment? What was it like? Did it surprise you? Or upset you?

Or was it just a little big satisfying in the way that anger and revenge can be? That way where it feels good right in the moment, but then later you feel kind of bitter and dirty and you wished you did not feel that way?

I have a youngish friend who is struggling to get along with her brother. She gets so angry, and says things like “Why do I even bother? I’m not even going to TRY to have a relationship with him anymore!” Then she will fume and fuss and talk about how terrible her brother is.

As I listen to her I think of time when I confessed, in a great deal of pain and anguish, that I once hated someone with that fire and passion and pain and anguish. It was a relief when the friend who was listening to me at that time reassured me that sometimes hate is not the opposite of love.

She said that hating someone did not preclude loving them. In fact, the fury and rage that I (and also that my youngish friend) felt arose BECAUSE of love! If we had been indifferent to those we said we hate, if we did not care at all, if we did not love them so much, we would never have wanted to bother spending all the energy it took to feel those moments of hatred.

Because hate, you see, is often not the opposite of love. In those situations – situations of close personal relationship - the hater cares a LOT. In those situations, indifference is the opposite of love.


That connection between love and hate seems really important as we hear this text today. Jesus, whose very being was grace, and peace, and goodness, and kindness, and LOVE is telling great crowds of followers to hate their families and themselves.

Now, that is a little upsetting to read on the face of it, isn’t it? Hate seems like such an un-Jesus thing! Especially the rage and frustration and distance that hate often brings (even if it is based on love in some way.)

Beyond that, Jesus doesn’t say “hate the guy who cuts you off on the highway” or “hate the person who bullied you in the schoolyard.” Jesus says to hate your
* Father
* Mother
* Wife
* Children
* Brothers
* Sisters
* AND YOUR OWN LIFE!
And indeed, Jesus said the hatred is NECESSARY to be a disciple of Jesus! Along with giving up all of your possessions. Wow. That’s really a lot.


This past week I got to spend time with my father in Dallas. He’s 88 and doesn’t move too fast. When he does move he gets tired quickly, and he spends almost as much time napping as he spends doing other things. My heart breaks when I think of the day I will no longer be able to see him. The love I feel for him is a part of my very being. There has never been a time in my life that I did not know and love my Daddy.

But here I am, being a pastor, a professional Jesus-follower. Does that mean I have to HATE my Daddy? I can’t even manage to be irritated with him, much less hate him! SURELY I don’t have to be mad at this man who has been my greatest supporter, my most consistent and long-term advisor, the one who taught me how to be the person I am today?

And WHAT ABOUT that Commandment that we love our parents? What about that? What are we to do with this contradiction? Do I hate Daddy or love and honor him?


Well, first we can return to the reassurance that my friend offered:  hating does not have to preclude loving, not if it happens in the context of relationship. We aren’t talking about the blind hate for people we have never met that dominates our political situation today. This hatred that Jesus talks about is towards the people we also love the most – our families. Ourselves. Even our things.

OF COURSE Jesus wants us to love our parent and spouses, children and siblings. OF COURSE we are to love ourselves! Of course we are to be good stewards of money and property!

But if this hating business is not NOT-LOVING then what is it? If indifference is the opposite of love, then what is the opposite of hate?

Because if we can figure that out then maybe we can figure out what hating IS by knowing what it is NOT.

* We know it has something to do with our closest, longest-lasting, family relationships.
* We know it has something to do with how we perceive ourselves.
* We know that it is something required to FOLLOW Jesus.

We also know from just about everything else in Scripture that we are to care for those around us – BUT NOT MORE THAN GOD.

In fact, we care best for others when we put God first.

We make the best choices in all of our relationships when our relationship with God comes first.

We learn who we are when we see ourselves in relation to God, and in seeing ourselves honestly we can let go of our own self-importance and see those around us as important enough to offer compassion and love.


But when we put our families before God and God’s calling on our lives, we lose that perspective.

When we see ourselves in the context of family (or self, or stuff) first, we miss out on the truth of God.

In families we fit into hierarchies but in putting God first, that hierarchy is flattened into just two levels:
1. God
2. The rest of us.

Earlier in this chapter in Luke we read stories that have the common theme of God coming first:

Jesus heals on the Sabbath, despite the religious hierarchy’s consternation about it.

Jesus tells a story and admonishes the crowds to sit in the lower spot to avoid the humiliation of being asked to leave a better seat.

Story after story in which human rules and hierarchies are called into question and God’s infinite love is spread freely, generously, and openly.

Not just to the insiders, but to anybody who happens to be around. Even those outside the hierarchy.

And that, I believe, is what Jesus means when he tells us that following him means hating our families:

It is a hatred that is relative.

It is a hatred that leaves out human hierarchies and increases love in the way that God leads us.

“Hatred” of the sort illustrated by Jesus when, instead of putting his mother first by coming down from the cross to care for her, Jesus enlisted his friend John to take Mary in. In “hating” his mother, Jesus did a very loving thing and made sure she would have a place to live, a family to care for her.

And in staying on the cross to die – and then be Resurrected! – Jesus fulfilled his divine destiny and loved God (and himself – also God) the most. In that Resurrection everyone, including Jesus’ mother, could then live a fully redeemed life.


So here I stand, once again bringing you the very best news of all:

CHRIST IS RISEN!

JESUS LIVES!

And a God who would love with such a perfect love is worth following. In turning to Jesus, loving with the freedom and graciousness that Jesus has made possible, we can love our parents and children, spouses and siblings, and even ourselves.

So today, and in all the days to come, love God so much that you can love your family in ways far better than you could by putting them in a position above God.

Follow God as if the kingdom is here and now.

Because if following Jesus means leaving our families so that God can hold and care for them, then God’s kind of hate is the best love of all.

AMEN.