On Our Hearts

 It's not exactly an Easter message and yet... it wouldn't even exist without Easter. What is written on our hearts? Offered at St. Philip Lutheran Church on Sunday, March 21, in both services. Cath The Crossing here (message starts at about 26:300 and the 11 am service here (message starts at about 16:30).

Texts of the day:

Jeremiah 31:31-34 

Hebrews 5:5-10 

John 12:20-33 

Do you know who Melchizedek was?  Well, Melchizedek was a priest.  

He first shows up in Genesis 14, in a passage that is not in the lectionary. And then again in Psalm 110, and finally in the today's text from Hebrews. Not a major character.

In the Genesis story, Abram’s nephew Lot was kidnapped and carried off. Abram was not yet  Abraham, and Sarai was not yet Sarah, but it is the same guy. And Lot was his nephew.

Abram and his people went and completely overwhelmed the kidnappers, rescued Lot, and returned back to the coalition of kings that was sponsoring him with all the spoils of war – SO MUCH STUFF!

When he got back he was met by the priest - Melchizedek - who is called “priest of God Most High.” 

Not just any ordinary god, but the God that Abram worshipped. The HIGHEST God. Abram’s God.
Melchizedek is fairly mysterious but after Jesus has lived, died, and been Resurrected he shows up in the letter to the Hebrews. But we do know that he was not from the line of Aaron, living way, way before Moses and Aaron came on the scene.

Melchizedek was a priest, and he did not come from a lineage in which priesthood is granted by virtue of birth. No, Melchizedek was a priest before there were such lineages and apparently was made a priest 

by God’s own self.

Or at least that’s what is being implied in Hebrews, in which Melchizedek is mentioned as being DESIGNATED BY GOD.

Not a priest because of who his earthly parents were. Not some kind of earthly royalty. But a priest who was in that role because God put him there.

OF COURSE there is nothing wrong with earthly lines of royalty. Here in the United States we sometimes sniff about royalty as a bad thing, preferring our more democratic systems. But if you put Harry and Megan on tv with Oprah, Americans are glued to their sets and endlessly discussing what they had to say. 

And OF COURSE we have our own types of royalty in the United States, where birth will give you all sorts of prestige and power:  Kennedys, Bushes, Vanderbilts, Carnegies… I’m sure you can think of plenty of others.

Why, if you had a mind to map out how many teachers come from families of teachers, or pastors from families of pastors, or farmers come from families of farmers, you would almost certainly find that while it might not be a requirement, having family members in a field makes it much easier for succeeding generations to break into that field. 

There are all sorts of reasons for that, but my point today is that Melchizedek as not that kind of a priest, not a priest by human inheritance. And neither was Jesus.

This fact – this naming of Melchizedek as a priest named by God, and naming Jesus as that same kind of priest – is very important to me as a mission developer whose family was made up of farmers and ranchers, carpenters, seamstresses, merchants, and blue collar workers. God’s call on my life was as surprising to me as it was to my family.

It is clear to me that many pastors did not have the same upstream journey that I did. Being young, being the children of people well known in Synod ministry circles, being male… all those things lead to placement and being embraced in a way that I have not always felt.

But I like to think that South Durham Connections is a “ministry in the order of Melchizedek.” Not because either the ministry or I are so much like Jesus, but because it seems to be a placement that does not match the more traditional, historical lines. 

Melchizedek and I were certainly never going to be like Jesus. We are both, after all, only human. But in mapping Jesus to a priest whose call could only have come from God, I am encouraged that sometimes God does come and call those of us who don’t have any of the advantages or trappings of ministerial lineage.

It has not always easy to remember what my actual calling is – especially when people are gracious and loving and enthusiastic and so very clear that I would do well in a traditional ministerial position.
But it is even harder to resist this compelling call of the Holy Spirit to something else. To something so far outside of traditional parish ministry that even the Synod sometimes has to just watch and squint and wait with me to see what will happen.

In those difficult moments, it is a joy and relief and delight and game-changer to read about Melchizedek, and Jesus being “in the order of Melchizedek.”

Because being outside of the traditional order has all kind of ramifications. For example, in this call I am living and working with people who are all over the place in terms of their faith and belief systems.
* There are the pagans who came on Ash Wednesday and declined ashes – apparently images of burning did nothing for them – but also BEGGED for a blessing, even when I was abundantly clear that it was going to be a blessing in the name of Jesus, and that I believe that Jesus was the divine Son of God.
* The atheist who gives of her time, calls donating blood her “tithe” but is just as comfortable explaining that in her teen years she read the Bible and she searched on Google, and Google was more helpful. She has also wondered aloud if things might have been different if someone had been there to answer her teenaged questions instead of just sending her, unguided, to the Bible.
* Then there are the women who have attended church faithfully for years as a members of a local choir but never joined any church because the “mysticism” of it all was troubling. Or the people who belong to a church and are endlessly frustrated because the politics and business of church do not seem to match the word written on their hearts.
* Or the couple who never goes to church but struggles that only one of their children was baptized as a child because nobody explained what baptism means and when the child’s father saw his little one being immersed he thought she was being drowned and said NEVER AGAIN. They worry:  are the kids too old? How can they make a choice like that? Why did that church want to hurt their babies?

I could go on and on. These people are as different from one another as they are from the people who first taught me about faith but they all share at least two things:  
1. they are deeply distrustful of “church” as they perceive it and 
2. they are deeply committed to doing things that have a remarkable behavioral and ethical similarity to the things that Jesus preached and demonstrated in his life.

What if… what if these behaviors of following Jesus – often consciously so – make them Christians in God’s eyes and we just don’t know it? What if they are HEART Christians even as their minds insist on something else?

That very question brings me to… Jeremiah.

In today’s reading Jeremiah is relaying a prophecy from God that someday the law would be “written on their hearts.”

Since I was quite young I have puzzled over that but as I have aged I have come to a sneaking suspicion that maybe God meant exactly what it says:

Written on ALL HEARTS
    Mainline Christian and evangelical Christian
Jew and Muslim and Sikh
    Atheist, pagan, agnostic
                 Even people of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Because God says 

For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more

Not “then my followers will whip everybody into shape and make sure I’m defended.” God doesn’t include God’s followers in there at all… except as forgiven.

GOD will forgive iniquity and remember sin no more. Not us.

Which is good, because we do not really want all the iniquity and sin forgiven, at least not that radically completely. That might make us less special before God, right?

Oh sure, we want God to forgive US… but we just aren’t so sure about others.

Christians all over say it but then we get really uneasy at the thought that God might actually forgive everyone.

Now, to be clear, I do not know what God is going to do.

I do not know if absolutely everyone will eventually be forgiven and fully redeemed and taken to live with God for all eternity.

I do not know if (in the prophet Micah’s words) 
    Acting justly
         Loving mercy
         Walking humbly with God

Or in my words 

    Caring for neighbors

            Sharing food

                    Working for just housing and employment

                            Fighting racism and white supremacy

                                    Working that all life is kept sacred… 

I do not know if that is enough. I do not even know what it might or might not be enough FOR.

But I do know that I preach and Christians proclaim that forgiveness in the Resurrection is for everyone. 

Everyone.

I preach and we proclaim that in Jesus we are all forgiven and separated from our sin “as far as the East is from the West.” 

I know that there are questions about translations of the Bible:  does it mean to say that WE have to believe in JESUS? Or that JESUS believes enough for all of us?

But I do know that it is in Jesus, only in Jesus, that our sin is remembered no more. However that comes about.

And if that part is true – a thing that I believe, complete with all its surprising and uncomfortable ramifications – then it means that all people really can access the only two laws that Jesus says we need to know (and follow):  

LOVE GOD.

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.

That’s it.  Love.

Not police each other or make sure we tell others all the things they are doing wrong, but LOVE THEM.

Not require a certain family lineage or faith tradition or gender or sexual orientation.

Not pity, or skepticism, or dismissal… but LOVE.

We can differ on how we choose to live out those two laws of loving. We can do all sorts of different things, and use all sorts of different words, but in the end, the way we recognize those two laws are about a single action:  Loving. 

And we don’t even get to have one single definition of love!

It is a remarkable and surprising thing, this idea that God would come to each of us and draw us to a redeemed life, a life in which we are free to love others (even the people we disagree with or do not like or even cannot ABIDE) because we do not have to be the sorters. A world in which there is no love police. Just more love.

AND WOW AM I GRATEFUL ABOUT THAT!

Because how could I love AND decide that the pagans begging for blessings – even as they also proclaim atheism and knowing full well what the words will be – should be denied that blessing?

How could I possibly love AND decide that people who have been in church far more than I have been in the past year or ten should be disregarded because they don’t think what they have seen is something they want to formally join?

How could I love AND decide that certain ideas about baptism, and confusion about baptism vs. drowning, means baptisms should be denied because the only churches they had ever known seemed so unkind?

I cannot do it. I cannot decide. I cannot turn them away – the hub would literally not run without each of the people I mentioned.

And I don’t have to.

I do not have to judge their hearts, or even their actions.

But if I do note (but not judge) their actions I would say that they all seem to be doing things a lot like Jesus did, and doing them because it just seems right.

Like maybe it’s written on their hearts.

None of us have to belong to a certain church or speak a certain language, have a certain skin color or love within certain parameters or wear a certain kind of clothes. 

Jesus has taken care of it all. Jesus lived a life unbroken by sin so death could NOT hold him, and therefore he was Resurrected and opened a path to restoration of the original perfect Creation… in that example Jesus took away the burden of us being the sorters or deciders.

And here is the biggest surprise of all:

It is ENTIRELY possible that we understand God’s will, plan, and purposes all wrong.

It might be that our assumptions are off base.  It might be that the people who think differently than me or you on hot topics like

Abortion
Transgender rights
Same sex marriage
Gun control
White supremacy and
                                        All manner of governmental and political issues 

Are more right than I am. Or you are.

People on any side of those disagreements might somehow be getting things right that you or I are getting wrong.

How’s that for a kick in the pants?  It is pretty much a certainty that every single one of us is all wrong about something. And the people we despise most have it right in some way.

SO. WHAT. IF. THAT. IS. THE. CASE???

Then we move on. We keep loving each other. It might have to be porcupine love, from a distance, because we are too infuriated, or maybe we have good moments when we decline to snipe and carp and ridicule because we have the thought “I’m supposed to love you, even now.” We keep loving each other…

And we trust God (and only God) to sort it all out.

Because God is faithful and will do that.

Because Jesus has taken care of the Law on our behalf.

Because all that is left for me – or you – or anyone else – is to do our best to love each other, and to love what or whom we see as God.

Those are the only rules.

Be like Melchizedek.

Be like Jesus.

Live the particular way God calls you to love, regardless of what anybody else thinks or does or says. 

Amen.

He broke them.

It's Lent and once again my beloved friends at St. Paul's Lutheran invited me to give a message at one of their midweek Lenten services. This year it was on Zoom, which is kind of awkward for the message-giving activity since it's hard to receive energy from the gathered group. But it was a sizable group and delightful and I'm so glad that they keep on inviting me. :-)

I don't know if there will be a recording but if there is I'll put it here. For now, enjoy the word cloud and text.

The relevant texts were 
Isaiah 58:5-10
Mark 8:1-9

Come and break us, Holy Spirit. Break us and feed us and teach us to love. Amen.

I talk about food a lot these days. It pops up everywhere – in my life at the Parktown Food Hub, my personal life as I take care of my body by eating a little less, and in my preaching. Like tonight!

But recently something else has been happening: we are seeing clearly that it isn’t just food that people need. The young woman who called and said she had rice and a can of vegetables but is there any way she could get anything else today? She needed food… she also needed somebody to hear her need and respond. And when she got home and saw the abundance that Aja had put in her car she wept. She wept because she could cook again.

Or the young man who showed up in November with a confusing story and a drug habit. Just that one night, but he was drawn to our place and did not want to leave. So we listened and prayed and cared for him and then 4 months later he showed up again:  his story was still confusing but he was adamant that he had quit using drugs. Adamant that he wanted to be in our space because we had been kind on one night four months ago. Adamant that he wanted to now help us.

He was hungry for something and his only interest in the food we were giving away was that it gave him a place to belong and not be judged.

There keeps being abundance in ways we cannot anticipate. The more food we give away, the more resources come to us. The more open we are to peoples’ pain, the more pain the people bring to us. And the more we seek the wisdom and compassion to respond, the more wisdom and compassion we receive.

And so today, in this wild story of Jesus feeding 4000 people with a few loaves and fish, I had a sense of recognition. Aha! Give it away and there will be more!

I like this Mark version of a mass feeding because there isn’t too much detail. We can get to the heart of what was happening: somebody was generous, and Jesus used that generosity as a seed to break the scarcity mindsets of the others. 

For me, it was in these words:

He broke them.

It’s pretty clear that the text is referring to the loaves and fish. But I wonder. What else did Jesus break? 

Did Jesus break the fear of not-enough that others had by blessing that which was shared? 

Was Jesus breaking open hearts to see what could be? To see that fear of not-enough was not-necessary and even not-helpful?

I like to think that Jesus was pointing to what we have seen at the hub: that when we are more generous we will also receive more. 

That we do not have to exhaust ourselves worrying about where we will find resources to share, because sharing opens up avenues we cannot foresee or imagine. 

That we can trust that just as there will be an abundance of food and compassion to share, there will also be an abundance of time to rest and care for ourselves. 

Not from a me-first perspective, but out of a sense that we will have plenty of everything we need and therefore do not need to exhaust ourselves.

I am deeply grateful to Pastor Scott for his consistent focus on continuing to offer communion, and worship, and to be creative in his generosity with liturgy and the communion meal. I have driven through and shared that meal many times!

I am also grateful for the way that the St. Paul’s congregation has shared generously with South Durham Connections. We were surprised to find out that our earliest work would be done in pandemic. We have not yet offered the bread and wine of holy communion. 

And yet every day we are breaking something… sharing loaves (there is SO MUCH BREAD in the food pantry world!) and fish. 

     And chicken 

         and corn 

             and rice 

                 and beans 

                     and potatoes. 

Seasonings and soup, 

     canned beans and cereal. 

         And granola bars. Thousands and thousands of granola bars.

     

Breaking open our hearts to share with compassion.

I know in my quiet moments with God that St. Paul’s and South Durham Connections are both being faithful to what Jesus showed us:  we have been broken of our fear of scarcity and have turned to open-handed generosity.

And if you still worry whether you can afford to be generous? Jesus gave it all. It scared and worried and angered the power holders so much that they killed him. But Jesus must have been doing something right, because he had such an abundance of life that even death could not overcome it.

That life is there for each of us, too. 

     For you. 

         For me. 

             In the Resurrection. 

There is enough for abundance in care and compassion and rest …

because abundance is the way of love. And love brings us the true life we were created to live.

Amen.

Prisms and light and colors

This message - my most recent! - actually being posted in a somewhat timely fashion! - grew out of an ear worm. A very long-lived, very insistent ear worm. I was back at Springmoor this past Sunday, February 14, Valentine's Day, Transfiguration Sunday. Rainy and 34. But also bright and warm and happy. The message came together quickly as that ear worm and the notability of the day and my physics past all converged. Some days are just like that I guess.

Here's the link to the video, thanks to the awesome folks at Springmoor Retirement Village.

The texts are:

2 Kings 2:1-12

Psalm 50:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

Do you know what an ear worm is? When a song (or more often a little piece of a song) worms its way into your brain and you can’t stop yourself from humming it over – and over and over and over and over and OVER?

I had one of those. For two weeks before I even started thinking about this message I would be thinking that song when I woke up, hum it while I was getting dressed, bop my head to it as I ate. At work I would realize I was humming it as I prepared for distribution of food, and yep, it was the last thing I “heard” when I went to sleep at night.

FOR TWO WEEKS. Ugh.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a good song! It’s a song I love, a song that has been known to leave me in tears. But when my friends and coworkers started noticing, well… 

It was a bit much.

It’s a song that was released by Cyndi Lauper and it was a big hit in 1986. In fact for two weeks in 1986 it was the number one song on the Billboard Top 100. It was also Cyndi Lauper’s last big hit. And what a way to go out, y’know?

It’s called True Colors. (you can listen to the official version here)

One line especially captured me:  When this world makes you crazy and you’ve taken all you can bear, just call me up, because you know I’ll be there.

That’s the line that made me cry, because something in my spirit longs to know that when the world has become more than I can bear, all I have to do is call and they will be there.

And that made me think of Jesus.

Then came the time when I was starting to prepare to be here today. Transfiguration Sunday. The day we hear the story of Jesus being transfigured from ordinary Middle Eastern Jewish man to someone else. Someone described as dazzling.

Dazzling bright light.

That dazzling bright light came up against the True Colors ear worm in my former-physics-teacher brain and I immediately thought of prisms.

Do you know about prisms? Pieces of glass. When light shines through a prism a rainbow comes out the other side!  They are so much fun to play with. In fact, if you look on the internet for prisms one of the first thing that comes up is a toy.

But prisms are also serious physics. In a previous part of my life I was a high school physics teacher and I spent 10 years doing research into how people learn physics. I have spent some time thinking about how pure light goes into a prism and gets broken up into lots of different colors.

The colors are beautiful on their own, but they are only a part of the whole light. The unbroken thing is the pure bright dazzling light.

Like Jesus.

In the Transfiguration.

Like Jesus when he showed his closest friends who he really was. When Jesus revealed that he was the whole package, the ideal human being, the only one ever to live like God created all people to live.

Peter, James, and John (and all the other disciples, and you, and I) could never be that pure kind of light. Each of them had their own beautiful true color, but none of them had all the colors – all the parts – of perfectly pure dazzling light.

But Jesus! Jesus has all the True Colors. And of course we were meant to have them too. But when sin came in it acted like a prism, breaking our pure good humanity into who we are. 

It was super critically important that Jesus revealed who he really was, but in broken human terms it was also really dangerous. That’s why Jesus told Peter, James, and John not to tell anybody. But whether they told or not, that Transfiguration started a path for Jesus and all his disciples that would unfold so that Jesus would die. 

But of course he did not stay dead! I can’t leave out the end of the story – Easter came!

But before Easter came there was a lot of brokenness. A lot of sin acting like a prism. 

    * Judas betraying Jesus – possibly because he was so sure Jesus could not harmed

        o Peter denying Jesus three times – possibly because he feared for himself more than for Jesus

            * The disciples all huddling together in fear – possibly because they thought death would be 

                final this time, too, and the politicans would be coming after them.

     

It was like Lent, a display of some of the worst of humanity, except that the disciples did not know that Easter was coming. All they could see was that terrible things were happening to Jesus and they couldn’t help. They couldn’t be anything but broken and hurtful to the one that loved them so well.

What a contrast!

The pure dazzling light of Jesus coming right before all that bad stuff. All those reminders that the disciples were not the whole package.

It was a rough time as the disciples saw their own broken parts in contrast to Jesus dazzling consistently good presence.

But Jesus kept loving them.

Today is Valentine’s Day. The day of love! And everywhere you look you encounter red. Red, red, red. Red hearts. Red bows. Red teddy bears. We sometimes think of red as the color of love.

But I think maybe that’s not enough. Red is only one of the many colors that pure light gets broken into.

Jesus, who IS love, was (and is) that pure dazzling light. Jesus was (and is) all the colors. Red and blue and green and purple (my personal favorite) are just pieces. Beautiful, but in different ways for each of us. They are good, because those colors are all part of the pure dazzling light of Jesus.

But none of us can dazzle by ourselves. We need each other if we are to even begin to think about getting close to who Jesus was.

We cannot love on our own. Only Jesus could do that. We need the give and take of loving each other, to love one another when things are tough, to invite us back into relationship when those relationships become broken. The back and forth of helping each other carry burdens and pick ourselves up and move on when things have gone dreadfully wrong.

Pastors from liturgical traditions (like Lutheran and Episcopalian and Catholic and Methodist) traditionally wear white stoles on Transfiguration, to remind us of the purity and dazzle of Jesus. But today I’m wearing this stole to remind myself – and maybe you – that we cannot dazzle on our own but we can be beautiful together.

Sin may break pure light into colors but they are True Colors – the parts of us that long for wholeness that only God can offer. The parts of us that are drawn to each other in an attempt to be better than we are alone. The complete, pure, shining light that we see in Jesus, who lived the perfect life that we cannot.

Lent starts this coming Wednesday and some people will get ashes on their foreheads as a reminder that we are limited, that we will not live forever, that sin has fractured the pure dazzle of the original creation into so many separate colors. And remembering that fact is good when it makes Easter all the more joyous and beautiful and celebratory.

But this year I urge you to remember this also: 

You have a True Color and that part of you is holy and good and beautiful. It is the part that will bring you back to the savior who sees those True Colors. So…

When this world makes you crazy and you’ve taken all you can bear you can call him up – he’s already there.

Amen.

Does your meal irritate my God? (A real question)

Here is the second catch-up post on this, the weather day that has turned out to be miserable but not particularly dangerous. Still, it's been good to have a quiet moment to sit and do these things.

This message is from the time of Epiphany - January 31, 2021. Staying on track for at least one message per month! I thought it was going to be all about food since food dominates pretty much everything I do these days. But no... it turned out to be about something quite different thanks to the gentle but firm nudge of the Holy Spirit.

The message was delivered at Springmoor Retirement Village Vespers but the video system rebelled so I don't have any kind of recording to share. The text is below, though, and I hope you are happy to have read it (you know, if you decide to read it.)

The texts are:

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Psalm 111

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Mark 1:21-28

My friends and I love that the word cloud turned out looking a little bit like a fish. A most delicious food! 

Feed us tonight, Holy Spirit. Feed us with your word and your love and your grace. Amen.

My whole life is all about food these days:  running a food pantry, cooking at home more than ever due to COVID, and trying to eat healthy meals with the result of losing 36 pounds. So I was really attracted to this particular passage and am thrilled that Juliana and Lori asked me to be here tonight!

What I am wondering about tonight is… what is this business of food and idols?

It turns out that the congregation in Corinth had been squabbling and that’s why Paul was writing this letter. They lived in a world where people believed whatever they wanted to believe (much like our world today) and their culture had norms and priorities and ways of doing things that didn’t necessarily have to be, but everybody just knew that’s how things were. Much like our world today.

One of those norms was that they worshipped by sacrificing food to idols, and then having feasts.

So when the Christians came along with their common (or communion) meal, lots of people did what they always do – try to make it fit with what “everybody” knew. In this case it was worshipping their god of choice by eating.

It was a little like the way Roman Catholics believe that their communion is only for professing Catholics and anyone else is not welcomed (at least by their canonical law, which is not always the same as what priests and congregations actually do.)

On the other hand, the ELCA (my branch of Lutheranism), Juliana’s Episcopalians, and Chaplain Lori’s Methodists all say anybody can participate (or to be technically correct for Lutherans and Episcopalians, anyone baptized.) 

There are rules about who eats and what it means when they eat but even when they sound similar, those rules can mean really different things to different people.

But the Corinthians weren’t so worried about who should be at their own common meal. They were really uneasy about whether they could go eat somebody else’s meal. Would eating with others mean they were disrespecting their own group? Would God be mad at them for eating some other god’s special food?

And THAT is where this scripture picks up.  Paul is saying NO YOU ARE NOT DISRESPECTING YOUR OWN GOD (THE REAL GOD) because those other gods, those idols, are simply not real. They are not powerful. The one God – the God who is REAL GOD – just sees some food prepared by some of the Real God’s children in a way that was respectful and appreciative… of something or other.

Maybe a little misguided, but while Christian communion where the Real God is in and over and under and with the bread and wine, the food to the idols was not special in that same way because it wasn’t for the Real God.  So… there y’go. Don’t worry about it Corinthians. Because there is nothing at all wrong with eating food sacrificed to an idol that doesn’t exist.

But was that the end of it?

No. No it was not.

Because squabblers gonna squabble and squabbling about whether it is ok to eat the delicious pagan barbecue is as good a reason to squabble as any.

Yes you can! The idols aren’t real!

No you can’t! Those other people THINK they are real! (or maybe.. I used to think they were rea, tool?)

Back and forth.

It reminds me of vegans who hold “we should not be cruel to animals” as such a deeply held belief that they have to live it out daily or they can’t live with themselves. So they don’t use anything that comes from an animal – not even leather shoes.

It reminds me of meat eaters who need and crave animal protein in order to feel good and healthy and believe that animals can live lives in which they are happy and cared for.

And could those two groups squabble? Oh yeah. FOR. SURE. Daily! Because deeply held beliefs seldom stay in us. We always get tripped up thinking everybody should have the same deeply held beliefs we do.

But one of our most faithful volunteers at the Parktown Food Hub is vegan and I have seen her in a barbecue restaurant buying meat to go because her extended family was in town and they love meat and she loves them and the barbecue was a fundraiser. She didn’t eat it, but she didn’t fight about it, either.

And someday when COVID allows us to have group meals again at the Parktown Food Hub we are going to make sure that there is good healthy vegan food sitting right alongside good healthy meat and animal foods. Because the overriding value of the Parktown Food Hub is to follow the model of Jesus and Jesus loves my friends and they eat meat or don’t eat meat or have allergies or whatever. So we respect what is important to each person, even if it isn’t so important to some other folks.

And that brings us, I think, to Paul’s main point:

If you know God is one and there is only one God, by definition it cannot matter that someone else thinks they are sacrificing to some other god. Because if you really believe there is only one God, then you also really believe that the other person’s lower-case-g-god does not exist as a god. The lower-case-g-gods really don’t challenge the Real God at all.

There is only one God. So even if someone else sees that one God in different ways, it’s still the same God!

Let’s face it: that one God as big and deep and diverse to create the universe and love us all, and die and not stay dead, then there is plenty of room for each one of us to see and know and experience and follow that one great big Real God in different ways.

If the people cooking or doing whatever they do are not genuinely worshipping the Real God, then it’s just ordinary food, or an ordinary thing. Like preferring brisket or ribs – it doesn’t matter that much!

Because, you see, in Real God – in Jesus – both brisket and ribs are fine. And delicious. And a beautiful thing.

What is not fine and not a beautiful thing is beating each other up and creating hierarchies and separation and division because of something that does not really matter in the end.

Because we are either worshipping the same God in different ways, or somebody is worshipping God and someone else is not, or nobody is worshipping God. And only God really knows who’s who.

Recently we had a workday at the Parktown Food Hub getting things ready for a great big Christmas giveaway. There were Lutherans and Brethren and Methodists, Buddhists and Muslims and people who don’t admit to any kind of faith.  

And we were all doing the same things for basically the same reasons.

We were all converging on the thing that Jesus spoke about and modeled and taught:

* Helping the poor and hurting

* Comforting the weak and afraid

* Bringing hope to the sad and lonely and hopeless

* Focusing on people who are in bad situations and being kind

We were all in agreement (even those who don’t celebrate Christmas as a Christian thing) that nobody should be hungry and that children should receive gifts, especially in this land of abundance that is matched only by our wastefulness.

And if we all ended up doing what Jesus showed us how to do, how can we squabble over why? 

If a pagan person thinks loving is good

If a Buddhist person wants to help their neighbors

If a Lutheran wants to respond to a Resurrected Jesus

Then I am willing to stake my life and career on this truth:

Loving is what counts and it counts way more than anyone’s particular motivation is.

Jesus’ life is how we know how to live.  The Resurrection is what makes it possible.

When someone does what Jesus taught, they are following Jesus. There is nothing to squabble about.

If a person hits roadblocks because of spiritual weakness (as Paul put it) or because their current motivation doesn’t carry them through, that is the moment to walk together. But where they started doesn’t matter.

Our job is to help.

Our job is to love.

Our job is to trust that if Jesus could die and not stay dead, then Jesus can bring everything else into being as well.

We can let go of telling each other how to live out our calls and trust that a Jesus who died for everyone one of us will also give us each opportunities to realize that the call comes from Jesus.

So our task? Live our own calls. Love others. Let knowing the one Real God does not make you better but it does make you different.

And then live out that difference so that everyone wants to know why.

AMEN.

Peace Power

It's been awhile since I've posted! December was absorbed by a big Christmas giveaway at the Parktown Food Hub and then recovery from that event! But I have been to Springmoor a couple of times and today - when the promised ice and snow turned into more rain and 34 degrees - seemed like as good a day as any to catch up.

This was the message on the second Sunday of Advent (December 6, 2020) and it was preached three times in one day! First at The Crossing service at St. Philip Lutheran, then at the later service at St. Philip, and finally in the evening to the beloved people of Springmoor Retirement Village. It was a long day. But thanks to the miracle of modern technology you can still see it being delivered or read it below.

The Crossing at St. Philip

Later service at St. Philip

Springmoor

The texts for the day are:

Isaiah 40:1-11 

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13 

2 Peter 3:8-15a 

Mark 1:1-8 

Come Holy Spirit. Tune our ears and open our hearts to expand our understanding of your peace so that it doesn’t pass our understanding by such a wide margin. Amen

WELCOME TO THE WILDERNESS!

Wherein today we hear the rest of the story about violence and power and God.

Sometimes the Old Testament gets a bad rap. People say things like “wow, God is really mean in the Old Testament” or “all that violence! What kind of God orders everybody killed?”  And those are hard questions. But they do not reflect the whole story.

On top of that, we live in a broken world and are in a culture that prioritizes power, status, privilege, and maintenance of those things at all costs – including force. We are so accustomed to the use of violence that it’s hard to imagine other ways of solving problems.

It really isn’t a very peaceful way to live.

Take the Babylonian captivity, for example:  The Israelites were living their lives. Doing whatever they thought was best – but not necessarily living God’s vision.

Then along come the Babylonians. The big bad country with the most weapons, the most soldiers. They could swagger in and do pretty much whatever they wanted.

Through the prophets – including Isaiah, who we hear from today – God told the Israelites that the Babylonians were coming

The prophets narrated the captivity as it happened.

And in the end, it was through the prophets that God told them the rest of the story.

God let the Israelites feel the consequences of their behavior… but God never let them down.

In today’s gospel lesson, Mark is quoting Isaiah 40, verse 3:
Here it is from Isaiah: 
 

A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

And in Mark:  

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’”

It’s a perfect introduction to John being that voice. To John being the fulfillment of prophecy at a time when the Israelites were discovering that God had not been abandoned and they would still be saved.

Do you suppose that John, the guy wearing camel hair and eating bugs and honey, was what they expected for the “voice” that was prophesied so long before?

John calls the religious leaders a brood (or den) of vipers. Since those were the people who were supposed to be leading people to God, I cannot imagine that they were impressed.

But also, I’m pretty sure they never saw it coming.

John talks about power, too – something that those religious leaders really loved (at least the version they knew and trusted.)  Jesus says that “one more powerful than I” was coming. Well imagine that. Someone more powerful than a guy who eats bugs? 

Can you imagine that ANYBODY expected that the powerful one would act like Jesus acted? All the evidence says…

NOPE.

But still, I wonder what would have happened if those religious leaders had *really* paid attention to the rest of that passage from Isaish?  To the rest of the story.

There is singing in verse 9: 

Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good tidings;

lift up your voice with strength,

And right next to that, in verse 10, mightiness:

See, the Lord God comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

And then the kicker that ties it all together:

He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead the mother sheep.

Singing, and a mighty arm – and gentleness? 

Or as it says in the Common English Bible:

God will gather lambs in his arms and lift them onto his lap. 

Does that sound like a mighty arm, and power?

Apparently so…
At least to the God of hope.

Apparently so…
At least to the God of peace.

If you were here last week you heard me talk about the Advent For All that South Durham Connections is sharing with any and everyone. Last week’s piece of the Advent puzzle was HOPE

This week we encounter PEACE.

How peaceful would it be if mighty arms were used to cuddle and comfort in our laps the most vulnerable among us?  

How is that even power? Are you rolling your eyes internally just a little bit, thinking… there she goes again… that bleeding heart… that’s nice for Sunday morning church but come onnnnn… join us in the “real world.” And yet – all I’m doing is sharing what God himself said … in the Old Testament no less!

I receive a daily quote called “This Nonviolent Life” and on Wednesday (12/2) the quote was from my fellow Texan Walter Wink. He said: 

"Our society is so inured to violence that it finds it hard to believe in anything else. And that phrase believe in provides the clue. People trust violence. Violence 'saves.' It is 'redemptive.' But when we make survival the highest goal and death the greatest evil, we hand ourselves over to the gods of the Domination System. We trust violence because we are afraid. And we will not relinquish our fears until we are able to imagine a better alternative."

Now Wink was a Methodist pastor and I’m pretty sure the “better alternative” he would have described would be “power” that comes from Isaiah’s version of God, cuddling little lambs in his lap, being kind to nursing moms…

* Giving attention to the weakest and most vulnerable

* The hungry and homeless

* Those who don’t expect to live long lives because of gun violence

* The abused and abandoned

* Orphans 

* Women who fear for their sons’ lives

* Families who take risks – and arrive at a place where they are punished rather than heard

* Everyone who is cast aside because they haven’t been seen and heard, because they don’t have enough earthly power

* Because they don’t have enough money, or strength, or capacity for domination of others to overcome injustice and pain

Those are the people that Jesus the Good Shepherd pulls onto his lap and snuggles comfortingly.

And in doing so, Jesus shows us that the real power is in PEACE.  That in peace we are empowered beyond more violent kinds of power.

This is not the so-called “peace” of avoiding conflict by giving in, or of armed “peacekeepers.”

This is a peace (and yes, it DOES pass all understanding because as Walter Wink said, we simply cannot imagine this kind of peaceful power on our own) that comes from moving towards a world of wholeness, 

A world where everyone’s need to be loved and cuddled in a loving lap is met.

That includes the people who struggle and can’t seem to “get their lives together”.

That includes people who have forgone deep relationships and care by prioritizing money and the power of violence above all else.

This wholeness is for happy go luck playful people who can’t seem to stop playing long enough to face their problems

And people who are so worried about their problems that they can’t seem to let go long enough to enjoy the opportunities for love that surround them.

I could go on and on, but in the end, what counts is that this love, the LAP OF LOVE, is for YOU.

Regardless of which side of earthly power you are on at any given moment:  wielding it or being battered by it.

Jesus came and gathered the hurting close (defying human power) while chastising those who help human power (also an act of defiance.)

And it got him crucified.

But it could not keep him dead and it is in the Resurrection that we find our best hope for peace today.

That Jesus who defied all human-sanctioned power is the one one – the ONLY one – who was not held by death.

It is that Jesus, that fact of Resurrection, that allows us to have peace now, despite all the temptations to other ways of being.

It is that Resurrected Jesus who defeated violence.
    Who gives us the PEACE POWER to be the ones who gather the vulnerable into comfort and safety.

        Even when the “prevailing wisdom” is to “teach them a lesson.”

In the Resurrection we are freed to love contrary to the world’s common sense.

And that, my beloveds, is the rest of the story.
Amen.

God is faithful - and we have HOPE

 WAIT! What comes next? We don't know, and yet, we hope. South Durham Connections - the ministry born in collaboration - is starting Advent for All 2020, a series of messages and activities for everyone.

This week I was delighted to open up the Advent season with my beloveds at St. Philip Lutheran in Raleigh. There were two services:  The Crossing at 9 am, where the message was short because we decorated a Jesse tree. You can watch that service here (the message starts at 31:00 but the Jesse tree part before is kind of cool.)

The later service had a longer message (no Jesse tree, though) and you can see the message here.

The lectionary texts for the day are:

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

God of all times, even the bad ones, show us the hope that we can have because you are the God of love.

Greetings from South Durham Connections!  Three years ago when I was your vicar, preaching regularly and wondering what God was doing, I had only a glimmer of what was to be.

Today, there is a little more than a glimmer, and I am wide-eyed at all that has come to pass in those three years, but I still do not know what is coming next!!

I can report that the Parktown Food Hub has become a pantry leader in Durham. 
* That we now have a Vision Board of community members, 
* An active Saturday gardening program, 
* We have just hired a person to help specifically with our garden. 
* We have been serving food to 10,000 people per month (that’s over 2200 families) 
* We served hundreds of families every Thursday between the end of March and November 19 (because that’s when the weather has driven us inside)
* and on our last Thursday distribution of the year we had so many cars in the parking lot that we completely lost track of who came when… and yet… all were fed.

We were at the forefront of the McDougald Terrace displaced resident response and generated the idea that the city came to advocate:  that churches or other groups adopt hotels to work with specific groups of displaced residents.

We have partnerships with so many groups that they barely fit on one page (in two columns!) and even then we keep discovering groups that we forgot to mention.

We started a (Lutheran) food pantry and mission, in a (United Methodist) borrowed space, using a (Muslim) neighborhood parking lot, and all because our food resourcing manager had been working with a (public school) pantry and living an astonishing faith that God will provide despite denominational politics - and always at the exactly right time.

I simply do not have enough superlatives to describe what happens every day in this community ministry that God has started and that God continues to carry in the palm of that loving, grace-filled hand.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is God’s, and not ours.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that all those good things that are happening (and that this congregation has been a part of for such a long time) are not the reason for my hope.

I am keenly aware that it could all fall apart at any time.

And yet… when my mother-in-law had a massive stroke, and then died a week later, and I was gone for two weeks with virtually no notice… the work thrived and volunteers showed up.

When my hub partner and food sourcing manager Aja faced the prospect that her three middle-schoolers would be doing homeschool for the foreseeable future, and her life was turned upside down as she tried to manage everything… the work thrived and there was food.

It is all so remarkable, and so hopeful, and we are very aware that God brought us together so that our styles and priorities fit together like puzzle pieces – and the puzzle is a vision of a community that cares about all its citizens and no one goes hungry…

Our hope is not in ourselves though (no matter how perfectly we all fit.) 

We honestly do not know what is going to happen next. 

We do not know if it will be a good thing (beautiful weather and extra food on our last distribution before Thanksgiving) 

or a not-so-good thing (a thunderstorm that blew away our tent and soaked three pallets of boxes containing fresh produce.)

If our hope came only from us, or from our track record, it would be hope of the “maybe it will and maybe it won’t” variety.

And yet, that is not our hope at all! Our hope is “I have absolutely no idea what will come next and I am absolutely certain that it will be an outrageously generous gift from God.”

Because even the thunderstorm turned out that way – when community members rushed over with a replacement tent and put it up; when other volunteers came to help distribute the food; and when we learned that we DO have limits and can arrange things so that we do not have to damage our own health and lives. We only need to do what we can do.

Because everything belongs to God, and God is faithful.

Today’s message is all about hope: there will be sorrow and pain and darkness, and everything will be shaken up… and THAT is when Jesus will return.

We do not get to know when it will happen, because that would remove the need for faith. That would remove the need for a faithful God. And so we do not know – we get the exceedingly great job of a God who loves us purely and perfectly and wants us to know it.

And then in the final verse: Jesus says “Keep Awake!” Not as in “don’t rest” or “don’t sleep” or “never relax” but in a smell the roses kind of way. Pay attention to what is happening around you. And not just the frightening, alarming stuff! 

Notice the grace. Notice the people who come around seeking grace, and offer them prayer and hope.

Notice the ways that you have connected in different ways with the people in your household.

Notice how your body, mind, and spirit have adjusted to a slowed-down, less frantic pre-Christmas season.

Because in noticing, in staying awake, you will find God’s faithfulness, and in that faithfulness you will discover hope.

The hope that comes from a God who has never let us down, who has never been defeated by politics or weather, cruelty or war. Nothing we human beings have ever done have vanquished God’s faithfulness, and nothing ever will.

And so today I offer you hope. The hope of faith. The hope that comes because God is faithful.

I also invite you to participate in the South Durham Connections Advent for All.  If you go to the South Durham Connections website (soduco.org) you can download a piece of an Advent puzzle each week along with a little bit about that week of Advent. The first one is up now.

Here’s how it works:  Go here to download and print the .pdf document, read the information on the first page, then cut out and decorate the puzzle piece on the second page with your idea of what hope looks like. The “it’s going to work out great” kind of hope that comes from knowing a faithful God. 

Then, when your puzzle piece is decorated, send a picture of it to the South Durham Connections email address (on page 1). We will put them up on the website and create a community of hope.

Each week we will add puzzle pieces until we get to Christmas and assemble the whole thing. A picture of what happens when a broken world has an infinitely faithful God.

It’s for everybody, and I hope you will consider joining us!

May God’s hope and peace, love and joy fill you in the coming month!

Amen

Love in the election aftermath

Spoiler: it's like love in any other time. But still. It seems like a good moment to review the basics.

I am posting this on Saturday evening and will be sharing it with my beloveds at Springmoor Retirement Village tomorrow. It will be good to be back among them, and it is good to be sharing with you now.

The texts are:

1 John 4:7-8

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

On Wednesday I was sad. I was sad because of the ugliness in our world, sad because of the whole election season, sad because my mother-in-law died on October 26. Sometimes when I am sad I think about love. And that thinking led me to put this out on facebook:

God is love. That is how we know we are not God.

It’s pretty standard Christian stuff – especially Lutheran Christian stuff – and it is the idea that we get in our reading today from 1 John: Love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God, because God is love.

But the responses I got were fascinating:

* The rabbi who only said “ouch” – I don’t know what she meant but I am certain it was something borne out of the depth of experience in her long life. 
* The Southern Baptist gentleman who reiterated with “double ouch” – and almost certainly meant something quite different than the rabbi.
* The woman who is married to a Buddhist and was thanking me for a scarf that I gave her years ago – a *very* warm scarf – that she had been able to wear for the first time that week, saying “I love you, does that make me your God?”

And I explained that for me, “God IS love” is a symmetric relationship:  God is love, and love is God. If it is of God then it is loving. If it is loving, then it is of God. And God is always, only, immutably, unfailingly, uniformly loving.

But we human beings are not. We are not uniformly loving. In fact, the reason I came to that sentiment is that I was having distinctly unloving thoughts about a lot of people – and they weren’t even connected to politics or the election!

There are so many ways and reasons that we do not love each other. And it contributed to my sadness.

That is some impressive stuff – and the part about God always loving is really great, right?

But here I am, talking to you. People who have lifetimes of experience in loving and being loved by God. People who are so steeped in your faith that you probably can’t imagine what your life would be without it.

Love can mean a whole bunch of different things, depending on the situation. It is different for different people, both in the giving and in the receiving. Love gets really complicated, really fast.

* There is tough love – holding people accountable even when it would be less painful for us but more damaging for them if we just let it go.
* There is compassion love – when someone else is sad or hurting, and we may even act against our own (perceived) interests in the moment because love is greater than what we want for ourselves
* But there is also love of self – honoring and taking care of ourselves and not taking on other peoples’ work, doing the things that we need to do in order to be healthy and as whole as we can be. It will never be perfect, but certainly some times are better than others!

And that is why I am so, so grateful for Paul’s contribution to the matter in his first letter to the Corinthians.

You may know that the Corinthians were in a mess. They were people of faith, but were polarized around different leaders. Paul calls them to task:  it’s not about Apollos, it’s not about Paul, it’s about Jesus! It’s about loving! We are all together in this journey and are meant to love each other on the way.. It is not an accident that in the earliest days of the church “christian” was not a thing. They were just a bunch of Jews talking about The Way.

The Way that was, and is, following Jesus.

In his letter to those arguing, divided Corinthians, Paul gives them a little lesson on what love is – and is not. Not based on situations, but something a little broader. Something that we can use just to check in… am I loving right now, in this situation?

And so it seemed like this week was a good time to remember. To remember that God is love and we are not. To remember that Paul wrote to a polarized and squabbling congregation. And to think about these things:

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Patient with ourselves when we are exhausted or in pain or just not at our best. Patient with ourselves when we are arrogant or full of ourselves or wildly, wildly wrong. And patient with others when they are exhausted or in pain or not at their best – and even when they are wildly, wildly wrong.

Kind… when we could whisper and natter and gossip and cast dispersion but choose not to. When we do not have to say anything but do, something that shows a recognition and concern for the humanity in another person.

Eloquent speech, being able to anticipate what people will do or say, all the scientific knowledge in the world, even faith that is unshakable… it doesn’t do any good for anybody unless it is spoken or used in love. We can be the richest person on earth, or we can make the choice to be martyrs to that unshakable faith… but without love, Paul says, it is all for naught. 

Because love will determine how we deliver all our gifts. If we deliver our gifts without love, then we are using them as a club. The point is that we do not hurt each other, but we use all our various gifts to make things better for the people around us. We use our gifts to take care of ourselves so that we have the strength to share that love, to set boundaries, to do the things we are called to do – and to not do the things that are someone else’s calling. All in the service of making sure that as many people as possible experience as much love as possible.

Paul tells us there are a lot of things that love is not:

* Envious
* Boastful
* Arrogant
* Rude
* Selfish
* Irritable
* Resentful
* Gloating in victory

And what love will look like in action:

* Rejoicing in the truth because it is truth
* Bearing whatever comes our way
* Believing that anything is possible
* Hoping for the goodness we cannot see
* Enduring life in all it’s confusing iterations

The last part of the chapter to the Corinthians talks about how love will not end. Everything else will end… but not love. Because as I noted earlier tonight…

GOD. IS. LOVE.

God is unending, so love is unending.

We are not there yet. We see in a mirror dimly – not the fancy mirrors that we have, but the mirrors in Paul’s day, which were more like the reflections of ourselves that we see in sheet glass windows. It’s dim. You can make out shapes, and see a lot, but the details are not clear. We don’t know now, but someday we will.

In the meantime, what we know is that love is eternal. Love will last. Love is God. God is love.

And if we want an example of what love looks like in person? We can look to Jesus. The Jesus who was present at creation and who came to earth, as a human being, to show us what love looks like in action.

The Jesus who showed up for poor people and despised people. For the ickiest politicians and the widows who had no one to care for them. For the children who had no position in society. For the people who were literally kicked out of town because they weren’t healthy enough. For the blind and those who couldn’t walk, the mentally ill and the people who had absolutely no standing in society.

The Jesus who loved so much that he had to be killed, because that earthly powers couldn’t stand it. 

And this is why we believe that Jesus is divine, that Jesus is God. Because death could not hold him. Jesus loved perfectly. Jesus made it possible for us to start afresh in every moment to love our neighbors, because we are enfolded in God’s love. In the love that Jesus shared with everyone he encountered.

We cannot be Jesus. We cannot love all the time. We cannot be God. We will sometimes be confused about what to do, how to respond. 

But we are not completely on our own. We have Jesus. We can see what Jesus did, how Jesus loved, and we can have confidence that we will continue to be forgiven when we do not love.

Because we have the ultimate love. God’s love. The love that is always there for us.

And in the Resurrection we are promised that God’s love IS for us. For each of us. For us personally, and for the people we like, and for the people we do not like.

Because 

God

Is

Love.

AMEN