authority – Salvaged Faith

They Stood Up

Posted on August 7, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Numbers 27:1-11

Friends, can we all admit that this is a very big book and that 99.9% of us don’t know its stories from cover to cover?

We understand the overall arc of scripture… from creation, through the time in Egypt, the exodus and claiming of the promised land.

We know the big picture story of how the tribes of Israel became a nation with a king and then fell apart and were carted off into exile.

And we know about how they returned and how Jesus came to continue the story of God’s redemption and form us into God’s people, sending the Holy Spirit as God’s message exploded across the world.

But every story? Every name?

We fail to dig deep into the nitty gritty of the text and skim over some of the most interesting… but maybe also most disturbing… parts of our past.

What we miss when we do so are the bold and untold stories of ordinary folks who have great lessons to teach us.

We can’t all preach like Peter or pray like Paul or lead like Solomon… but God can use our voices and our actions to make a difference in this world.

Over the next five weeks as we wrap up summer, we will be diving into the details of scripture as these little known people come alive for us.

We start today with the daughters of Zelophehad: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

Their names are so unfamiliar to our tongues today that I find myself stumbling over pronunciation.

And yet, as Wil Gafney notes in her book, Womanist Midrash: a Reintroduction to the women of the Torah and the Throne, “their story is so important that they are mentioned in five different places… Only the prophets Miriam and Moses are mentioned in more books in the Hebrew Bible.” (page 156)

“They Stood” | Lauren Wright Pittman | A Sanctified Art | sanctifiedart.org

The story of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah is a story about land and inheritance and patriarchy.

We are introduced to them in the middle of a census that is being taken amongst the Israelites to determine who is available to go to war with Midian as they seek to enter the promised land.

They come from the line of Jospeh, through his son Manasseh, and their father Zelophehad had no sons. (Numbers 26: 29-34)

As Gafney notes, Numbers chapter 26 connects the military census with the distribution of land to come. We are told that the first generation of those who left Egypt will not make it out of the wilderness… only their children and grandchildren will.

But how will this new land that they will take be divided?

The census lists the names of those second-generation families… well, the second-generation families headed by men, who were eligible to go to war.

Gaffney writes: “only males were entitled to inherit the inhabited Canaanite land that God had promised the Israelites under this schema… only patriarchal households counted…” (p. 158)

It was an exclusionary practice that was uncommon among other surrounding cultures, but also meant that men who died during the war and left women as the head of their households would be left out of the allocation.

As soon as this detailed census and explanation was read to the people, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah step forward.

This is described as taking place right outside of the meeting tent – where the ark of the covenant was contained.

In front of Moses, Eleazar the priest, all of the chiefs… the entire community… they challenge the distribution and demand to be given land as well.

They had no rights.

They had no power.

They had no authority.

But they stand up and make their voices heard.

These five women are of the second generation.

Their father, Zelophehad, was among those who left Egypt, but he has died along their journey.

No mention is made of their mother, but Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah have no brothers.

AND, as the narrative will tell us later, they are unmarried.

As they heard the census and the names of all of their cousins and other second generation families that would inherit the promised land, they recognized that the lineage of their father was being excluded.

As Lauren Wright Pittman writes, “The text says the women came forward; they stood, they spoke, they questioned, and they even demanded. Any one of these actions alone is difficult for the unseen and the unheard. All they wanted was the receive the inheritance of their father and to keep his name from fading. I’m sure the pain of their father’s death was potent, but they needed to be recognized, valued, and seen as human beings in order to survive.” (Faces of our Faith Study Journal)

They demanded that their family be given a share, just as their father’s brothers would be given.

Now, this is in direct contradiction to the instructions that God had just handed down to Moses in chapter 26.

They were not just challenging their leaders, but the very word of God.

The entire community had just experienced a devastating plague that was blamed on the men of Israel disobeying God by marrying Moabite and Midianite women, which often led to idolatry and the worship of the gods of these other cultures.

When an Israelite brought a Midianite wife into the camp, the son of the priest Eleazar, Phineas, killed them both and the plague stopped.

But, you know, killing the daughter of a leader of neighboring people has consequences and the war with Midian was a direct result of the initial disobedience and then later death.

So… maybe this wasn’t exactly the time to challenge what God has said…

To his credit, Moses does not immediately dismiss their complaint out of hand.

It would have been completely understandable for him to say, “This is the word of the Lord.”

Or, “I’m sorry, but this is the law.”

Instead, he listened.

And instead of rendering judgment himself, Moses took their case to God.

The Lord replies, “Zelophehad’s daughters are right in what they are saying. By all means, give them property as an inheritance among their father’s brothers.”

And then, God goes on to change the law so that if a man dies without a son, his daughter would receive the inheritance.

When we look deeper into the text and the language here, what we find is surprising.

Wil Gaffney notes that God doesn’t just say they were right. He declares that they are righteous in “a powerful affirmation, without peer in the canon for women or men.” (159)

And if you look at the Hebrew, the words God speaks do not imply a passive response by which these women would now have land.

It demands corrective action on the part of those who would have denied them their inheritance.

As Pittman writes in her artist statement of her piece, “They Stood,”:

God heard the voices of these women. “They are right,” God said. The old law was no longer suitable, so God made a way for change. Though the laws were probably carved into stone, God shows us in this text that the law is living, breathing, adaptable, and changing. This text invites us to come forward, to stand, to speak, to question, and to demand change when we experience injustice.

A couple of things to note here.

First, when we believe we are experiencing an injustice or are troubled by a law or a command that we find within scripture, the example of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah tells us that it is a good thing to speak up.

Even if our voice trembles.

Even if we are unsure if anyone will listen.

Even if we have no authority or power.

Second, this scripture is one of many places where God makes a way for change.

From the Lord’s declaration after the flood that there would never again be a complete destruction of the earth in Genesis…

to the new vision of the clean and the unclean that comes to Peter in Acts…

and this text…

we find examples of how the cries of people and changing circumstances in the world lead God to act and respond in new ways.

Our God is not distant from us, handing down decrees that are unchanging.

God is with us, listens to us, walks with us, hears our cries, experiences our pain, and knows our hope.

God desires abundant life and chooses to act in new ways to demonstrate love and mercy and to create and recreate possibilities within our midst.

God is in relationship with us… and a relationship is a two-way street.

But the third lesson here is that it is not our job to declare something is right or wrong, unjust or fair.

We also learn from the example of Moses, who took it to the Lord.

So part of our responsibility, either as someone who is experiencing injustice or as someone who is in a position to act, is to notice the places that trouble our souls.

Our job is to listen and to explore and understand the problem.

And part of our responsibility is to pray and search the scriptures and to listen for God.

If the ways of God, the laws of God, the commands of God can change in response to human need and action, then we need to be prepared.

As the Lord cries out in Isaiah 43:19: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Our job is to look, to listen, to pay attention and be ready to see where and how God is acting in this world.

And then… to figure out how to get on board.

I mentioned that the five daughters of Zelophehad show up not once or twice, but five times in the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible.

And part of this reason for their continued presence in the life of the people was that this new command of God was not immediately followed.

God commands a new law for Moses to implement among the people – that women without brothers shall inherit the land of their father.

Yet when we get to chapter 36 in Numbers, the war with Midian is over and they are preparing to enter Canaan and as the allocated land is being discussed, the daughters come up again.

Only this time, they are not the active participants in their own story.

Their cousins stand up and speak out and are concerned about the distribution of land to these unmarried women, because when they marry, the land will no longer be a part of the tribe of Manasseh.

Moses… without consulting the Lord… modifies what God says in chapter 27 to declare that they are only allowed an inheritance if they marry within their father’s tribe.

Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah act according to these new conditions and marry kin within the tribe of Manasseh.

More time goes on.

The people cross the Jordan River and enter the land of Canaan.

Moses, who we are told disobeyed the Lord but not about what specifically, dies before he is able to enter the promised land and the leadership falls to Joshua.

Here is where the rubber meets the road, as the people now are in possession of the land and parcels are being handed out for each tribe.

When we get to Joshua chapter 17, the land for the tribe of Manasseh is being determined and the text tells us that “an allotment took place for the rest of the clans of Manasseh – for the people of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These were the sons of Manasseh the son of Jospeh, the male descendants by their clans.” (17:2)

Did you hear it?

There is no mention of the daughters of Zelophehad.

And once again, Mahlan, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah stand up and speak out.

Once again, they approach Eleazar the priest, Joshua the leader, and the other clan chiefs.

Once again, they fight for their inheritance.

“The Lord commanded Moses to give us a legacy along with our male relatives,” they declare.

Gaffney notes, “They do not say, ‘Moshe failed to obey God and died.’ There is no need. The implication is clear.” (p. 163).

Joshua acts where Moses did not.

The tribe of Manasseh is granted ten parcels of land, one of which would belong to the daughters of Zelophehad.

And these daughters are later accounted for in the listing of the family lines in the book of Chronicles.

But that was only possible because of their courage.

Their persistence.

Their willingness to stand up and speak out.

In our lives today, we might not always have power or authority.

But we do have a voice.

And when we see something that is unjust or wrong, we too can stand up, stand together, and speak out.

We can let the community know about what is going on so that we can seek God’s direction and act.

And if we do have power and authority, we can choose to listen, to pray, and to respond.

May the bold and too often untold legacy of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah guide us for the future. Amen.

Follow The Star: Authority

Posted on January 31, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Mark 1:21-28

Our gospel lesson for today begins with Jesus teaching in the synagogue.
And the people of Capernaum were astounded by his teaching.
It wasn’t simply what he taught, but how he taught it.
Jesus exuded authority: power, freedom, ability…
The words were not simply something he had read, but something he possessed.
They brought into being the reality they proclaimed.
As the Message translation describes it, “They were surprised at his teaching – so forthright, so confident – not quibbling and quoting like the religion scholars.”

I must admit, I almost start to take offense to that.
After all, I’m one of those religion scholars, those teachers, trying my best to make sense of the text and what I know and what I don’t know.
You are a scholar, too.
You are a theologian, taking the scriptures and your prayers and studies and doing the best you can to make sense of it all.
And we all quibble and quote.
We have our favorite texts and verses and we rely upon the teachers and leaders who have formed us.
We turn to people whom we believe have the authority to guide us… and we trust them to help us gain knowledge.
But it is also a world of social media and fake news that is so polarized it feels like we are living in alternate realities.
Something happens in the world and we interpret the events completely differently.
What is truth?

In college, I took a class on epistemology. Epistemology simply is the study of knowledge and it explores what is a justified belief and what is simply opinion.
C. I. Lewis claimed that knowledge, or truth, comes from our experiences, but those experiences are always interpreted through our definitions or concepts.
For example, two people might experience an hour very differently… for one it passes quickly and for another it drags on. But because they share the concept that an hour is sixty minutes and have devices that monitor that span of time, they can meet after an hour has passed.
We come to share concepts and definitions, “by the business of living together and the methods of naming, pointing, and learning by imitation,” Lewis writes.
And so, we come to understand together, collectively, that this is green…
The sky is blue… tomorrow is Monday…
An action is good…

But when I follow one teacher, and you follow another…
When my social media feed is filled with one perspective and yours looks completely different…
When I get my news from one source, and you another… are there any concepts or definitions or knowledge that we share?

We used to have something called the fairness doctrine in broadcasting. It was introduced by the FCC in 1949 and it required broadcasters to do two things: One, they had to present controversial issues so that the public could be informed. Two, they had to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced.
In effect, it created shared concepts because we named and pointed to the same issues in the world and at least had the same language to talk about them, even if there were differences of experience.
However, the policy was ended in 1987 and it is just one example of the many ways we have stopped living together.

We are swimming in a world of relativity, separateness, and disconnection.
We no longer share the same concepts or definitions.
Racism…. Socialism… sexism… accountability…
What do those words mean? What is true and real and good?

Maybe we, like the people of Capernaum, are longing for a greater authority.
Some truth with a capital “T.”
Words that have power to not simply fill the air, but to name and change reality.

As we read last week, Jesus came into Galilee announcing, “Now is the time! Here is God’s kingdom! Repent, change your hearts and your minds, and trust this good news!”
The gospel is good news.
It is truth and knowledge and proclamation of reality.
He entered the village and, on the Sabbath, sat down in the synagogue and began teaching.
And God’s Kingdom began to become real for them.
It had power and life and being and it was present in their very midst.
And the people were compelled by this reality to repent, to change their hearts and minds.
After all, Jesus was calling them to relinquish the knowledge that could be quibbled over to embrace something that was really and actually true.

But what happens to the power of ignorance or division when the Kingdom takes hold?
What happens to the power that denies life and sows misinformation?
The power that diminishes the value of another person?
Mark names that power… that spirit… “unclean.” “Evil.”
And when confronted with the words and the teaching of Jesus, that spirit began to fight.
Right there in the synagogue it cried out, throwing the community into chaos, “What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us?”

We don’t know how long that evil spirit had held power over that person and that community.
We don’t know the kind of damage it inflicted.
What we do know is that Jesus acts.
Jesus rebukes the spirit, stops the harm and expels it from their midst.

God has given us “the freedom and power” as our United Methodist baptismal vows proclaim, “to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”
How can we fight back against forces that have separated and trapped us in cycles of misinformation and suspicion?
So what can we learn from Jesus about how to resist the power of division in our midst?

Jesus takes away its voice and drags it into the light of day where it dies.
Jesus rebukes it, shouting, “Silence! Come out!”

Now, today, in this moment, we see that silencing happening all around.
Cancel culture, after all, is rampant from people on all sides.
If we don’t like what someone has to say or what they believe, we simply unfollow them.
We ban them.
We scroll past.
We end friendships.

I want to start by saying that boundaries are important.
If you are being harmed by what another person is saying or doing, it is absolutely appropriate to separate yourself and to no longer allow their words to have power over you.
But so much of the kind of silencing we experience today simply reinforces our echo chambers. It drags us deeper into our separate spheres and we begin to see other human beings not as full and complex people but as a sound byte that can be dismissed.

And that is why I think we have to pair Jesus’s command to be silent with his call to come out.
To place our experiences and our knowledge in the light of day where we can hold it up to God’s intentions for our world.
Where we can truly compare our sources and our information with humility, an understanding that we might not have the full picture.
It is a call to re-engage.
To be present with one another.
To listen and seek to understand those we disagree with.
Jesus never asks us to set aside our experiences and perspectives, but to allow them to interact as we discern together where the authority of God our Creator and Redeemer is active and moving.
It is a call to share life with one another.

This week, our daily devotions will explore scriptures relating to God’s authority.
We’ll think about people who spoke God’s word into our midst and times when we had to set aside what we thought was true based on new information. We’ll think about what it means to humbly remember we are not the center of the universe.
But perhaps the most important scripture about authority we will read is the last one.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that we can have all of the right words and all the right answers, but if we have no love for others, all of that knowledge and truth and experience is for nothing.
Love is the force that created us.
Love is the power that unites us.
Love is the reality that truly offers life.

There is an organization called Braver Angels that is working to try to bring people together in these incredibly divisive times. This week in its newsletter, they highlighted a relationship between a Quaker and a QAnon-believer in Maryland.
Their goal is not to change the other person, but to understand where they are coming from. The author notes:

“They don’t agree on much, though both believe in the importance of integrity in elections and media. But their definitions of integrity differ… [One of them] suggested they decide on a glossary, so that they actually speak the same language.”
These two people are taking the time to listen to one another and to build a common life.

That is the kind of Kingdom that Jesus calls into being.
It is an invitation for people who are radically different to build a common life.
Jesus calls sinners and saints.
Young and old.
Jews and Gentiles.
Blue-collar fisherman and white-collar government workers.
Men and women and people of various ethnic backgrounds.
Pharisees and Zealots.
And we come to learn that we need one another.
We are called to reorient our lives under an authority greater than any of our own experiences.
An authority that created the world and everything in it.
An authority that commands us to love.

So maybe in the coming days and weeks, wherever the forces of division or hatred rear their ugly head in this world, accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist.
Speak out loud if you have to: “I see you. I know what you are. And I refuse to let you separate me from others.”
Choose instead to cast it into the light of God’s love.
Love that puts others first.
Love that doesn’t hold grudges or delight in others mistakes.
Love that seeks the truth.

Following Jesus isn't easy…

Posted on October 25, 2012Leave a comment

This morning in my devotion time I read from Matthew 21… the cleansing of the temple. I have been using the daily reading book from The Message and there are always good questions that pull you into the stories and make me think.

This morning, I realized that following Jesus can give a person whiplash. I imagined myself in the midst of the temple, trying to resolve my own guilt and sin, working ou my own salvation, scraping together coins to pay for the doves or goat or whatever I needed for atonement… redemption. I remember this sickening feeling that others were profiting from my mistakes.

And in walks Jesus. I’ve heard about him… seen him once… and before I realize whats happening, the table where my doves were sitting in a cage has been overturned and the birds fly free… the guy who was charging me an arm and a leg for my ticket to redemption is on his heels looking for an exit. I feel so free in that moment… like the birds.

My sin ever present, I need healing as much as the disabled and ill who crowd around him. I press in closer and realize how fortunate I was to have been “in” the system already… I was struggling… but I was not a beggar. I had opportunities many of these never had to be here and connect with God and worship in this temple… and so I fall back and let others move ahead of me.

I want to be close and I want to give others a chance… I want salvation and in a way I feel like simply in the presence of Christ it is already mine. I feel joyful and free and giddy…

And then the priests come running out. I notice the commotion… birds flying free, goats crapping in a corner, kids running through the building, the wall of people around Jesus.

I… well, ‘m going to say it. I feel a bit ashamed. I’m not entirely sure why, but perhaps it is because these are figures of authority in my life. These have been he agents of God in my life. These are the people who always told me what salvation was. And I feel like I have betrayed them, like we are all doing something wrong.

There is a confrontation between them and Jesus and he turns his face against them and leaves as quickly as he came. And the shame and anxiety and yet residual joy and hope I felt co-mingle and I run after him. I wan to hear what he is saying. I am a flutter of so many emotions and yet I know the truest ones I felt were at his side.

Sometimes as we follow Christ we get a glimpse of possibility… only to have that hope squelched by the world, or parents, or our church… sometimes the people we have loved so dearly and who have loved us so dearly disappoint when it comes to sharing our new hopes. I’ve heard some of those stories recently and as my work… following Jesus… leads me deeper INTO the structure and the “insiders” my prayer is that I never forget that whiplash… never fail to hear Christ’s voice… never overlook those who are thoughtful and hungry and full of ideas and hopes and dreams right next to me for the sake of what I think I’m supposed to be doing.

Carnival Mirrors

Posted on September 25, 2011Leave a comment

Two summers ago, our family was on vacation at Lake Okaboji in northwest Iowa. We had this tiny little house rented and with six adults and two kids and a baby, we needed to be out and about as much as we could!

One of the days we were there, we went to Arnold’s Park – this lovely little amusement park right on the shores of the lake. As we walked into the main area of the park, we climbed through a tilted house. I remember being inside buildings like this as a child, but something about walking crooked with the ceilings shrinking above you feels very odd and disconcerting as an adult!

And then, the first thing we found inside of the park was the house of mirrors.

My niece grabbed my hand and dragged me to the entrance. As we stood in front of the skinny mirrors and the fat mirrors and the wavy mirrors, she giggled and pointed as the images of each of us transformed into creatures we didn’t recognize. I had mile long legs one minute and a neck as tall as a giraffe the next. We laughed as we told stories about what it would be like to live lives with really tall tummies and itty bitty heads.

However, as an adult I have to admit, these mirrors are a lot less amusing. The distortion of these mirrors brings into greater focus small and insignificant parts of ourselves. They either expand them out of proportion or they reduce them to nothing. Our noses grow fat and wide. Our stomachs suddenly look thin. Or vice versa.

And in doing so – the truth of our bodies comes out. Our thighs might be a little larger than we would like. Our shoulders might be narrower than we assumed. That little gap between your teeth has a spotlight shown on it.

This morning, we are going to explore how Jesus helps us to see the truth in our distorted views of reality.

Charles Campbell is a preaching professor at Duke University and he tells this story about how Jesus would like to shake up our perceptions. Campbell was watching and interview on television with Dr. Phil, the famous tv psychologist. Dr. Phil was asked, “If you could interview anyone in the world, past or present, who would it be?” And immediately, he responded: “Jesus Christ. I would really like to interview Jesus Christ. I would like to have a conversation with him about the meaning of life.”

Well, Campbell was watching this on television and tells of the inner dialogue he was having at the moment. He wanted to shout out at the television and to Dr. Phil: “Oh no, you wouldn’t! You would not want to sit down with Jesus, treat him like an interviewee, and ask him about the meaning of life. You would be crazy to do that. He would turn you upside down and inside out. He would confound all your questions and probably end up telling you to sell everything you own, give the money to the poor, and come, follow me. No, Dr. Phil, you do not really want to interview Jesus, and I do not want to either. It would not go well.”

Jesus sounds like a nice and simple guy… a gentle soul… a friend to walk beside you and share your thoughts with… but in reality, Jesus turns our worlds upside down and inside out. He does the unexpected, he shows up in places we try to stay away from, he loves the unloveable, he calls the unworthy, and he brings us life through his death. And sometimes in doing so, he reveals the most difficult truths about our hearts.

His ways are not our ways – and as we walk with him, we have to be willing to let our distorted views of the world fall by the wayside so that we can see the reality of God’s love.

The main distortion that we encounter when we meet Christ is the false belief that we are good enough, that we have the answers, and that we fully understand God. This is the mirror that makes us look tall and big and fat and grand. It puffs us up, it fills us out, and we start to believe we are more important and more knowledgeable than we really are.

You see, this false understanding of faith, of religion, and of themselves is what got the priests and elders into so much trouble in our gospel reading this morning.

To put this story into context, Jesus had just come into Jerusalem the day before. The long list of things he accomplished that day included: riding into the city on a donkey and in righteous anger overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple. He was literally turning things upside down!

And so when he comes back to the temple the next morning, the religious leaders are in a grumpy mood. They want to know who this guy thinks he is and so they approach him and say very bluntly: Show us your credentials – Who authorized you to teach here?

Oh, those poor leaders. They had no idea what they were about to get themselves into. Jesus may have looked like a country bumpkin rabbi just in from the hills, but they were dealing with the Son of God. And when you ask Jesus questions… you never get the answers you expect.

Instead of giving them an answer – Jesus himself asked them a question. Jesus shed light on the true nature of their question.

Authority.

Who has it? And where does it come from?

These religious leaders had been trained. They had studied long and hard. They spent their days in the temple. They have the full weight of their culture and the institution behind them. They firmly believe that they speak for God.

And if they speak for God, then this man, this ruffian, this Jesus of Nazareth clearly does not. They want to keep things in good order, according to the traditions and the way things have always been.

But Jesus is ready to turn the world upside down.

And so he asks them a question in return: Was the baptism of John from God or from man?

He trapped them.

If they said John’s baptism was from God – then they were legitimizing his movement and in doing so, legitimizing Jesus who stood right before them.

But if they said that it was only from man – then they might have had a riot of the people on their hands… all around them were faithful people who had traveled out to the Jordan river to repent of their sins.

The distortion of their mirrors fell away. They came face to face with the truth. This Jesus did not fit in a box. Their privilege and power were more important to them than the right answer and so they responded simply – we don’t know… hoping it is the end of the story and they can return quickly to the way things were.

But Jesus doesn’t stop talking.

Instead, he tells them a story. The story of two children sent by their father into the vineyard to work. One of them refuses, but goes to work anyway later. One of them says they are going to, but never actually ends up working.

Everyone knows it was the first son who did the father’s will. No questions there.

But Jesus looks the priests and leaders straight in the eye and all false distortions fall away:

“ Yes, and I tell you that crooks and whores are going to preced you into God’s kingdom. John came to you showing the right road. You turned your noses at him, but the crooks and whores believed him. Even when you saw their changed lives, you didn’t care enough to change and believe him.” (The Message 32)

Photo by: Chris
(http://vivid-blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/fun-house-mirrors.html)

Staring into the funhouse mirror, these leaders thought they were being faithful by saying the right words and going through the right motions. But they were so busy looking at the faults of others that they never took the time to see themselves as they truly were. They never took the time to actually live out God’s will. They never stepped away from the mirror to see their own sin and to repent.

As Christians today, that is often our greatest failing. We get so wrapped up in being a part of the church, in wearing the name of Christian, in spouting off moral precepts, that we forget to look at ourselves.

When we let Jesus show us who we truly are… a hard and difficult process… may we have the courage to look away from the mirror and into the eyes of our Savior. May we have the courage to follow him.

But while we are talking about distortions, I think it is also important to look at the flip side of the distortion… the one that makes you look smaller than you really are. That shrinks your head and whittles your body away to nothing and makes you small like a child.

In the story of those two sons, there was the one who said he would obey his father but never did.

And then there is the story of the one who said he wouldn’t.

I always wonder about what makes him say no.

Did he have other things to do? Kids to take to soccer practice, maybe?

Was he planning on other less than noble deeds like going out and getting drunk with his friends?

Did he doubt his ability to actually perform the work?

Was he just being stubborn?

Whatever was going through the first son’s mind… he refused to do the will of his father.

Just as there are many of us who have been in the church from the beginning of our lives, there are many here this morning who took a long time to get here. We had other things to keep us busy, distractions, feelings of unworthiness, and the pride of wanting to do things our own way.

But our false images of ourselves can fall away too. Like the tax collectors and the prostitutes, we can turn around, repent, and say yes… even if we have spent our whole lives up to this point saying no. We can see our true selves, and then lay our lives at the feet of Jesus and follow him.

When we really engage with Jesus, our carnival mirror distortions come into focus. And every single time we find out that he has very little care for what our lives have been in the past but really wants to know if we are going to let go of those funhouse mirrors, take off our false perceptions and see his reality instead. Jesus does not want our distorted image of ourselves… Jesus was us. He wants us to believe in him and to follow him.

As Paul wrote in Philippians, Jesus laid aside his glory to become one of us. He humbled himself even to the point of death on the cross so that each one of us could see the truth – that Jesus is Lord and that he is our reality.

Everything that we do, everything that we have, everything that we are comes from God. That is the truth we find when we look him face to face. He turns our lives upside down and yet does not leave us on unsteady ground.

No, he invites us to join in the heavenly parade of the crooks and the prostitutes, the gamblers and the addicts, the self-righteous and the stubborn… Jesus invites us to take our place among all of those who have said goodbye to their old ways and are now marching joyfully toward heaven.

Amen and Amen.

do I look/act like a pastor?

Posted on August 23, 20112 Comments

Today, a young man wandered into our church building and needed a place to sit for a while. He looked like he was having a hard time and wanted a quiet place to think, pray, wrestle.

I invited him upstairs to our sanctuary and told him he was welcome to stay as long as he needed to.

In the middle of the day, I had to run a few errands, so I crept upstairs to see if he was ready to go. Bent over in prayer, I didn’t have the heart to ask him to leave. I let him know I would have to go, but that the door would be unlocked and he could stay in peace. He was grateful… evidently he had already tried another church in town and it had been closed. I tried to think if any of the other churches would have staff present at that time of day and I honestly wasn’t sure. It is a small town and pastors are often visiting or in meetings. We can’t all afford full time staff for the office. And often our buildings are closed and locked when there are not people present. It is a sad, but honest reality.

photo by: Dennis Rassing

About 45 minutes later, I came back in. I checked on him and asked if he was okay. I asked if he needed anything. He didn’t really seem to want to talk. So I left him to sit and made my way back downstairs.

He came down later and asked if the Catholic church in town had a confessional. I gently explained that our local priest had three congregations and I wasn’t sure if he was here in Marengo today. He lowered his shoulders and left the building, thanking me for the use of the space.

As a few minutes went by, I wondered why I had not offered to hear his confession. Mediated individual confession is not something we do often in the Wesleyan traditions. Often, our prayers are between us and God and the presence of a pastor/priest is not always considered. We corporately offer confession and we leave space for silent individual confession, but it is not thought of as a means of grace in the same way it is in other traditions. It didn’t cross my mind, to be honest. Well, not until he was already gone. Maybe I doubted my ability to offer what he was looking for.

But then I began to wonder if he had even thought of me as a pastor. He walked into the church and saw me sitting behind a desk. I could have been anyone. A secretary, a volunteer. Was there anything about me that would have led him to believe that I was someone who was willing and able to offer forgiveness and grace to him? That I have been called to God to offer prayer and time and the word with him? Or did he simply see a nice young woman sitting behind a desk, who offered a place to sit for a while? As he asked about the local Catholic church, was his background such that he would have even considered a female to be someone he could talk with about what was on his mind?

For the first time in a long time, I wished that I had been wearing a clerical collar in the office. I wished I had a name tag on that said “Pastor Katie.” I know I told him my name and I asked for his, but now I can’t remember if I had mentioned I was the pastor. We don’t normally have folks walk in off the street, but it does happen. And I want them to know that I am here for them… and in a small town like this, I want them to know that a pastor is available and willing to minister to them in whatever way that they need. In some ways, I feel like I failed in that today. I take a lot for granted and I get comfortable in my own skin in the office. I didn’t think intentionally about carving out space for my pastoral role regarding this particular person.

But then again, maybe space was all he needed. A friendly face, a non-judgmental smile, a place to sit.

That young man remains in my prayers. I don’t know where he came from or where he is going. I pray that although I wasn’t the person he turned to, and although I might not have responded the way I should have, that he will find the peace and the comfort that he is seeking.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Posted on March 17, 2011Leave a comment

The world we live in today has radically changed.

The people in the world have changed.

And we haven’t quite figured out what that means… yet.

At the risk of sounding like an old, worn out, cranky person, I can’t figure out what is wrong with kids these days.

That’s at least where this post starts from. A frustration with the young people I work with week to week in youth group. They are energetic, quick to pick fights, easily berate and offend one another, like to have fun, push buttons, and exhaust me on Wednesday nights.

I’m not trained to be a youth minister. And the lack of respect for us as leaders and for one another as peers really drains and frustrates me. I’m not sure how to respond, how to build the trust that leads to respect, how to encourage them to think about what another person is going through. I’m stuck. But I love these kids and I’m going to keep at it.

What I have realized however, is that this is not just a problem I’m having with one particular group of kids.

Lack of respect is a larger societal problem.

And I think it has everything to do with authority.

I had read Carol Howard Merritt’s Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation a couple of months ago. In her book, she talks about the diffusion of authority, the growth of grassroots and networked communities.

I love this reality. I love the fact that more people have a voice and power and the ability to determine their own destiny.

Yet at the same time, I live in institutional structures that depend on authority and respect in order to work.

The role of the pastor used to carry with it respect and authority. The pastor was a leader in the community and people listened to what the pastor said. That is not the case, today, as people double check what their pastor says with what the latest television evangelist or popular religion book says. On the one hand, I applaud these efforts. But it makes it awfully hard to encourage my church to think in a new way when they keep hearing different messages from other places.

But not only pastors have this problem. So do teachers. So do medical professionals. So do scientists. So do community leaders. As power is distributed and shared, as knowledge is filtered downward, everyone thinks they know it all… or at the very least have access to the information.

Take the field of medicine for example. I’m not feeling well and so I check some online database and think I know what I have. So I go to my doctor and present my symptoms and now I have colored my answers with what I think I have. If my doctor suggest something else or running tests, I look for a second opinion. My doctor has to worry about me suing them or governmental laws and regulations and their own paychecks.

The fact that we all have power means that we no longer trust and respect one another. We are quick to assume the worst. We are not willing to see another person as our partner, but as a threat to what we know and believe and hold to be true.

We are living in this strange “inbetween” place. The postmodern diffusion of authority is a good thing… but our society has not yet fully adapted and been transformed to this new reality. We are living with feet in both worlds – one in which we have power and knowledge and another where there are experts in their field who have answers we need.

The simple truth is… we need experts. We need people who truly focus and go deep in certain areas of knowledge to ask questions you can only ask and answer if you live in that field.

I cannot spend my lifetime becoming proficient in Greek and weather patterns and geometry and quantum mechanics and the policy implications of petroleum based energy.

But for the decisions I make in my daily life, I might need access to that knowledge.

So, we need conversation. We need a two-way path between those who know things and those who have questions and insights from another perspective.

That cannot happen unless we respect one another. Unless we can ask questions without demonizing. Unless we can see the person sitting next to us as a human being who has just as much claim and voice and power as we do . Unless we are willing to assume that someone else just might have our best interests in mind. And unless we are ourselves willing to learn, to be taught, and to work for the common good.

What does all of this mean for postmodern youth ministry?

I think first of all it means that I have to respect the experiences and struggles that my youth are experiencing. I need to hear what they say and make sure they have a voice and are heard.

This entails not only personally listening, but also making sure that they are heard and respected by one another. The “how” of this first point is something I’m still working out. It works much better in smaller groups, but we just don’t have the number of adults needed to have small groups.

This has practical implications for how we plan our activities, the kind of ownership we give to our youth, and the rules/covenant we make with one another.

Second, as adults, we have to build our own trust with the youth from scratch. It doesn’t just come with the job. Just because I am 10-15 years older than they are and I’m a pastor does not mean they will listen to me. And every mistake, every slip up, will set us back all the way to the beginning.

This is part of the reality of our “inbetween times.” We simply wait for authority to rub us the wrong way and their cred is completely gone. Discounted. Done. If a teacher makes one mistake, they are colored that way forever. If a pastor says something you don’t like or agree with, you are out the door or stop giving. If a doctor makes one mistake, the patient goes elsewhere. There is no room for grace with the limited authority figures we do have.

Third, we need a structure and a covenant to get us through this. Respect is not going to be the first impulse of our relationships with one another and so we need to find ways of holding one another accountable. At the beginning of this school year, we worked hard to make a list of five things we would all agree to do in our life together.

But it has to stick. Our kids have to believe in what those things say. We as adults have to live by those rules ourselves. And we need to revisit it on a regular basis to remind ourselves of who we are and why we are here.

I don’t have the answers to this problem. Part of me wants to start from scratch, because what we are currently doing in our programs and relationship building is not working. All I do know is that our respect for one another, our ability to honor the authority each person brings, has to be the foundation for any work we do with one another.

the world is my parish

Posted on February 28, 2011Leave a comment

Bishop Trimble recently reminded a group of young clergy that we are not appointed to congregations… we are appointed to communities.

It was something I had not really considered before he made that statement… and it was a refreshing thought.

In many ways, I had assumed that my ministry was both in my church and in the community that surrounds it. That’s kind of the way my missionally-minded brain works.

But since he spoke them out loud, I have really taken his words to heart and have felt emboldened in the work I do “out there.”

If I’m honest, it might be one of my favorite parts of my job.

Way back when… okay, only three or four years ago… wait… holy crap… seven or eight years ago!… I thought I was called to be a deacon. I felt that my ministry was as much about being out in the world as it ever was to be in a congregation. I heard God calling me to be a bridge between the church and the world. And that is the essence of what I understood the ministry of a deacon to be.

But then this little whisper started to tug at my soul. It was the sacraments. The bread and the wine and the water kept speaking to me. And then they took hold. My ministry might include the world… but God was also calling me to use the church as the vehicle of my ministry. God was calling me to break bread as much as he was calling me to break barriers.

Long story short… my journey has come full circle. I am now an ordained elder with sacramental authority AND I get to work in my community. God had a plan long before I could ever see it or understand it.

I’ve blogged before about my outreach and relationship building through funerals and weddings in the larger community. I have been the main organizer around the community worship in the park for the last two years – an amazing opportunity to share in worship with one another AND to share in the one loaf and the one cup.

What I have not done as well in my first three years of ministry was to get involved actively transforming the community. But this year, my work with youth got to me. I realized I had to go deeper to help them. And somehow I’m now on a school improvement advisory committee and hosting an ongoing conversation about how the community can better support and encourage our youth.

This work is so completely different from what I do on a day to day basis in the church. Much of that difference has to do with having the authority of a pastor.

My ministry in my congregation is ministry “with” not ministry “for.” I am not someone who throws around my weight… instead I see my role as empowering my people to do ministry themselves. I would rather work alongside my parishoners than lead them.

But in the community, the role of the pastor takes on a different flavor. As one youth parent said a couple of weeks ago, “When I go to the school office and talk about a problem, it’s more of the same. When Pastor Katie says something, they listen.”

To be honest, that authority scares me a little. But it is also exciting. God has put me in a place where I can speak on behalf of these parents and I have a powerful voice. God has put me in a place where I can make connections between people and provide a literal space for those new relationships. God has put me in a place where I have a real and tangible ability to make a difference.

Tonight, our little community group met again. And while the start of this journey is small and the momentum is slow, I can already sense the possibilities. I am energized by the true and living hope that God is doing something in Marengo. And I pray with thanksgiving that I get to be a part of that work.

Taking Authority

Posted on January 10, 20112 Comments

In her book Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation, Carol Howard Merritt discusses the “diffusion of authority,” the empowerment of the fringes, and the “celebration of noncelebrity” in her chapter on Redistributing Authority.

As I read those words, I began to feel a strange sense of validation for what I am doing. I have a voice. I have the ability to write. I have a conversation that I want to start. I want to participate. But I don’t want to do it alone.

This whole blogging adventure has been, fundamentally, about maintaining the connections with colleagues and schools of thought that have fed my theological and ecclesiastical development. It is about hanging on tightly to those threads of tradition that have sustained my faith. It is about picking up pieces scrapped by others, deemed unworthy, and trying to figure out what we need to hear about God from them.

And at times, it seems silly.

At times, I find myself floundering around, trying to make sense of the world around me.

At times, I’m wrestling by myself with questions that have no real answers.

At times, I feel a little overwhelmed by the system and all of the things that I am supposed to do, all of the details of ministry.

At times, I really do not have the time to be a part of this kind of time intensive dialogue.

At times, I don’t have the energy to fight the man and to call out the parts of our tradition and practice that trouble me.

And at times, I really really really want to share something and it’s not appropriate to do so yet. Not enough time and space has passed to allow the insights of a particular experience to be shared.

So I give up here and there. I flounder. I don’t claim the authority I do have. I feel that what I’m doing here is not really very important.

But then, today, I find myself surrounded by colleagues in ministry at an orders event and suddenly my name is called out for all to hear. Someone has pointed to my blog as a place where vital theological reflection by United Methodists is being done.

And I feel humbled.

And a little embarassed.

And more than a little encouraged to keep doing what I am doing.

To take authority.

To keep writing.

To keep thinking.

To continue the conversation.

To accept that although I may be a young pastor, a small town pastor, someone on the fringe, someone who hasn’t yet put in my years, that I still have something worthy to say.

To give myself space and permission to keep writing.