Monday, December 19, 2011
Spiritual Hiccups - Remaking a Classic
But I'm not going to complain about this because I've noticed a bit of the same in the Bible. In today's gospel, Luke tells a story that looks like a lot of stories from the Old Testament. God is going to do something wonderful, and this will involve a previously "barren" woman giving birth. Sarah, Hannah, and now Elizabeth. Over and over God goes back to a tried and true story: life where it seemed there was none, hope where it had not existed, a future where one was not expected.
I take some solace from the fact that God sticks to a plot that we've seen before. Strangely though, it still seems to surprise us. We imagine that the story is all played out, that hope is gone, that this time there will be no happy ending. God has seemed too absent from our lives. The brokenness and cynicism of our world has the upper hand. The darkness has overcome the light.
And then an old, old story breaks through once more. Life in the face of barrenness. Hope where there had been none. Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.
Sometimes, when we have a hard time seeing God, when we've relegated the power of God to some time after we die, it's good to remember that God keeps working from an old script. And we know how the story ends.
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
Sermon text - Saying "Yes" to the Impossible
Luke 1:26-38 (47-55)
Saying “Yes” to the Impossible
James Sledge December 18, 2011 – Advent 4
There is a scene in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass where Alice is speaking with the white queen. Alice has just learned that the queen lives backwards, remembering things before they happen. In the course of this conversation Alice becomes a bit bewildered and begins to cry. During the queen’s efforts to cheer her up, she asks Alice how old she is.
“I'm seven and a half, exactly.”
“You needn't say "exactly",” the Queen remarked. “I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can't believe that!” said Alice.
“Can't you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There's no use trying,” she said. “One can't believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Christians should surely know about believing impossible things. After all we speak casually of Jesus turning water into wine, and we say that he died and rose again on the third day. And of course there is that line in “The Apostle’s Creed” that says Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.”
Even though not much is made of this virgin birth in the Bible, it became a big deal for the Church. The Roman Catholic Church expanded it, saying that Mary’s own birth was miraculous – Immaculate according to the doctrine, and that she remained a virgin her entire life, never mind that the Bible speaks of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, and one of those brothers, James, becomes leader of the fledgling Church following Pentecost.
When the Protestant Reformation came along, the Reformers insisted that we should only believe those impossible things that were actually in the Bible. And so we tossed out Mary’s perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception, but we kept the virgin birth. Protestants like believing impossible things as much as Catholics. We just have a different list.
All this is a long way of saying that while we Christians may disagree and even argue about which impossible things we must believe, it generally goes without saying that we expect people to believe impossible things, perhaps even six before breakfast.
However, there is not necessarily much impact from believing these impossible things. Think about it. How much difference does it make in the way you live that Mary was or wasn’t a virgin? I know Christians of deep faith, who live exemplary lives, some who believe in a historical virgin birth, and some who don’t. Believing or not believing this particular impossible thing doesn’t seem to make all that much difference.
But in our gospel this morning, Mary hears of an impossible thing that will not happen without her cooperation, without her “Yes.”
We Protestants have tended to diminish Mary, at times overreacting to what we have seen as unsupportable doctrines of the Catholic Church. But Luke presents Mary to us a both disciple and prophet. Confronted with God’s impossible plans, she scarcely objects, exhibiting a faith more trusting than that of Moses and many other heroes of the Old Testament. “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
And having said “Yes” to the impossible, the prophet Mary begins to see the impossible unfold. When she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, she sings of how God has “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. (God) has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. Not God will, but God has. Mary has said yes to the impossible, and it is now a part of her. She experiences it as present in her life.
As Christmas draws near, we bring out some of those other impossible things that Christians proclaim. We remember a baby in a manger, shepherd in the fields, and we join with the angels in their impossible song of “Peace on earth.”
Of course we don’t believe that impossible thing, at least not in a way that makes any real difference in our lives. We sing of peace on earth, of a prince of peace, but we know that peace can be maintained only by the best military money can buy. And so even as our nation staggers under huge debt, talk of significant cuts in military spending is, well, impossible.
Meister Eckhart, a German priest and mystic who live in the 14th century once spoke of how, like Mary, we are all called to become part of the impossible thing that God is doing. He said, “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” And it requires our “Yes” for that to happen. Mary must say “Yes” to the impossible, and so must we.
Christmas celebrates the results of Mary’s “Yes,” but all too often it stops there. It forgets that when we say our “Yes,” and the Spirit comes upon us, we become part of God’s impossible plan as well. We begin to see and live out that new, impossible thing, the reign of God that Jesus says has drawn near.
Back in 1998, a six year old boy named Ryan learned from his First Grade teacher that many children in Africa had to walk incredible distances just to get clean water. Stunned by this, he decided that he should build a well for a village. He began raising money by doing household chores. After four months he had raised only $70 toward a $2000 well, but he kept at it, and in 1999, seven year old Ryan’s first well was completed in a Ugandan village. Since then, the foundation begun by Ryan, now a 20 year old college student, has completed 667 water and sanitation projects in 16 countries.[1]
Perhaps if Ryan had been older and “wiser,” he would have known better, known that this was an impossible task for a little boy with no money. But being a child, he was more open to the impossible that many of us are. And maybe that’s why God’s impossible plan begins with a 15 year old girl named Mary, who wasn’t old enough to know better.
What impossible thing of God is just waiting for your “Yes?”
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Spiritual Hiccups - Lamps Trimmed and Burning
Jesus' parable is about the pose of the faithful between the time of his resurrection and his return, but most times I've heard this passage preached or taught the readiness Jesus speaks of has been disconnected from the Kingdom. It is no longer about Jesus or God's reign coming, but about our going. "You never know when you might die, so you'd better be ready."
It seems somewhat odd to me that even though many Christians pray the Lord's Prayer on a regular basis (When I was growing up the sports teams I played on prayed it before every game.), the first petition of that prayer seems almost forgotten. Our faith is not much about "Your kingdom come on earth" but rather, "God take us to heaven when we die."
Christmas is growing close, and soon we will be singing "Glory to the newborn King." But king of what? Ruler of what? We will sing "Let earth receive her king," but we have done a pretty good job of locking Jesus up in heaven. Lord's Prayer or not, we'd rather not have Jesus running our world, or even our lives. He might tell us to give our wealth to the poor. He might say that the prostitutes and sinners are in line ahead of us. No thanks, Jesus. We'll catch you later, after we die.
I wonder what all our preparation and getting ready for Christmas might look like if we actually entertained the possibility that Jesus could show up and take his place on the throne; if we thought he might suddenly become head of the banks and armies and governments... maybe even the Church.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Spiritual Hiccups - At the Edge of the Picture
Regardless, I gained some new insight into this passage when I read Fr. Richard Rohr's meditation for today. He was speaking of a different passage Matthew when he wrote,
As Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, he will always love one and ignore the other” (Matthew 6:24). Our first and final loyalty is to one kingdom: God’s or our own. We can’t really fake it. The Big Picture is apparent when God’s work and will are central, and we are happy to take our place in the corner of the frame.
Many of us do not like to play supporting roles. We want to be center stage, not off at the edge. (Pastors can be particularly prone to this.) Yet, as Fr. Rohr so well points out, finding our proper place in the picture is freeing. Conversely, confusion about our place creates a life that is constantly at odds with what it is meant to be.Because I am a part of the Big Picture, I do matter, and substantially so. Because I am only a part, however, I am rightly situated off to stage right—and happily so. What freedom there is in such truth! We are inherently important and included, yet not burdened with manufacturing or sustaining that private importance. Our dignity is given by God, and we are freed from ourselves!
I think that one of the joys of Christmas is getting lost in the story, the painting if you will. We are happy to stand off to the side with the shepherds and play a supporting role. For that moment, God's story is front and center, and we are content with the role of faithful servants.
But soon Christmas is over, and the baby Jesus is grown and calling us to follow him and embrace the life he teaches. But we do not always care for the role Jesus gives us. We object to our place in the Big Picture, and so we push him to the side and claim the center for ourselves.
Gracious Savior, help us to keep you at the center when the decorations are all gone. Pour out the Holy Spirit on us, that we may discover the freedom and joy of living out our place in the wonderful work of art that is your coming reign.
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Monday, December 12, 2011
Magnificat - Antonio Vivaldi
On the Third Sunday in Advent, the members of Boulevard's Chancel Choir were accompanied by chamber orchestra as they performed Magnificat, by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).
Spiritual Hiccups - God's Troubled Heart
and his compassion is over all that he has made...
The Lord watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
from Psalm 145
There is another famous passage, this one in Hosea, that presents the tension very differently. In it God speaks of judgment against Israel for their unfaithfulness and how the Most High will not listen when the people cry out. But then, God seems to have a change of heart. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?.. My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath."
We Westerners have had our understanding of God shaped very much by Greek philosophy, and so the notion of God experiencing some sort of internal crisis is hard to fathom. Yet the Bible has no qualms about speaking of a crisis within God's interior life, a crisis that emerges over what to do about us, God's wayward human creatures.
Still, we like a God without such tensions. And so went tend to resolve them in one direction of the other. Some tend more toward the judgment side with pretty clear standards regarding heaven or hell, while others tend toward the compassion side, with God's mercy trumping judgment.
This morning I was reading in the paper about one of the local "Craigslist Killers." Two people, one a 16 year old, lured people to a rural property with the promise of a job managing a small cattle farm. But when an individual arrived, they killed him. (Three bodies have been found after one victim escaped and tipped off authorities.) This morning's article was about a letter the 16 year old had sent to his father. In it it spoke of his fear over a long prison sentence and how all his family might be dead by the time he got out, perhaps in his early 40s. But then he wrote how he couldn't believe God would let that happen to him.
I had visceral reaction to his remarks. He thinks that God will not allow him the personal trauma of being separated from his family for too long, but apparently he has no remorse for killing and robbing people who were simply looking for a job? And I quickly found myself in caught in that tension between judgment and mercy.
Sometimes I think that our fascination with Christmas is related to this tension, perhaps more precisely, with eliminating it. A baby in a manger doesn't really have much to say about mercy or judgment. A baby is sweet and innocent, evoking wonder and hope. Oohing and Ahhing over the Christ child, we can get lost in the moment and forget about such questions. Not so with the adult Jesus, who speaks of sinners entering the Kingdom and asks forgiveness for those who execute him, yet speaks of people cast into the out darkness where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but I like to credit spiritual maturity for giving me an increased willingness to live with a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to the heart of God. I'm willing to leave some things hidden within the mystery of God while I do my best to share the God I have encountered in Jesus, a God of unfathomable steadfast love and mercy, but also a God whose holiness is nothing to trifle with.
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Thursday, December 8, 2011
Spiritual Hiccups - "Happy Holidays" and Weightier Matters
Jesus says to them, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."
I don't know much about tithing mint, dill, or cummin, but I have a strong suspicion that getting upset if they don't say "Merry Christmas" at Target falls into that category. Worrying about whether or not a mostly secular holiday wears a bit of Christmas window dressing strikes me as the epitome of worrying about the outside of the cup.
Sometimes I think those Puritans who settled in Massachusetts centuries ago had it right. They banned Christmas celebrations altogether. You could be arrested for not working on Christmas Day, unless it happened to fall on the Sabbath that year. I realize that this may have been an overreaction to the drunken celebrations of Christmas the Puritans knew from England, but if we'd followed their lead, we might not have the orgy of consumerism we now call Christmas.
Seems to me that people who are serious about following Jesus might be happy to divorce Christ from that consumer orgy. Leave it to Santa Claus and the shopping malls. Let us get back to the "weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith."
But I suppose that all of us at times prefer to deal with the outside of the cup, to make sure it is shiny and clean without worrying too much about the inside. Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being "full of greed and self-indulgence" on the inside. But isn't that what Christmas, at least the one at the Mall, is all about?
Before we get too distracted by mint, dill, and cummin, or by "Happy Holidays" on the banners at the local department store, maybe we ought to think for a moment about the "weightier matters" Jesus warns us not to neglect.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Spiritual Hiccups - What Does God Want from Us?
Contrast that with God's speech from today's psalm.
If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and all that is in it is mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
Israel came to realize that Yahweh did not "need" people in the manner of many, ancient gods. Yahweh was no local deity who depended on the region's inhabitants. God was Lord of all, without need in any conventional sense. And that raises an interesting question. If God does not need anything from us, just what does God want from us?
One thing that becomes clear about God from the Bible is how Yahweh is an expansive God, a God who goes out from godself in love and creative energy. The first of the Creation stories in Genesis depicts a God who simply creates. God is not building something with a utilitarian purpose. Rather this is about beauty and joy and goodness. God says, "Let's create this," and God does. And it is "good," our translation of a much thicker Hebrew word meaning pleasing, excellent, enjoyable to look at, etc.
This God who seems to revel in creating, who is pleased with how it all turns out, nonetheless does not hover over that creation. God allows creation much freedom, but longs for it to be filled with the joy, and love and goodness that is a part of its beginnings. And so when creation goes awry, when the human creature goes awry, what God seems to want most is for things to be set right, for it to all be good once more.
In that sort of goodness, the powerful do not exploit the weak, people are not exploited and oppressed, no one need be poor so others can be rich, and all people recognize their dependence as creatures, beings who are remarkably made with incredible gifts and abilities, but who are still creatures dependent on their Creator for life itself.
This is the sort of world Jesus is talking about when he comes proclaiming God's Kingdom, the rule of God where creation is set right. And that brings me back around to that question of what God wants from us. It seems it is more a matter of what God wants for us. God wants us to be part of true goodness, life that is beautiful, pleasing, excellent, a joy to behold, right, and driven by love. The real question is whether or not we will trust Jesus to show us the way to such goodness.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Spiritual Hiccups - Blame the Messenger
I once preached a sermon on the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector from Luke 18. That parable contrasts a Pharisee who tries very hard to do all the God expects of him (and seems rather proud of it) with a tax collector who cannot even bring himself to raise his eyes toward heaven. He simply beats his breast and pleads, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Jesus says it is the tax collector who left the Temple in good stead with God. My sermon simply retold the parable with the characters updated to our time: a good, faithful (and proud) church goer compared with examples of people who might be considered reprobates in our day.
The next day I had a member call me, and he was irate. "Don't you realize that it is good church people who pay their pledges that keep the church going?" He caught me quite off guard, and to be honest, I don't really recall how I responded to him.
In retrospect, and following a couple of similar episodes over 15 years, I've concluded that these people were not really upset with me -- although I doubt they would admit as much. They were upset with what Jesus or Paul or some prophet had said, but directing their anger at me was much less problematic than being angry with Jesus, Paul, or the prophets.
At least I have a biblical text to shield me. The prophet Amos is on his own. Only his call from Yahweh legitimizes his words of judgment against the northern kingdom of Israel and its rulers. And so it is no surprise that those in power blame the messenger. The priest of the Temple orders Amos to leave. He may not speak at Bethel, "for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."
In a time when many people do not read their Bibles with much regularity, preaching becomes the context in which the Bible is most often heard. And I fear this leads to the message being too tied to that messenger in the pulpit. And since it's only the preacher, we are free to agree or disagree , even to be angry and upset with her or him. But if the only valid message is the one we already agree with, what power does the Word have to transform us and create us into something new?
O God, speak to us. Help us look beyond the messenger, and hear your Word.
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