grief – Salvaged Faith

Help!

Posted on June 11, 2023Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 40:11-17; Matthew 26:36-39;

Good morning friends!

We find ourselves in the season of Pentecost.

The season of the Holy Spirit.

Those first disciples of Jesus were transformed into apostles…

leaders of a community of people that tapped into the power of God for good in the world.

You know, as much as we think about that phrase from the gospel of John…

that the world will know you are my disciples… they will know you are Christians… by how you love one another (John 13:35)…

I think this early Christian community was known by its prayer life.

Just after the ascension of Jesus, there were about 120 folks that were part of the Jesus movement who all gathered together.

Luke tells us that “all were united in their devotion to prayer.” (Acts 1:14)

And when Pentecost came ten days later… where were they?

Gathered together in prayer!

On that day, as their community grew by leaps and bounds, we are told that these thousands of new believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers.” (2:42)

And everyone around them was amazed by what they saw.

Prayer is powerful.

Prayer is power.

It is one of the key ways that we stay connected with God.

It is how we allow the Holy Spirit into our lives: our minds, hearts, and souls.

And as I thought about what I wanted to say to you in these last few weeks…

As I thought about what might be the most important thing I could leave you with…

I kept thinking about how important it is that we are a people of prayer.

It is part of our vision after all – isn’t it?

In Christ, we live a live of love, service, and prayer.

And I know you to be a praying people.

We knit and perl and crochet together prayers for others.

We add our neighbors and friends and family to our prayer list.

But I’ve noticed something else about this church…

We are great about praying for others…

but we sometimes struggle with lifting up prayers for ourselves.

Maybe it is because we don’t want to admit that we don’t have it all together…

Or because we don’t want to be seen as bragging about the good in our lives…

Or maybe we aren’t sure if it is something we need or deserve.

The writer Anne Lamott describes prayer as:

“…taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape.”

Did you hear that?

We might not be able to get it together… until AFTER we show up in such miserable shape.

You don’t have to have all the right words, or have it all figured out.

You just need to start.

Over these next three weeks, we are going to talk about what Anne Lamott describes as the essential prayers for our lives:

Help.

Thanks.

Wow.

When I think about those three prayers, but especially the first one, “Help!” I realize that God already knows what we need.

God already knows what is happening in our lives.

Really the question is… are we aware?

Can we be honest with ourselves?

Are we willing to admit that we are not in control?

Perhaps this kind of prayer is easy in moments of true desperation.

In 1815, the playwright Hannah More, described how, “under circumstances of distress, indeed, prayer is adopted with comparatively little reluctance; the mind, which knows not where to fly, flies to God. In agony, nature is no Atheist.”[i]

Later in World War I, people would talk about how there were no atheists in the trenches and foxholes.

In those moments when we truly have run out of options, and nothing is left, we cry out, “Help!”

In our scriptures for this morning, we hear two variations on this prayer.

The Psalmist finds themselves surrounded by evil and sin.

Troubles are piling up, counting more than the hairs on their head.

They cannot see a way out.

Their heart… their hope… fails them.

“O Lord, make haste to help me!”

As The Voice translation concludes this psalm:

“I am empty and need so much, but I know the Lord is thinking of me. You are my help; only You can save me, my True God. Please hurry.”

In the Gospel reading, Jesus himself is described as grieved and agitated.

He knows that betrayal and death are just around the corner and it is more than his soul can bear.

And so first, he cries out to his friends for help… “remain here, and stay awake with me.”

But then he cries out to God:

“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me…”

Save me… rescue me… from what I am about to go through.

There are those moments of true and utter desperation that show up in our lives.

Life and death moments…

Rock bottom moments…

When there is literally nothing else that we can do besides ask for help and prayer from those around us.

But I’m far more aware of those more everyday situations where we might need help and prayer, but we hesitate to speak up.

We hate the feeling of vulnerability and think that we should be stronger than we are.

I can do this on my own, we say.

We don’t want to bother others with what we are going through.

Or we worry about what they might think of us if they knew that we were having a hard time.

Most of you don’t know my spouse, Brandon, because he’s not a “churchy” guy.

Deeper than that, he has some experiences that have put him off from religion and we’ve established some good boundaries to help respect one another’s beliefs and needs.

I so appreciate all of you in this church for also doing so and allowing him to be who he is.

Just over two years ago, we found ourselves going through a rough patch.

I have preached on mental health, talked about suicide and depression, walked with many of you through those moments… but suddenly, there it was on my own doorstep.

Brandon was experiencing feelings of hopelessness and depression and anxiety… and we were able to reach out and get him connected with the resources and therapies that he needed.

But there were some incredibly difficult moments along the way, including a 9-1-1 call in the middle of the night when he had a poor reaction to a change in one of his medications.

And as much as Brandon needed help in those moments, so did I.

I knew I couldn’t fix it… but that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel shame or guilt for not being able to do so.

I needed help and strength to walk that journey with him.

And I’m so grateful for a group of friends and colleagues who answered midnight texts and kept checking in on us and allowing me to vent when I needed to do so.

I’m so grateful for members of this staff and SPRC committee that created a safe space for me to share and talk about what was going on and who kept Brandon and I in your prayers.

But as I was thinking about this sermon, I also keep asking myself why I didn’t share all of this with all of you while it was happening.

Part of the reason is that Brandon himself was not ready to talk about it in a bigger way… and with worship being online, I didn’t want to share more of his story in such a public space…

It is one of the reasons why we aren’t sharing more intimate details and names of prayer requests in worship… because we are now livestreaming worship every week, we hold those more personal details for our internal prayer lists.

But I also think my own hesitation to share in a bigger way reflects why it is difficult for all of us.

We don’t want to bother others.

Or we don’t want it to change our relationship with them… worried that they will only see our weakness.

Or you know what… maybe we simply want a space in our lives where we can pretend that everything is okay.

As your pastor, I think I worried about it impacting my ability to show up in the way you needed me to… even though, it was impacting my ability to show up in the ways you needed me to.

And what I needed, but maybe was unable to communicate, was some extra grace as I spent a bit more time at home and when I couldn’t be as available as I wanted to be.

I just kept doing what I could, hoping that things would be okay.

I fumbled along… rather than asking for your prayers.

Rather than crying out, “Help!”

Lamott describes this as the hardest prayer, because we are admitting defeat:

“You have to surrender, which is the hardest thing any of us do, ever.”

It is not easy to say, “I can’t fix this.”

We struggle with admitting that things are not okay… sometimes even to ourselves.

But then Lamott goes on to say: “a lot of the time we don’t know when we’re surrendering that we’re actually, at the same time… establishing connection… to a power greater than ourselves.”[ii]

We “open ourselves to being helped by something, some force, some friends, some something.”

When we turn to God and when we turn to our fellow disciples with a prayer of “help!” we don’t just find answers… we find community.

We find people who are not just willing, but eager, to walk alongside us.

We find a God who has always been faithful and good and who will never stop loving and caring for us.

It is why the Psalmist is able to not just cry out for help, but to acknowledge the joy that comes to those who seek him.

And it is why Jesus, in his great prayer of desperation can reconnect with his Father, placing his life in God’s hands… Not my will, but yours.

In saying, I trust you with this… we are also saying, I am in relationship with you.

Friends, when we share our own prayers for help with each other, we are saying to one another:

I believe that you care for me.

I trust that you are in this with me.

And I know the power of God that is with us will continue to give us strength not just for this, but for anything that might come our way.

In asking for help, we are creating the opportunity for us to be blessed by one another.

That doesn’t mean that you need to feel pressure to air all your struggles with the whole body.

It is perfectly okay to have a smaller group of friends and disciples that you trust to walk with you… a friend or two that you know you can be honest and vulnerable with.

Even Jesus chose to take along just a few disciples for his intimate time of prayer in the garden.

I needed that during my struggles… and was so grateful I had it.

But I also want you to remember and to know that this is a praying church.

That if you ask for help and are willing to be vulnerable and share those needs with us, we will be here for you.

We will be united in our prayers, quick and eager to help and respond and show up with whatever might be needed.

Like that early Christian community, we are people who love one another, want what is best for one another, and are willing to share and surround each other with the love and grace and mercy of God.

And I think that when we have the courage to be vulnerable and surrender, we will find that God will simply pour out even more power and strength upon us.

May it be so.

Amen.

[i] 1815, An Essay on the Character and Practical Writings of Saint Paul by Hannah More, Volume 2 of 2, Fourth Edition, Chapter 19, Quote Page 232, Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, London.

[ii] https://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/164814269/anne-lamott-distills-prayer-into-help-thanks-wowMusic:

Again & Again, the Sun Rises

Posted on April 4, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Mark 16: 1-8

Three women made their way to a lonely tomb just after sunrise…

Have you ever thought about a sunrise? Scientifically speaking, it happens every single day, at every single moment, somewhere across this globe. Our planet travels each year in an orbit that is 584 million miles in circumference, but every twenty four hours we make a full rotation, spinning at a pace of 1000 miles per hour. And every time we moment we complete that rotation, the sun appears again over the horizon.

The sun always rises. But we often sleep right through it. Or it is cloudy. Or our view is obstructed. Rarely do we experience or appreciate a sunrise in all of its glory.

I remember one visit with my family to the Hawaiian islands. We tried to catch the sunset every single day, but seeing the sunrise was almost impossible. Our location on the island meant that a chain of mountains obscured the view. So we rented a car overnight, got up while it was still dark, and made a 45 minute drive to a part of the island where we would be able to see the sun rise over the ocean… And it was cloudy.

But you know what? The sun still rose that morning. The sun rises every morning. Again and Again, the earth spins and the sun comes into view. Even if we can’t see it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how Mark tells the story of the resurrection. Three women made their way to a lonely tomb just after sunrise. There is no joy in this journey, only profound grief. Another morning is another reminder that their nightmare was real. Jesus was dead and it must have felt as if the earth had stopped spinning and the sun would never rise again. Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome could only face the day together.

Together they were journeying to the place where they laid his body. They were going to mourn. They were going to do what so many of us have not had the opportunity to do in this pandemic… to provide what they thought was a proper burial. Not the rushed and distant goodbye that came on Friday when Joseph of Arimathea placed his body in the tomb before sunset. But a real goodbye. Where they would touch and anoint his body with spices. Where they would weep and mourn and comfort one another.

As they neared the tomb, they began to wonder what on earth they were doing. Were the Romans who had crucified their teacher watching them? If they made it there safely, how would they roll back the stone on their own? But maybe even more than these immediate concerns, they had to be wondering… what’s next? Would they, could they, return to their old lives? With Jesus dead, none of the disciples seemed prepared to continue his work. For all the women knew, those men had scattered in the nights before… maybe never to return again. It all seemed to have ended on the cross. All their hopes. All their dreams. All the promises. It was finished. But despite their doubts and fears, they kept moving forward, step by step, clutching one another’s hands, until they came to the place where he had been laid.

What they find there is clouded… confusing… disorienting. Nothing was what they expected. The stone was gone. Inside, a young man sat on the cold, hard slab just inside the tomb. What was he doing there? And where was the body of Jesus? Where they in the right place? Were they hallucinating? The women huddled together, trembling, speechless…

And then the man spoke: “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus, but he isn’t here! He has been raised just like he promised. Go – tell the disciples, especially Peter, that Jesus will meet you in Galilee.” In their grief, and confusion, and weariness, I’m not sure the women heard a single word the man said. Scripture tells us that overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb and said nothing… to anyone…

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus never appears in his resurrected glory. There is no witnessing from the disciples. No sharing of the good news. In part, Mark ends his story this way because all along Mark has been leading us on a journey. Every time the disciples make a mistake and look like bumbling idiots, we learn something about who Jesus is. Every time they fail, we learn more about what it means to follow God. And when the women come to the tomb in their grief, we are invited to bring our grief as well.

And oh what grief we carry… The grief of not being inside our building…The grief of the meals and the celebrations we have missed… The unimaginable loss of life to the coronavirus, not simply the 2.7 million lives that are gone, but also the ones closest to you. We might not feel like shouting Alleluias in the wake of mass shootings or racial tension or the drowning of Iowa State students or the images from our border.

Debie Thomas reminded me in her words this week, “We’ve witnessed and/or sustained losses on a scale we’ve barely begun to register, much less to grieve. We’re weary, we’re numb, we’re bewildered, we’re sad.” (https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay)

And so like Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, we might hear the words of the young man who is sitting in the tomb… “Christ is risen” And in some part of our minds we might know that they are, as Thomas writes, “the most consequential words we’ve ever heard…” Christ is risen! But when we look at the world around us, how can this be true? Maybe it’s not possible to fully wrap our minds around what Thomas calls “God’s incomprensible work of redemption” as it “collides in real time with the broken bewilderment of our lives.”

But then I remember… even on a dark and stormy morning… the sun will rise. Even when our view is obscured… the sun will rise. Even when our eyes are closed or filled with tears… the sun will rise. Even when night has fallen in one part of the world… the sun is rising… always rising… somewhere in the world. Rev. T. Denise Anderson writes, “resurrection still came, even if they weren’t yet able to receive it… Again and again, the sun rises on a new day, often without embrace or acknowledgement. The same is true of resurrection. Whether or not we discern what’s happening, God is literally and figuratively turning the world around!”

Jesus is not cold and dead and lifeless in a tomb, but out there, loose in the world, ready to change everything. In her painting, Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity imagines “what the women see in the moment before they turn to flee from the tomb.” A horizon breaking open… The heavens blooming like a flower… Sacred darkness that lingers… A winding path illuminated with promise… The sun has risen…The Son of God has risen…

“The Promise” , Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity | A Sanctified Art | www.sanctifiedart.org

You know, there are times when the good news of the resurrection of Jesus seems as common to us as a sunrise. We sleep through it. We expect it. We take it for granted. We no longer marvel at the wonder or stand in awe at the miracle. And we say nothing to anyone about it… not out of fear, but complacency…

But there are other times… maybe like these times… when the good news of the resurrection is like a brilliant and miraculous sunrise that we aren’t able to see… and we simply have to trust it is there.

My friend, and the head of Discipleship Ministries for the United Methodist Church, Rev. Junius B. Dotson was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January and died from the disease at the end of February. But in a devotion he wrote during that time he reminded us of Jeremiah’s hope in God’s promises from Lamentations: “We are sick at our very hearts and we can hardly see through our tears, but You, O Lord, are King forever… and You will rule to the end of time.” (Lamentations 5:17,19) Sometimes our eyes are filled with tears and the skies are filled with clouds and we can hardly see the promise. We can’t see the sun rising.

But the good news from the gospel of Mark is that whether or not we believe it. Whether or not we understand it. Even if we can’t see it. The tomb is empty. Death has been defeated. Jesus is alive. And this story is not over. Your story is not over. The Kingdom story is not over.

Again and again, the sun will rise.

Again & Again, We Are Called to Listen

Posted on February 28, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Mark 8:31-9:8

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I have been thinking this week about my grandfather.

A little less than a year ago he died and in the weeks to follow, my little brother discovered online a memoir my Grandpa Earl had written for a booklet called “Facing Bereavement” from Alpha Ministries.

He tells of how he and my Grandma Doni were faithful churchgoers for years… until the spring of 1987.

My aunt, Candy, died at the age of 32 from an incurable brain tumor and they stopped going to church. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, but my grandpa was angry. He found ways to just not be available.

Jennifer Stern writes that “grief, like drowning, an be deceptively quiet… those who live with grief often appear “okay”… they look like they are floating (if not swimming) yet on the inside they feel they are drowning…. It takes herculean effort to stay afloat during the rough waters of grief.” [1]

Grandpa Earl tried to stay afloat and numb his pain by traveling extensively for work and numbing it through heavy drinking. My grandma kept asking him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. He writes, “Throughout this time, I was drinking Scotch every night and I didn’t think I could stop – I didn’t really want to. I didn’t have the willpower. I was still mad.”

My grandma didn’t drink, but one day she had enough of my grandpa’s behavior. She got drunk, floated out into the lake and might have drowned had my grandpa not found her. He thought she was trying to commit suicide, but after she yelled at him for hours, he came to understand just how unhappy she had been. A truth he hadn’t been able to hear until he dove into the water to drag her back to the dock.

My grandpa had been so caught up in his own pain, he couldn’t see or hear hers. He made a home in his anger and drinking and distance. He couldn’t see how his actions were causing further harm because he lived in a different reality. A false reality.

Until my grandmother was finally able to get through to him with a hard truth.

The next day, he made a commitment to never drink again.

And he kept that promise.

Together, they found ways to confront the reality of their loss. Together, they found ways to heal. Together, they found faith again.

The truth is, we all get stuck in our own pain.

We all get caught up false realities we think are good for us, whether they are narratives of success, or the rose-colored glasses of our privilege, or illusions that everything is okay when it is not.

Again and again, we mess up and refuse to see hard truths.

Rev. T. Denise Anderson rightly notes that “we don’t exactly incentivize the telling of hard truths.” After all, “hard truths trouble the waters of our understanding and challenge notions of what is real.”

Patterns of “shame, guilt, ignorance, or inaction” can trap us in situations that feel familiar and comfortable, when reality is far more difficult to accept.

We drive past the person looking for a handout on the street corner and ignore the problems of homelessness in our city.

We rush to make a neighbor feel better rather than actually listening to their story.

We lift up our few relationships with people of color instead of confessing the systemic racial injustices that plague our church and nation.

We drown our sorrows rather than holding them in the light and seeking healing.

In our scripture for today, Peter, likewise, found himself confronted with some hard truths.

Truths that shook the core of his being.

He seems like he has it all together, just like my grandpa did.

After all, Peter has been walking in the footsteps of Jesus for months.

He had a front-row seat to the inbreaking Kingdom of God!

And so when Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter knew the answer.

“You are the Messiah.”

It sounds like the right answer, but… perhaps Peter wasn’t actually pay attention.

In this time, the Messiah, the Christ, “the anointed one,” came with numerous interpretations.

Some talked of a king who would rule with divine authority.

Others believed the Messiah would return at the end of days to bring judgment.

Still others hoped for a spiritual leader who would reform the people.

When Jesus starts to say things HIS messiah would never say: words like suffering, rejection, and death, the text says Peter takes hold of Jesus and rebukes him.

“No, no, no, Jesus… you have it all wrong…”

Like Peter, we want it to be easy.

We want to pretend that everything will magically be better.

We’d like to think that we can show up for church once and a while and nothing more will be expected of us until we arrive at the pearly gates.

We have had enough death and suffering… especially in Covid times.

We’re tired of living in Lent.

We’d rather plead ignorance, or avert our eyes, or numb reality away with our favorite vice.

“No, no, no, Jesus… you have it all wrong…”

But Jesus challenges those false narratives with a dose of hard truth.

As Debie Thomas reminds us, we cannot replace the cross with a shortcut. [2]

If we want to be a disciple, we must take up the cross.

If we want to save our lives, we must let them go.

And truth be told… a lot of us really are not ready to embrace that reality.

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A few days later, Peter and some other disciples find themselves on a mountain top where Jesus is transfigured before their very eyes.

God’s power and presence is revealed in their midst.

The sight of Moses and Elijah confirms the role of Jesus in the world.

Surely, Peter gets it now… right?

Only, again.. and again… he wants it to be easy.

Or rather, the possibility of having to actually accept this reality is terrifying.

He thinks maybe there is an “out” from all this talk about crosses and suffering and death:

“It’s good to be here… let’s build a shelter. Let’s start a church. Let’s stay right here in this place and not leave.”

But the clouds roll in and a voice rumbles from the heavens… “This is my Son! Listen to him!”

Rev. T. Denise Anderson asks: Are we willing to listen to hard truths?

“Or are we committed to the status quo because, though it may be imperfect, it’s at least familiar?”

We tend to protect ourselves with numbness or apathy, or by plowing ahead focusing only on our own needs and desires without concern for anyone else.

Maybe this call to listen, to pay attention, to be aware, is actually what allows us to take up our cross.

Maybe it is what finally allows us to step outside of what Debie Thomas names as those vicious cycles we embrace again and again… cycles of denial and acquisition, success and violence, false realities that try to “cheat death, but in fact rob us of… abundant life.”

What if taking up our cross is not about denying the world, but opening ourselves to the suffering of the world?

We “experience the abundant life Jesus offers,” Thomas writes, “by accepting – against all the lies of my culture – that I will die, and trusting in Jesus’s assurance that I will rise again.”

And once we truly listen and understand that reality, we cannot help but work to make it a reality for others as well.

For a long time, Peter watched as the Kingdom of God was breaking forth.

The hungry were fed.

Demons were cast out.

His own mother-in-law was healed.

“This guy is making everything better!” He must have thought.

But what Jesus offers is not an invitation to sit back and watch…

Jesus doesn’t say that once we get ours the work is done…

Jesus calls us to listen, to notice, to roll up our sleeves, to take up our cross, to labor for the Kingdom.

To stand in the midst of the world’s pain and see the hungry…

notice the demons and powers that would destroy….

Weep with the broken and grieving…

and then do something about it.

We experience God’s abundant life when we enter into the reality of the suffering of this world and give everything we can to bring about God’s reality.

That was the kind of legacy that my grandfather left.

When he lost my aunt, Candy, he tried to hide from the reality of that loss. He numbed away the pain and closed himself off from others.

When my grandmother died from the same kind of tumor in 2001, he embraced the cross of Jesus Christ.

He learned to listen not only to God, but to his own pain and to the pain of the world.

He decided to let go of trying to do it all his own way and decided to allow others to help. To allow God to help.

My grandpa wrote: “I know that until he calls me home I have a mission of reaching out, touching people, helping carry his word in any way that’s his will.”

Grandpa Earl got involved in the church’s after school program and hung out with the kiddos every afternoon… building with blocks, reading stories, singing songs.

He started visiting people who were in trouble and needed someone to talk to, whether they were home or in the hospital.

He became involved in recovery ministry and A/A and made his famous five-pound-fudge to take to meetings.

When he listened to his own pain, and saw how God was moving through it, he was able to listen to the pain of others, and help them find a way through as well.

As Anderson reminds us, “Again and again, we are implored to listen, especially when what we hear is unsettling.” Again and again, God shows us a path through the difficulties of this world… through even death itself… to abundant life.

May we hear… and may we act.

[1] https://transformativegrief.com/2018/04/30/drowning-doesnt-always-look-like-drowning-neither-does-grief/

[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2930-gains-and-losses

No Christmas Without Joy and Acceptance

Posted on December 13, 2020Leave a comment

All through this Advent season we are exploring the complicated family tree of Jesus of Nazareth Matthew shares with us.
Their stories are a legacy of courage and faith, justice and peace, that shape how we understand our Savior in the manger of Bethlehem.
Today, we remember that there would be no Christmas, no Jesus, no salvation without Ruth.
Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Obed was the father of Jesse.
Jesse was the father of David the king. (Matthew 1: 5-6)
So let us listen today, for how God moves through unexpected people and in unexpected ways to bring to us a redeemer…

Our story begins in Bethlehem itself.
Bethlehem, or “House of Bread.”
A place of abundance is overrun by famine.
Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, had two sons and lived contently within the city in the time of the judges.
It was a time without a centralized government, with great instability and turmoil.
When they could no longer make a future for themselves within their hometown, they fled and became refugees.
We might see their faces in the images of refugees from Syria and Iraq and northern Africa today… Camping in muddy fields, clothes wet from the journey, their only possessions what they could carry, completely unsure if they will be welcomed wherever they arrive.
The place they come to call home is the land of Moab.
Now, it is important at this point to consider what it meant for them to find a home here. The Moabites were actually distant cousins of the Israelites, tracing their lineage all the way back to Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his daughters.
The Ammonites and the Moabites are their descendants and were regarded with disdain and suspicion.
As the story of the people of Israel continues, these distant cousins became enemies.
They refused hospitality to the Israelites as they fled from Egypt and watched with great unease as Joshua and his people conquered the land.
Our story today is just one generation removed from this conflict, yet Naomi and Elimelech seek refuge there.
Just as they establish themselves, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi and her two boys, Mahlon and Kilion.
Years pass. They grow up and they each marry women from that land… Moabite women… Ruth and Orpah.
But then one son after the other dies.
As Helen Pearson notes, “This healthy family had earlier departed a sick land only to become sick in a healthy land. Death canceled hope, and Naomi became a stranger in a strange land.” (p. 115)
She plans to return to Bethlehem to live as a widow… resigned to beg for the rest of her sad and bitter life. And she sends the Moabite daughters-in-law away, releasing them from any obligations with the opportunity to start anew.
Naomi prays that God would show them the same kind of loving-kindness, chesed, that they and their people had shown to them as strangers.
They weep. They grieve. They lament all they have lost.
And then… one of these daughters, Ruth, refuses to leave Naomi’s side.
It is an act of loving-kindness… unmerited love and grace and mercy shown to Naomi.
Even more than that.
Ruth casts her lot with the God of Naomi.
Ruth commits herself to a life where she will be the stranger and the foreigner, a grieving widow with no tangible possibilities.

You know, this year we have ourselves experienced grief, loss, tragedy, and disruption.
The loss of jobs and income.
The grief over loved ones we have lost.
The disruption of our routines where everything normal and familiar was taken from us.
We have been cut off from one another and have had to miss out on times of celebration.
There have been moments where we felt like Naomi and Ruth in this moment… grieving, lonely, and depressed.
As they make the journey back to Bethlehem, this despair so overtakes Naomi that she begs people to call her Mara – The Bitter One.

What she fails to recognize in this moment is that she is, in fact, not alone.
Ruth is by her side.
She had not been completely abandoned.
And friends… you have not been abandoned in this season either.
In small ways and in big ways, we have walked with each other through the dark and shadowy valleys and show up with cards and calls and food and connection.

Ruth takes the initiative to provide for them by going out to glean in the fields.
She is essentially going to pick up the small grains that are left on the ground after the harvesters have done their work.
It was back-breaking work, demeaning work, dangerous work.
She was a Moabite stranger, with no one to look out for her, utterly at the mercy of the field hands.
Remember how Naomi prayed that God would show her daughters-in-law kindness?
While she is out there working, a man named Boaz sees her.
Boaz, the son of Salmon, whose mother was Rahab.
Rahab the prostitute.
Rahab who herself was a foreign woman.
Rahab who herself risked everything to secure a future for her family.
Rahab who had faith in the God of Israel.
Rahab who welcomed the spies in hospitality and in peace.
You can’t ignore that her story has impacted the character of her son.
Boaz is moved not only by her work-ethic, but also by the way in which she sacrificed and acted to stand beside Naomi. He decides to show her favor and protection.
He make sure she has access to the best fields, has plenty to eat and drink, and protects her from his own men.

This act of favor and kindness is like a spark of life for Naomi.
She realizes that Boaz was a distant relative, someone who could redeem her husband’s property and provide for their future.
The law of levirate marriage that we heard about in the story of Tamar couldn’t apply here because Naomi had no other children.
But a kinsman redeemer could intervene. As Helen Pearson notes, they had “the obligation and duty to provide security, especially for widows and the poor; to restore the honor and prestige of the family; and to protect the interests, property, and inheritance of his extended family.” (p. 128)
Boaz could act to protect Naomi, but Ruth would remain vulnerable.
And so Naomi hatches up a plan for them to both get what they needed.
Ruth would present herself to Boaz as a potential wife.
If I had more time today, we’d get into the details of this drunken encounter on the threshing floor, but let’s just say, Boaz is willing and eager to take Ruth as his own and to take on the role of redeeming Elimelech’s property.
After going through all of the proper channels, Boaz marries Ruth and protects the legacy of Elimelech, Kilian and Mahlon.
They give birth to a child, Obed, and Naomi rediscovers the meaning of joy and life and abundance through her grandchild.

One the scriptures we will explore this week in our daily devotions is Psalm 126.
It is a song that rings out in times of exile and struggle:
Lord, change our circumstances for the better, like dry streams in the desert waste!
Let those who plant with tears reap the harvest with joyful shouts.
Let those who go out, crying and carrying their seed,
Come home with joyful shouts, carrying bales of grain!
Ruth and Naomi went out with tears, but God acted in their lives and they came home with joyful shouts.
And as we continue this journey to the manger, we see their legacy in the story of Jesus.
You see, when Joseph discovered his fiancée was pregnant, he probably cried out: Lord, change our circumstances! But he stuck by Mary, like Ruth stuck by Naomi.
When the holy family had to feel to a strange land and flee from the wrath of Herod, they probably cried out: Lord, change our circumstances! But God journeyed with them, as God did these weary refugees.
All along the way, acts of hospitality and gifts of kindness sustained their parched spirits.
We see how Christ takes up this legacy as he acts to bring life and joy and abundance in the midst of moments of despair and hunger and longing.
He brings the dead to life.
He feeds the multitudes.
He shows compassion and kindness upon strangers and foreigners.
Those who plant with tears reap a harvest of joyful shouts.

In this season of Advent, we are called to prepare our hearts and our lives for Jesus Christ.
We are called to make a home in our hearts for Christ to dwell.
And we do so by remembering the legacy of these faithful ancestors and allowing it to transform our own lives.
After all, there would have been no Christmas without Ruth.
When we find ourselves, as Naomi did, swallowed up by despair and grief, joy is discovered when we realize that others are journeying with us and that we are not, in fact, alone.
Your acts of connection, the cards you send and the calls you make, the cookies you drop off at a neighbor’s door… all of these things are like seeds of joy that you can plant every single day.
But I’m also struck by the larger forces that this story brings into focus.
This is a world in which asylum seekers and refugees who have left their homes with tears are crying out. At the end of 2019, an estimated 26 million people had sought refuge from violence war, famine and climate disasters. Another 33.4 million people were internally displaced, living in shelters and camps within their own country due to violence or disaster.
But we don’t have to even think globally to be aware of the deep need and hunger for support for people right here in our own neighborhood who rely upon the food pantry and our social services to stay in their homes or to make it through a long, cold winter.
Lord, change their circumstances for the better!
And then I realize that God acts through you and me.
God acted through the Moabites who welcomed refugees into their land.
And God acted through the compassionate hospitality and protection of Boaz and the community in Bethlehem that provided for Ruth and Naomi.
Your acts of kindness, generosity and welcome can make an incredible difference, changing circumstances, providing possibility, filling mouths with laugher and joy and abundance.
This next weekend, we are hosting a drive-through food drive for the DMARC Food Pantry Network. Let us pour out joy and abundance and grace and love to our neighbors during this difficult season.

Singing in the Valley

Posted on October 11, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Psalm 23 and Psalm 98:1-3

In May of this year, my family gathered in northwest Iowa to bury my grandpa.
I stood in front of those loved ones and recited those familiar words of the twenty-third Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd…
You know, we imagined that this was a temporary act of closure… a private graveside service that would give way to a much larger celebration of his life once the danger of the coronavirus subsided.
We are still waiting for that celebration.
I’ve walked beside so many of you through the valley of the shadow of death this year.
Your grieving, like mine, has often felt incomplete.

And I think part of the “incompleteness” is that there is so much to grieve.
There is so much we have lost…
So many we have lost…
So many ways of being that have been taken from us…
We have felt isolated.
Uncertain.
Alone.

And yet, we are not alone.
We are not alone in the sense that we are all going through this experience together.
And as a congregation, we are trying our hardest to help each one of you to feel connection in one way or another.
Whether it is a Zoom coffee time or a card from a child or a call from a staff member or a caring connection buddy, our hope is that you know that you are not alone.

But we are also not alone in the sense that the people of God have faced difficult times like these before.
We can often be so focused only on this moment in time, but if we zoom out and capture the larger picture of the biblical narrative, we find ourselves written into their stories.
Think of the ancient Israelites enslaved in Egypt…
Or the time of exile in Babylon…
Imagine what it must have been like to live through the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans…
The heartbreak and disorientation, grief and doubt, suffering and loneliness…
We hold those things in common with these faithful ancestors.

And it was in those trying moments that the people of God needed to remember that they were not alone, because God had never left their side.
And they turned to songs like those familiar words of comfort from the 23rd Psalm.
This hymn is not simply a text for funerals.
It is something we pray when we are in the valley.
In the depths of despair.
When evil and death and enemies surround us.
It is a wilderness song.
Even the imagery of the shepherd, the rod and the staff, remind us of trouble:
After all, a shepherd’s rod would hold off predators;
A staff would hook around the neck of a sheep caught in a crevice or bramble.
It is a promise that in the midst of whatever difficulty we might face, God was there.
God is there.
God brings hope and comfort and restoration and hope.
It is a hymn, a poem, a song that we use to cry out from those difficult places and imagine a way forward…
Imagine the joy…
Imagine the abundance…
Imagine the possibility…
All by the grace of God.

I’m reminded of the words of Sandra McCracken as she explains what it is like to sing our way forward:

I wrote the title track for the album, God’s Highway, with a friend of mine, Thad Cockrill and playing through the song it was actually a really dark season for me. I was kind of in a fog. And as we were writing, I remember trying to write and express how I was feeling. Thad, very pastorally, said, “You know the old spirituals would sing not about where we are in the moment. Not ‘my feet are tired’ and you know ‘I’m in a fog,’ but ‘My feet are strong. My eyes are clear.’” This way of singing ourselves forward. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with defiance, sometimes with great celebration.

When we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death we have to find ways to sing our way forward.
Sing our way forward with celebration and with joy.

All of which brings us to Psalm 98.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring this hymn, this prayer, as we think about what it means for us to be “together for joy.”

And we start with just the first three verses.
Like Psalm 23, when we read behind the lines, we remember that life was not always so grand for the people of God.
Why else would we need God’s right hand and holy arm to bring us victory?
Robert Alter notes that this word, victory, is actually rooted in the Hebrew word for rescue, which reminds me once again of the Shepherd’s rod and staff. (The Hebrew Bible – The Writings, p. 231)
While the specific enemy might not be specified, we are singing a new song because God is the one who can rescue us from the chaos, the struggle, the uncertainty, the despair.
In the face of these enemies…
In the face of the nations…
In the face of all that would destroy us…
we experience God’s bounty, God’s abundance, God’s restoration.
It’s like a table, prepared for us, in the presence of our enemies.
Anointing and blessing and overflowing…
How could we not sing when we remember God’s marvelous love?
How could we not rejoice in the face of God’s kindness and faithfulness?

Praise lifts us up from the valley…
Raises our spirits from the mire…
Sets our eyes on the truth of who we are:
Beloved children of God.

“Praise is a ladder for our spirits, a gift to help us climb up out of the shadows and into the light to get a new perspective on things, if only briefly. Praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation.” (Together For Joy)

I love that line… praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation.
It reorients us.
It helps us remember what is precious and what is essential.
And that, simply, is God.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Leadership Institute through the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
One of our keynote speakers was Ronald Heifetz.
Now, if you have ever read anything about adaptive leadership in the secular world… Heifetz was probably behind it.
For nearly twenty years, he has been consulting and teaching about what it means to lead in the world today… especially in the midst of difficult circumstances that require us to build new capacity and change the way we operate.
What I really appreciated about this particular lecture, however, is that he shared from his own faith tradition.
Heifetz talked about how the Jewish faith adapted after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem because of the leadership of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai.
In this valley of the shadow of death, the Jewish people turned their eyes in praise towards God and discovered the truth of their situation.
They had to figure out what was precious and essential to their faith to carry forward.
They had to figure out what was no longer serviceable and needed to be discarded.
And that had to figure out what innovation would allow them to take the best of their history into the future.

Heifetz went on to talk about how the Rabbi helped the people to sing old familiar songs in new ways.
With the Temple destroyed, the sanctuary of God moved from a physical to a spiritual structure and became centered on the home. Wherever the family was, there would be a sanctuary.
The priestly functions were taken on by the parent in the home, who would recite the blessings upon the family.
Rabbis took on greater authority in interpreting the text for the time and place.
Prayer that was built upon sacrifice and petition became a matter of the heart and a personal experience of God.

In the midst of their crisis, in the midst of the valley, they learned that what was precious and essential was not the Temple itself, but their relationship with God.
The God who spoke creation into being.
The God who led them out of Egypt.
The God who had been with them through every valley and time of exile and trouble.
And that God was leading them into a new future.
Turning their hearts to praise, they knew they could trust in the marvelous things God had done… and would do… for them.
They discovered new ways of being together for joy.

In the midst of this moment in the life of our church, we are discovering what is essential and precious as well.
The love of Christ that binds us together.
The grace of God that overcomes our failures.
The challenge of the Holy Spirit that pushes us onward to the Kingdom.
We are discovering what old songs we can sing in a new way.
Next week, we’ll talk more about some of the joyful things we are discovering, but for today, let me simply say this:
You are not alone.
In the midst of the grief…
In the midst of the valley…
When you aren’t quite sure where you are going…
Fix your eyes on God.
Cling to the one who has never left your side.
And sing.

An Altogether Hope

Posted on December 1, 2019Leave a comment

Text: 1 Peter 1: 3-6, 9-15,22

Keep awake! Get ready! Prepare yourselves!
These are the words that fly at us from the scriptures for this first Sunday of Advent.
But get ready for what?
Get yourself ready for the future that God has already prepared for you.
Get ready to embrace the life that Christ is calling you to embrace.
Don’t just go through the motions of basic goodness, basic practices, and basic sincerity…
Prepare yourself to truly and fully live your life for the Kingdom of God.

Over these weeks of Advent, we are going to be exploring John Wesley’s sermon, “Almost Christian,” where he invites us to hold our lives up against the picture of all that God is inviting us to be and become.
Are we there yet?
Are we doing it perfectly?
Of course not.
But if we never take the time to check in and evaluate our lives, we will never do what it takes to take the next step.
So this year, as we get ready for Christmas, we are also getting ready and preparing to receive Christ even more fully into our hearts and our lives.
This year, we will look at what it might take the get ourselves ready to become Altogether Christians, who wholeheartedly trust God and put that trust into action.
Will you pray with me?

How many of you have ever had a bad day? What about a bad week? Or a whole year?
Life is downright tough sometimes. It is unfair. It is cruel.
We finally find the job we have been searching for, and then our spouse gets laid off.
A misunderstanding destroys a friendship.
Natural disasters wipe homes off the map.
Children go hungry.
And sometimes in the midst of all of the problems this world endures we might start to ask a question that my colleague, Sarah Bessey, asked: “How could we possibly enter into Advent if we are paying attention to this world?”
She goes on to say:
“When, in response to every crisis, our communities seem splintered and divided even in how to bind up each other’s wounds and careless words are flung like rocks at our own glass houses? When perhaps we are lonely or bored or tired or sick or broke or afraid? When we are grieving and sad?
In these days, celebration can seem callous and uncaring, if not outright impossible.
But here’s the thing: we enter into Advent precisely because we are paying attention.
It’s because everything hurts that we prepare for Advent…
We don’t get to have hope without having grief. Hope dares to admit that not everything is as it should be, and so if we want to be hopeful, first we have to grieve. First we have to see that something is broken and there is a reason for why we need hope to begin with.
Advent matters, because it’s our way of keeping our eyes and our hearts and our arms all wide open even in the midst of our grief and longing.” (https://sarahbessey.substack.com/p/does-advent-even-matter-when-the)

When I think back on the tough times that I have been through in my life…
as I have listened to folks share their own stories…
what often transforms the despair of grief into the dawning of hope is that we stop being mad and angry and frustrated and we start living into the reality that we believe is possible.
It seems contrite to say that there are two ways of looking at world – either as a glass half-full or a glass half-empty… but maybe it really is as simple as that.
Either the world is a place of darkness or it is a place where the light of God dwells…
Either God has abandoned us or God is working out a plan of salvation…
Either Christ’s work is done or soon and very soon the Son of Man is coming…
Can you hear the difference in those statements?
Are we going to live as a people of hope?
Or are we going to let the grief and frustration overcome us?
That is our choice.
That is why the prophets and the apostles cry out – Keep Awake! Get Ready! Prepare Yourselves!

Hope itself can seem naïve when the world around us is falling apart.
But I turn to scriptures like the one we have read today from 1 Peter, because they remind me that the trials we are experiencing are nothing new.
In the midst of persecution, Peter wrote to early Jewish and Gentile Christians with advice about “how to survive in the midst of a hostile world” (The Rev. Sharon Ann Alexander – CEB Women’s Bible Commentary)
In the midst of their suffering, they are not promised that everything will be better, but they are invited to be born into a living hope.
This hope is not a pie in the sky wish.
It is a hope grounded in the reality that the one we put our faith and trust in has already overcome the reality of execution and death.
And we do not embrace this hope haphazardly.
We place our hope on Christ with minds that are fully sober and thinking clearly.
Or as the Message translation puts it: “Roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that is coming when Jesus arrives.”

And we do that by embracing God’s will, God’s holiness, God’s truth in everything we do.
We do that by putting our faith and trust and hope into action.

The first step, Peter reminds us is to stop living in grief, despair, and the patterns of our lives before Christ.
We need to let go off everything that bogs us down and drains us.
Or as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 13: we can’t afford to waste a minute, we must not squander these precious hours of daylight in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed!
Think about one thing that you can do differently this Advent season as you prepare for Christmas.
What is something that you can do that will renew your hope and your faith… instead of depleting your energy and your faith?
In our Advent study, “Altogether Christmas,” Ingrid McIntyre reminds us of the difference between almost hope and altogether hope.
“One stands at a distance while the other relentlessly pursues; one offers platitudes while the other dives deep into the hopelessness of a situation and offers light in the darkness – light that grows and grows and grows.” (p. 42)
Instead of spending hours shopping for perfect present, could you go to someone who is struggling and spend that time with them, offering hope and light into their life?

The next step is to keep God in the center of all we do.
Sometimes, in our frustrating times, in the days that seem without hope, we turn our backs on God.
We look for salvation in all the wrong places.
We look for things that will make us feel better, self-medicating with alcohol or shopping sprees or social media.
We turn towards the darkness and yell at it for being so dark.
And we continue to feel alone, and empty, and lost.
But instead, when we reconnect with the very one who gave us new birth as a living hope… when we love and trust and believe and rejoice in this God even on the tough days… then the very same power that raised Christ from the dead fills up our lives and gives us the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
So find some time this Advent to spend in devotion and prayer. Take some time to reflect on those questions from the sermon “Almost Christian.” Let the Spirit of Christ fill your heart.

Finally, we need to embrace the truth that hope is not just a sentiment, but an action we are called to embrace with every fiber of our being.
In her article, Sarah Bessey writes that “Advent holds the truth of what is right now up to the truth of what was and what will be.”
As our Advent study, “Almost Christmas,” reminds us:
“John Wesley saw and experienced the same society problems as others, but instead of accepting them, he raised hell about them so that just maybe a few neglected others could experience hope… the Church of England wasn’t living up to the church Wesley saw described in the scriptures. [so] Wesley became prophetic hope for the church.”
“Hope came when a group of people were unwilling to stay silent, who weren’t afraid to stand up and say, ‘We just can’t do this anymore.’… “Instead of just saying the words, ‘thy kingdom come,’ Wesley let God embody the hope of those words through his flesh.” (p50-51)
This Advent, find ways to let the hope of God come alive in your flesh.
Sponsor a family for Christmas.
Speak out against immigration policies that are hurting families.
March for the climate crisis.
Visit our homeless neighbors.
Fill the food pantry with donations…
Whatever it is that is breaking your heart… whatever it is that you are grieving… find a way to hold it up to the truth of what God desires for that situation and get ready to do something about it.
Make hope real with your arms and legs and feet.
Then, maybe God’s altogether hope will be born into this world once again.

Mystery: Disoriented

Posted on November 4, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Job 1:1, 2:1-10

Throughout this month of November, we are going to be exploring the mystery of God’s presence and power and how unbelievable difficult it is to wrap our minds around. Through the book of Job, we will let ourselves be taken through a range of human emotions: grief, anger, humility, and love.
But above all, we are going to be wrestling with questions and not answers.
God’s questions of us.
The questions Job gets from his friends.
Our questions of God.
The questions we share about the whys and hows of this world.

Along the way, I’m going to invite us to rest in the mystery of God’s presence and promise and power… instead of jumping immediately to the answers. In fact… we might leave here today with even more questions to wrestle with… and that’s not a bad thing.

Will you pray with me…

In my early twenties I was living in Nashville and attending seminary. I had a trip scheduled to head back home for fall break and I was looking forward to some time away in a familiar place.
While I was there, my grandfather took a turn for the worse. Deda had struggled for a long time with diabetes and after a number of surgeries and amputations, infection was destroying his body.
My dad and I were able to drive to the hospital and spend the entire day with him. We watched the Hawkeyes win and we held his hand and tried to just be there for him. Two days later, he was gone.
I sat with family and planned the service. I gave a eulogy at the funeral. We laid him to rest.

All of this happened while I was away on our holiday break and when I came back to Nashville, it was like stepping into a different world.
I was heading back to a place where no one knew my Deda. No one even really knew how sick he had been.
I hadn’t missed any classes. I didn’t have to check in with any professors.
Even my work-study job didn’t notice that a significant experience
And heading back to that place where no one else understood my grief or my loss was disorienting.
So disorienting in fact, that just a day after arriving back in town, I tried to leave church without talking to anyone. I just didn’t want to get into it and explain it over and over again.
This is going to sound strange, but I wanted comfort and condolences, but not if I was going to have to rehearse the story to get them. I wanted a hug… but no one knew that I needed one.
So I rushed out the door… I quickly backed out of the parking spot… and accidently ran into a large concrete parking barrier… doing a couple thousand dollars of damage to my fiancé’s car.

Every single one of us, at some point in our lives, have moments of disorientation.
The loss of a job.
The death of a loved one.
Sending a child off to college.
Stubbing your toe on a nightstand in the middle of the night.

Disorientation is when we lose our sense of direction and are no longer sure which way is up, down, or sideways.
We find ourselves unsure of the next step.
We can’t quite get a handle on how to function in a new or changing role.
And sometimes, in the process of being disoriented, we find ourselves turning away… running away… from the very things that have been our source of help and strength – our anchor in the storm.
Sometimes, we find ourselves stubbornly clinging to something we thought we knew or an old way of functioning… even when it no longer serves our needs in a new context.

We should expect a bit of disorientation from Job as we begin to explore his story this week.
There once was a man who lived in the land of Uz…
It sounds like the start of a fairy tale, doesn’t it?
And in some ways it is.
The book of Job is not meant to be a historical factual retelling of actual events, but a work of philosophy told as a drama… think of Antigone by Sophocles or Candide by Voltaire. Through the lens of the characters, the audience has an opportunity to wrestle themselves with questions of life.

We are introduced to Job, a perfect man, with a perfect life, and perfect wife and family. He was honest and he feared God. He even offered extra offerings on a regular basis on behalf of his children… just in case they had made a mistake and had been unfaithful to God.
But as the story unfolds, there is a sort of wager made in heaven.
The Lord is so proud of how faithful Job has been, but the Adversary – the Accuser – ha Satan – has some questions.
Is Job only able to be so faithful because he has never faced difficulty?
What would happen if he were truly tested?
The Lord agrees to let the Adversary bring destruction upon Job so they might see what would happen.
First, his herds are stolen and his servants killed.
Then, his children are killed when a wind comes and collapses the house they are in.
But instead of cursing God, instead of being angry, he laments and blesses God’s name.
Our scripture picks up after these events.
Alright, the Adversary, acknowledges… he was able to remain faithful – but those were just things. We took away from Job… but we didn’t actually harm HIM.
If he was truly tested… bodily tested… in the flesh… then Job would turn away from the Lord.

This is one of those places where I start to have more questions.
Job has done nothing wrong.
The suffering and the loss he is experiencing is completely undeserved.
And yet God allows it to happen.

Job is stricken with sores from head to toe – so severe that they are only soothed by taking a broken piece of pottery and scraping at them. I mean… gross…
And still, he refuses to turn away from his faith.
He refuses to be angry at God.
He clings to his beliefs – in good times and in bad, he says.

Job’s pain is so excruciating the scripture tells us that he couldn’t stand up or lie down. His friends couldn’t recognize him when they came to visit. He was utterly broken.
Can you imagine his pain?
Can you imagine his confusion – why are these things happening to me?
What did I or my children or my ancestors do to deserve this?
How can I possibly move forward or rebuild my life after what has happened?

Into this moment, his wife speaks.
Mrs. Job invites him to curse God and die.
Now, those might seem like harsh words… but remember she, too, has experienced unbearable loss.
Her children have died, too.
Her flocks and livelihood have been stripped away.
Her husband is suffering in unimaginable pain.
She is angry and heartbroken and confused and just as disoriented as Job.

And so she encourages him to let it out… let out all of that pain and grief and anger.
Shout at the heavens! she cries.
Let go of your stubbornness and integrity.
Demand that God tell you why you are being tested so.

We sometimes hear her words and cringe… We can’t question God like that!
Curse God? Doesn’t that lead to destruction?
And yet, the Lord has no harsh words for Mrs. Job.
As our story unfolds in the next few weeks, what we discover is that perhaps Job is stubbornly clinging to an old understanding of faith that is no longer adequate for the suffering of this world.
It will only be when he does open himself up to reach out and question God that he finally is able to re-orient himself to a new reality.

In the midst of the disorientation of our lives, it is hard to know where to turn.
Sometimes we are tempted to completely turn away from God.
Sometimes, we find ourselves stubbornly clinging to old ways and in the process close ourselves off from change and possibility.
In fact, I think that if Job simply sat there in the ashes and the dust and refused to engage God in questions, his relationship with God would have become stagnant, wrote, expected.

I think part of what we are invited to discover in these chapters is that things happen in our lives that are completely out of our control.
We don’t always know why.
We can’t always understand.
But every moment of disorientation contains within it the opportunity to re-orient ourselves upon our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer.
If we are lucky, the relationship we have with God when it is all said and done will be deeper and more faithful than when we began.
We will let go of our assumptions and we will allow our lives and our hearts to be expanded in the process – to become more compassionate, more humble, more faithful.

So stick with us for a few more weeks as we continue this journey through Job. Next week, we jump a ways ahead to chapter 23 – so take some time this week on your own time to read some of these chapters in between.
Sit with Job in his suffering.
Listen to the words of his friends and ask how you would feel if they were spoken to you.
And open up your heart for how God might be speaking to your pain, your sorrow, and your disorientation.
Let yourself feel it.
Let yourself experience it.
Let yourself sit in the mystery.

Lamentations and Investments

Posted on July 10, 2016Leave a comment

I must confess it was difficult to pick just one passage from Jeremiah and in the light of the events of this week, I wasn’t sure that I picked the right one.

I wondered if I should have chosen from Jeremiah 8 and 9:

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then are my people not been not been restored to health? If only my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night for the wounds of my people.

Or maybe Jeremiah 31:

A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and waiting. It’s Rachel crying for her children; she refuses to be consoled, because her children are no more.

And I find it so hard to get back up in this pulpit every week with some new tragedy or terror that must be addressed. But we have to do so.

We have to speak about the pain and suffering and loss of this world. To not turn to our scriptures and prayer and ask where God is in the midst of what is happening would be irresponsible. It is what we should do every moment of every day… and if I can’t model that for you on Sunday mornings, then I’m not doing my job.

It pains me that a world that is so connected… 24/7… on every device at our fingertips… can be so divided and at war with itself.

I look around and see so much anger and hurt. Here in the United States and all across this world.

#bluelives #blacklives #Muslimlives friends, they all matter. We all matter. It’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and.

And yet we take the pain and hurt and anger we feel and turn it back against one another for not being “on our side.”

There is only one side for us to be on. The side of life and hope and peace.

It often feels like we are living in the worst times of human history. Like things have never been this bad.

I could quote statistics about how violence… especially deadly violence is down in many different categories across this world. That seems hard to believe, but its true. But you know what… that seems to trivialize the pain that every death, every particular death carries in this day and age where we collectively witness and experience them.

I am in grateful to be preaching from Jeremiah this week because he lived in what the Jewish Study Bible calls “the most crucial and terrifying periods in the history of the Jewish people in biblical times: the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon… [he] grappled with the theological problems posed by the destruction of the nation, and who laid the foundations for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple in the years following the end of the exile. In the course of his struggles to understand the tragic events of his lifetime, he tells the reader more about himself than any other prophet, including his anguish and empathy at the suffering of his people, his outrage at God for forcing him to speak such terrible words of judgment against his own nation, and his firm belief that the people of Israel would return to their land and rebuild Jerusalem once the period of punishment was over.” (p917)

It is strange to say that I feel like I’m living the lives of these prophets this summer, but maybe that’s what happens when you spend time in the scriptures.

So I’m feeling Jeremiah’s anguish and empathy when I look out at you… when I scroll through my facebook feed… when I turn on the news and see the heartbreak and frustration and hopelessness of so many people… in Baghdad, in Medina, in Baton Rouge, in St. Paul, in Dallas…

And I, too, have been crying out to God asking “How long… how long will you let us turn against one another before you come and do something to fix this?”

Jeremiah turned all of the grief of his people into laments to God… he cried out to God and I think it is appropriate on a day like this, in a time like this for us to do so. For us to lament and grieve…

And so I want to invite you into a time of lament with me. And together we will sing a response that is familiar to many… Oh – Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

O Holy God, we have come here this morning from many places,

From east and west, north and south,

From pain and disillusionment,

From anger and confusion,

From grief and sadness,

Looking for hope.

We come together for one thing only:

To raise our hearts and voices and very bodies to God,

In the hope that the very act of raising them in lament yet in faith,

We might know the transforming and surpassing power of your love.

Oh Holy God, hear us as we cry out to you. Our pain is more than we can bear alone.

Response: Oh— Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Unable to forget the violence and the loss of this past week, we cry…

Mourning the loss of the innocent, we cry…

Looking for justice where none seems possible, we cry…

Outraged by the actions of those who should have known better, we cry…

Lost, looking for your guidance and direction, we cry…

Weeping with families whose loved ones will never return home, we cry…

Standing with all of those who have sworn to protect us and who gave their lives, we cry…

Desperate for the courage to speak out against racism, injustice, and oppression, we cry…

Wanting to put all this behind us and live in wholeness, we cry…

Looking for the peacemakers, we cry…

( Liturgy of Lament for the Broken Body of Christ, adapted https://www.futurechurch.org/sites/default/files/Liturgy-plan.pdf)

O God, in mystery and silence you are present in our lives,

Bringing new life out of destruction, hope out of despair, growth out of difficulty.

We thank you that you do not leave us alone but labor to make us whole.

Help us to perceive your unseen hand in the unfolding of our lives,

And to attend to the gentle guidance of your Spirit,

That we may know the joy you give your people. Amen. (Ruth Duck, BOW 464)

Friends, we cry out “How Long…”

But I think the reminder of our scripture for this morning is that God turns that “how long” back on us.

And God is asking… what are you going to do, today, to be the answer?

How are you going to be a witness, an example, a living testimony of the firm belief that though this time is painful and brutal that YOU are on the side of life and hope and peace?

How are you going to personally invest in the future you pray for?

Jeremiah found himself in precisely that situation. As he was proclaiming the destruction of the land he loved… even as he was imprisoned by the very king he was trying to get to act differently… God asked him from his jail cell to buy a plot of land as an investment in the future of the land. As a reminder that “houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

The armies are at literally at the gates of the city. The siege has started. And Jeremiah is buying property.

He was investing in the future he so fervently prayed for and so firmly believed in.

I’m tired of the loss of life in our world.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough.

We have to start investing in the future we long for.

We have to figure out what it means to “buy a plot of land” today.

And I think there are a few concrete things we can do, today, to invest in God’s future.

First, we have to invest in relationships with people who don’t look like us.

My friend, Jim, and his wife, Lori, have a son who is seven years old. His name is Teddy. And because he is adopted, his skin doesn’t look the same as that of his parents.

Jim wrote to me, “I’m keenly aware that I didn’t really ‘get it’ until I was invested in the life of my son; and all of the fear and trepidation I feel for him as he starts growing up to be a young black man in America. So I know that compassion and grace towards those who don’t ‘get it’ is necessary because I was one of them in the past.”

The only way that we can ever start to live into a future of peace is to actually cross the street and talk with our neighbors who are people of color or Muslim or police officers or elderly or of a different political party.

We have to invest in personal relationships with people who are not the same as us.

Second, we have to practice humility.

We are not better than anyone else. We are not perfect. We don’t have all of the answers. And we need to create space for others to teach us, for others to lead us, for others to speak.

And part of that means that we need to look at all of the ways in which dominate conversations or perspectives and we need to step back and listen.

This past week, as the holy month of Ramadan was ending for our Muslim brothers and sisters, a bomb went off in the heart of one of their holy cities. And we barely noticed.

We can be so focused on our own lives and our own experiences that we do not stop to let go of ourselves and make room for the pain and grief of others.

Third, we need to speak the truth in love.

The first part of that is that we have to tell the truth.

We have to stop spreading rumors or hyperbole. And we need to take a moment and pause and ask about the source and if it is trustworthy. We have to take a breath.

But, we cannot be afraid to speak the truth when it is in front of us. We have to name injustice. The only way that evil is overcome is when it is brought into the light for all to see. So we cannot be afraid to name it. To speak it. To see it.

And we can do so in love.

We can disagree.

We can speak the truth and invite conversation and dialogue.

We can do so with our feet in protest non-violently.

But we should never resort to demonizing or attacking other people because of what they believe.

We have to start investing in the future we long for.

We have to invest in living differently in this world.

Just a few minutes ago, in the prayer I prayed that:

We come together for one thing only:

To raise our hearts and voices and very bodies to God,

In the hope that the very act of raising them in lament yet in faith,

We might know the transforming and surpassing power of your love.

And so I want to invite you in to a prayer with your whole body as we invest in the future God hopes for us:

Touch your forehead:

Put on the mind of Christ, a spirit of humility, encouragement, unity, and love.

Touch your ears:

That in the cries of the oppressed and grieving you may hear God calling you to another way.

Touch your eyes:

Darkened by tears, unable to see past privilege and power, blinded by hatred, that they may be brightened in the light of Christ.

Touch your lips:

Silenced by fear and the shock of news, that you might respond to the word of God and speak justice and truth in love.

Touch your heart:

Broken in pain and uncertainty, disappointment and grief, that Christ may dwell there by faith.

Touch your shoulder:

Weighted and heavy with sadness and sorrow, that your burden be eased in the gentle yoke of Jesus.

Touch your hands:

Wrung in anger and despair, that Christ may be known in the lives you touch.

Touch your feet:

That you may stand firm in faith and hope, and walk in the way of Christ.

( Liturgy of Lament for the Broken Body of Christ, adapted https://www.futurechurch.org/sites/default/files/Liturgy-plan.pdf)