love – Page 10 – Salvaged Faith

The New American Religion Behind the Growing American Rage

Posted on August 21, 20091 Comment

The New American Religion Behind the Growing American Rage

I do sense there is this murky prelude to culture war (or holy war as Richardson calls it) brewing. I sensed it in 2004 when broken crosses were used to spell “God Bless the USA” on our campus lawn in front of the chapel. I sense it today in this anger over health care that is really nothing about health care. Richardson’s interview is interesting and he helps us to relate and empathize with his subject, while at the same time leaving the reader, me at least, with the same sense of forboding that he himself feels.

I agree. There are people who are strongly convicted on both sides. My fear is that a war is brewing, a war that none of us really want to see happen, a deep cultural war that will tear apart our communities. I’m not in the middle on this cultural divide. I know what side I’m on. I know what side family and friends are on. And I’m so tired of family being torn apart that perhaps this struggle just seems like a little too much to handle right now. I don’t even want to think about what will happen if the flood gates really open.

Perhaps it’s always been like this. Perhaps my twenty-seven year old mind is just a little naive to think that we are the first to have these conversations. I know that nothing is new under the sun. I know that Jesus said that we must hate our mother and father, meaning that there are times when we have to let go of those family ties to stand up for what is true. I know these cultural wars surrounded Vietnam, and McCarythism/Red Scare.

But what are the roots of these differences? How can I and my neighbors really be so different? Don’t we have the same internal anatomy? Don’t we all have flesh and blood and hearts and minds? Aren’t we all living in the same world? Hearing the same news? (well, no, actually)

It’s not just generational. It’s not just religious. It’s not even just political – although there is where the line seems to be most clearly drawn. These differences seem to be so deep that when we encounter the same issue, we see completely different things. When we see the same news story presented, we feel different things. When we talk about an issue – we can use the EXACT SAME WORDS and have the EXACT SAME CONCERNS (as was the case in my conference’s debate on the world-wide nature of the church amendments) and vote in the exact opposite way! Because our minds are already made up. The fear and distrust is already there. The lines have already been drawn and we know what side we are on.

I recently found out about outlawpreachers. It’s kind of a nebulous term loosely used to describe a bunch of ministers and christians who preach nothing but the love and grace of God. At least that’s how I am hearing it. That’s what I’m clinging to right now. In the midst of the division and fingerpointing and name-calling, and fear on both sides, I’m clinging to the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. That’s it. That is the source of all hope and promise. And it may be the ONLY way out of this mess.

(All of this being said – this is the very first post that I have tagged the words hate and religion. That says a lot.)

Marriage

Posted on August 21, 20091 Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage and weddings – for quite a few reasons. I just celebrated at my second wedding of the summer, my dh and I just had our second wedding anniversary, and I’ve been following some posts @ halfwaytonormal.com that have been on the topic of sex and marriage.

When I first got to our little town, the funeral director said something to the effect of: “Those Methodists… they’ll marry and bury anyone!” And in some ways, in our little town, that’s kind of true. There are quite a few congregations that mainly do services for their members and families. I’m the pastor that gets called when the family is unchurched or there is no real church connection. The same goes for weddings – especially those where the couple has lived together prior to marriage.

This probably isn’t a big surprise for most people, but my hubby and I did live together before we married. Twice, actually. After two years of long distance, he transferred to the same college I did, and then a year later we lived in the same house with a bunch of other classmates (hello PAC house!). Then we were apart again for a year and a half. Then he moved across the world to be with me in seminary and moved into my place. We wouldn’t have been able to afford it other wise. We were engaged, we just hadn’t figured out the timing to make the ceremony that we both wanted happen.

When we did eventually tie the knot, we wanted a central part of our service to be the idea that a marriage is about far more than the ceremony. Marriage is a journey that begins long before a wedding and continues long after you have said “i do.”

Deep in my heart, I believe that a marriage is about a covenantal relationship between two people. I believe it is a covenant of love, trust, acceptance, understanding, and respect. And as I said over on “halfway to normal,” some couples have built the kind of covenantal relationship I’m talking about long before the wedding… and some of those couples are people who never want to get “married”… or can’t get married legally. Other couples may not even really understand themselves what being committed to a covenantal relationship means until far into their “marriage.” Some people never get it.

For me and my husband, we both had it early and are still working on it =). Very early on, I think we figured out that we loved and trusted and accepted each other. We made a lot of mistakes, but we stuck in there. We respected and cherished each other. We were in it for the long haul from VERY early on. Long distance relationships do that to you. We actually created rings that fit together that read on the inside “love stronger than the distance between us.” And we still wear them.

But those kinds of covenantal relationships take constant work. They are hard. Sometimes I wake up and wonder who on earth is in bed next to me! Sometimes I’m positive he’s feeling the same way. Marriage takes work and prayer and fighting here and there. Because we aren’t perfect, we are human, and our human flaws mean that seeds of mistrust and fear and doubt creep in every now and then.

Love for me is choosing to say yes every day. It is choosing to forgive and to keep loving no matter how many mistakes we make. It is choosing to be the best husband or wife you can be. It is choosing to honor and respect your spouse. Love is holding fast to who you are while at the same time letting the other person do the same. And it’s messy, and it’s beautiful.

Becoming Disciples through: Service

Posted on May 24, 2009Leave a comment

The other night my husband and I had finished dinner and I stood up to clear the table and take away our plates.

As he handed me his dish he said, “you know, you don’t have to wait on me, I can take my own plates to the kitchen.”

And without even thinking about it, I responded, “I know – but I do it because I love you.”

How many of you are familiar with Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages’?

A long time ago, a friend gave me the book, and I immediately thought about those five languages when I made that statement to my husband.

I try to do little things to help out because that is one of the ways that I most naturally express my love for him. Gary Chapman calls that acts of service.

Service? Hey – we’re talking about service today! And we are exploring specifically how we express our love of God through acts of service.

Curiousity got the better of me, and I took another quick look at how our five membership vows match up with these five love languages Chapman examines in his books.

We started out with prayer as a way of discipleship… and talked about how we should aim to pray more deeply. Using the metaphor of breathing, our prayers should not be shallow quick breaths, but deep, filling breaths in and out. In Chapman’s languages of love, quality time is about focusing all of our energy on another person so that the time we spend with one another is not simply hanging out, but is a deep sharing of who you are. In many ways, our prayers are how we spend quality time with God, focusing our attention on God’s will for our lives, rather than our own wishes and desires.

Then we looked at what it means to be present as an expression of our discipleship. While it isn’t an immediate fit, Chapman lists physical intimacy and touch as one of his love languages. In so many ways, our presence with one another, our physical presence with people who are hurting is an expression of our love not only for them, but also for God. We literally become the hands and feet of God who hold and comfort and who smile and are close to one another. Our Lord and Savior became human and lived among us – touching the sick and the young and the old and the forgotten in order to express the love of God to the world, and we respond by doing the same.

Last week we talked about our gifts. We are not only given amazing and beautiful gifts by God, but in response, we share those gifts for God’s work in the world. Easy tie in to Chapman’s love language of giving and receiving gifts. I think something that we can easily learn from his description of giving gifts is that we are not investing money (or time) in these gifts, but through the gift, we are deepening our relationship with God. People who have shared with me that they tithe regularly often talk about what a joy it is and how it really does bring them closer to God.

I’m definitely going to have to remember this book next time this sermon series comes around, because our fifth vow next week also correlates pretty well to one of Chapman’s five languages – words of affirmation. Now, witnessing to our faith is not quite the same thing as offering encouragement to a loved one – but in both cases, we sing their praises as we share with the world what is great about either our loved one or about God. Next week, we not only will be celebrating Pentecost – the coming of the Spirit that helps us to witness, but we will also be confirming some of our youth – and will be encouraging them in the faith as they witness to what they have learned in this past year.

But for today – it’s all about service.

And not only for Chapman, but also in our life of faith, service is about love.

Attitude is everything when it comes to service – and our call to service is a call to act out of love and not obligation, to act not out of resentment or guilt or fear or even duty – but out of the depths of our hearts.

In every way, Memorial Day, is about honoring the service of men and women throughout our nation’s history who have done just that. They showed their love for friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens in such a way that they were willing to give even their lives.

In both of our scriptures today, we are reminded that there is no greater love than to lay down our lives for one another. From our Epistle reading, we are commanded to love not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

While accounts may vary, Memorial Day began initially as community celebrations honoring the fallen soldiers who gave their lives to battle slavery. Their words of equality and love of neighbor were transformed into moral truths and action on behalf of the disenfranchised and they deserved to be honored. But, because initially these acts of memorialization were so closely tied with the fight for emancipation, the Southern states quickly established their own rival “Confederate Memorial Day.”

These community acts of decorating graves were then made official by an order from General John Logan that Memorial Day be on the 30th of May and on the first Memorial Day in 1868, flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in Arlington Cemetery. But in the effort to put the differences of both sides behind us, the recognition that the Civil War had been a moral battle to free black Americans from slavery was lost. It became more of a generic remembrance of all war dead, while at the same time losing the specific passions of truth and justice that characterized its beginnings.

David Blight wrote about this loss in his book “Race and Reunion.” “War commemorations, he makes clear, do not just pay tribute to the war dead.” They should also honor what those men and women died for – the truth and the action that go along with the sacrifice.

I really struggle with talking about national interests in church. Our time of worship should be focused on God and not on our country. We are coming together to worship the one who is Lord over every nation – not just ours. In many ways, when we become Christian we cease to simply be American.

And yet, in many ways, so many of our soldiers have fallen for that reason – to protect and defend and to free the lives of God’s children all over the world from tyrannies of injustice and oppression. They have put their lives on the line not because of duty but because they genuinely want to make a difference in the lives of people across God’s creation.

They choose to serve in that capacity because they believe that it is in the armed forces that they can make the biggest impact.

Do you remember the question that I asked you at the beginning of this sermon series? I shared with you that the mission of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And I asked very pointedly, how many of you thought that was possible. I asked how many of you really felt equipped and empowered by the church to go out and make a difference in the world.

I believe that tomorrow, we should fully honor our fallen brothers and sisters who died because they believed that the world could be different – because they loved other people enough to put their lives on the line.

But today, I believe that we should lament the fact that our church has not shared our story in such a compelling way. I believe that we should lament the fact that we don’t have strong enough convictions in the power of God to change the world. I believe we should lament the fact that we aren’t out there in the world, putting our lives on the line every day in service to others.

Bishop Robert Schnasse has called churches to be fruitful for God’s Kingdom and one of the ways we can do so is through risk-taking mission and service. Just as in our gospel reading from today, we are called and appointed to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and the root of that fruit is God’s love. Schansse writes that “nothing is more central to faith identity and to the church’s mission than transforming the lives and conditions of people by offering oneself in God’s name. Nearly every page of Scripture shows people serving God by serving others.”

I’m often asked what the difference is between doing community service and serving people through the church. And usually my response has something to do with the fact that God is the reason behind our service when we do it in the church. We have been loved by our Creator and Redeemer and so through God’s power we pour ourselves out to other people.

But as I read a bit more of Schnasse’s book this week, I also realized a big difference comes in the “risk-taking” element. “Risk-taking mission and service takes people into ministries that push them out of their comfort zone, stretching them beyond the circle of relationships and practices that routinely define their faith commitments.” In other words, when God is in charge, we have no idea where we might end up!

This was certainly true for me on my very first international mission trip. I went with youth from my church to Peru and we had this grandiose idea that we could change the world and make a difference! We believed in the power of God to work through us. We definitely had the first part right!

What we never expected was how we ourselves would also be transformed. As we found ourselves in a completely different culture, making friends with people who looked nothing like us, loving people who were unlovable by their society’s standards, we became different people.

Schnasse writes that “the stretch of Christian discipleship is to love those for whom it is not automatic, easy, common or accepted. To love those who do not think like us or live like us, and to express respect, compassion and mercy to those we do not know and who may never be able to repay us – this is the love Christ pulls out of us.”

This is God’s abiding love that gives us the power to respond when we see a brother or sister in need. This is God’s abiding love that gives us the ability to speak truth to power when there are injustices in the world. This is God’s abiding love that leads us to lay down our lives for one another.

Now, the big question is – how do I live this out through the church.

Oftentimes, when I have heard this topic of service mentioned in the church, it comes with one of two demands. 1) we need to get more people to serve on the committees in the church. or 2) we need to get more people involved in mission and outreach.

The truth of the matter is, we need people to serve in all sorts of different places. In order to have people serving on the front lines of God’s Kingdom, we need people serving on the church finance committee who will hold the church accountable for their resources, and we need an administrative board and PPR that will help us to discern and express God’s vision for our church.

But, we also need people who are willing to go wherever God will lead us.

If you are feeling called and led to go and serve God’s children in a malaria ridden village in Africa – and you want to put your whole life into God’s service – we want to support and encourage you and equip you.

If you are feeling called to make sure those who are struggling financially in our community have food on the table every day – and you are willing to put your whole life into God’s service – we want to support and encourage and equip you.

If you are feeling called to listen to the person who disagrees with you across the table in our church office and work together to really make a difference in how we teach our children – and if you are willing to put your whole life into God’s service in that way – then we want to support and encourage and equip you.

The truth of the matter is, if we can’t love and serve the person who sits down the pew from us or across the table in the fellowship hall, then we aren’t ready to be out in the world loving and serving other people. But here is where we practice, here is where we learn. And here is where we are sent out into the world to serve. Amen and Amen.

Becoming Discples through: Presence

Posted on May 10, 2009Leave a comment

This week I planted my first ever vegetable garden. Now, I have helped my parents and grandparents in the garden many times, but this is the first time that these beautiful plants are all my responsibility.

I’ve prepared the ground. I dug little holes and planted the seeds and the seedlings. I have watered my garden and I’m waiting anxiously for sprouts to appear. And more than anything – I’m waiting for the fruits of my labor, the work of my very own hands – carrots and tomatoes and cucumbers and all of the other wonderful things that I planted.

I guess with all of this blood, sweat and tears… yes, I have the blisters on my hands to prove it… it might come as no surprise that I’m resonating a little bit with the vinedresser from our mornings gospel reading.

But can I also say that I am terrified that I am going to make a mistake? What if I don’t water the plants often enough? Or water them too often? What if I get busy and forget about weeding for a few days and pull up the sprouts with the weeds? As I begin to think about all of the ways that I could possibly fail in this gardening task, any bit of that pride starts to slip away as I realize how human I am, and how not like God the vinedresser.

As I thought about that garden in my backyard this week, I also got to thinking about another garden that I’m a part of – another garden that I am tending.

A pastoral theologian named Margaret Kornfeld talks about the congregation, the church, as a garden that needs to be tended. In her book, Cultivating Wholeness, she shares how we are all grounded in communities of care – or in the case of this church, a particular community of care. Using the work of theologian Marin Buber, she says “we can live together… because of our relationship to God who is at our Center. Through this relationship, community is formed… because of our relationship to God at the Center, we are connected to each other. However, it is not the community members’ connection to each other that comes first, but the quality of relation with the Center.”

In other words… our church – this Body of Christ is a garden. And we are all connected to one another not because we live in the same place, or attend the same church, or even like the same things… but we are all connected to one another because of our relationships with God. Christ is the vine, we are the branches.

In some ways, I help to tend this garden. I am here to love and care for you. I’m here to nurture you and help organize you into rows and to lead the tendrils of this particular vine up a stake so that it can grow better – to give the vine direction and guidance.

But there is one part of my job that is a little harder to understand and talk about… what to do about dead and dying branches.

Today, as we think about what it means to be a member of this body of Christ, we look at the second of our vows: we vow to support the ministries of the church through our presence.

As we think about how important our presence is in the community, let me tell you a parable about a gardener who had a plot of cucumbers.

This gardener had been very careful to select the best seeds, and plant each one at its proper depth. He fertilized and watered the plants, he worked the soil faithfully each week to prevent weeds from encroaching and he sprayed to prevent bugs and blights from afflicting the young plants.

The season was a good one – just the right amount of rain and sunshine, and on the vines appeared broad green leaves and in due course the blooms. It looked magnificent.

One day he noticed that here and there certain leaves were dying, certain blooms fading. Most of the leaves remained a healthy glossy green, but scattered among them were those turning brown. Why, he wondered, would some die in the midst of all the living? So he investigated.

Stepping carefully among the tangled mass of vines he traced the ones on which the leaves and blooms were dying, until he found that they were all connected to a single stem. There, just above the ground, cut-worms had severed the stalk. The entire vine above that point was dying because it was no longer attached to the roots and the stem that had produced it.

As I thought about this topic of presence, I realized that in many ways I would be preaching to the choir this morning… Most of us who would be here in the church today are already people who are connected to the congregation and to one another in one way or another. You are the healthy, glossy green leaves.

So in some ways, this message is a reminder about why we need to be present, why we need to abide in Christ, why we need to remain connected to the vine.

That parable of the cucumber plant reminds us that we will die spiritually, that we are incapable of producing fruit, when we are not attached to the vine, or when we are not connected to the roots which nourish us. And the vine that we need to be connected to is Christ – the Christ we meet in worship, the Christ we meet in fellowship, the Christ we meet in God’s Word, the Christ we meet in the face of the stranger.

It also reminds us that when we are attached we will naturally produce fruit. I did some reading and found out that the best grapes closest to the vine, “where the nutrients are the most concentrated.” (Nancy Blakely) In fact, growers of grapes know the importance of pruning, because the farther away from the vine the grapes are, the more bitter and the smaller they are. But close in, close to the heart of the vine, abiding near the heart, they find the nourishment they need and produce bountifully.

This is what the abiding we read about in John and 1 John is all about. “Here, up close to the vine, immersed in [God’s love and peace], we find not only nourishment but also hope and joy, and we let God’s word ‘find a home in us through faithful devotion…. ‘When we remain that close to Jesus, we attuned to him and he to us, the remarkable result is that what we want will be what God wants, and it will surely come to pass.’” (Kate Huey’s lectionary reflection with Nancy Blakely)

In some ways, this is a deeply personal process, as we grow closer to God in our private prayers and devotional life. But it is also deeply communal. Because Christ is not a million little vines that each of us find a place to connect to – but one true vine, one true body – and abiding in Jesus means that we also need to be in deep relationship with one another. Perhaps this is why the image of the grapevine is so powerful… grapes do not grow as solitary fruits, but in bunches.

While our gospel reading focuses on the fruit that God will produce in us, if we remain connected to the vine, our epistle from this morning tells us what that fruit looks like: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

You know that old hymn, they will know that we are Christians by our love? This is in part where it comes from. Our love for one another, our presence with one another, and the WAY that we are present with one another, is a strong witness to the world that something different is going on in the church. We aren’t meant to go it alone.

No… Abiding in Christ is about loving our brothers and sisters… ALL of our brothers and sisters. If we are abiding in Christ, then we have the strength to love those in the church who we disagree with. If we are abiding in Christ, then we have the strength to reach out to those who have wronged us. If we are abiding in Christ, then we have the strength to love without fear even those who society might turn away.

We are called to be present – to be connected to the vine and because of the vine to one another. And when we are really connected, when we are abiding in God, the fruit of love will show forth.

Which leads me back to the dead and dying branches. Those leaves and blossom on the vine that are fading and turning brown.

My least favorite part of being a pastor, of being the church, is figuring out what to do about the dead and dying branches. Those people in our midst who are connected and present in name only – or perhaps who show up every so often but are not deeply abiding in the vine… who aren’t close enough to the vine to be filled with the spirit and with nourishment and with Christ’s love.

The church body has a process for “pruning” these dead and dying branches on the vine. Our Book of Discipline clearly states that it is the pastor’s responsibility for ensuring that each member of the congregation is living up to their vows to be loyal to Christ through the church and to faithfully participate by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service and their witness.

Now – of that whole list of things, the one that is the easiest to see people are not living up to is their presence. We don’t take attendance in church, at least we don’t check off names to see who is here and who isn’t – but we could. My clergy mentor told me that her congregation has a process where if you haven’t shown up for a month, you get a postcard in the mail. If you haven’t shown up for two months, you get a phone call. If you haven’t show up to any event in the church (and I’m not talking just about worship either) for three months, then you get a visit from the pastor.

Now, we don’t have a process like that here at the church, so I was interested to know how this was working out. What Pastor Karen also told me was that by the time they got to that first three month mark, she had so many people to visit that she didn’t know what to do!

Now, we could act like God the vinedresser and simple snip those dead and wilted branches off the vine, throw them in the fire and forget about them – just like I did with all of the dead hostas as I cleared out room for the new ones to grow this spring.

But I have to believe that a God who also talks about grafting might have a little bit more grace for some of our dead and dying branches.

Grafting is a process where a branch can be attached to the trunk and roots of another tree – in many cases, different types of trees and plants are connected together for hybridization and for strength and growth.

In the scriptures, Paul talks about the Gentiles being grafted on to the tree and the roots of Israel after some of the branches were broken off – the unfaithful among the people of Israel. And Paul writes to his gentile audience… “they were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith.… And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.”

None of us are perfect. All of us let things besides God into the center of our lives at one time or another. And there are many people in our congregation right now who are not connected to the vine, or who are being disconnected by the cut-worms of work or family or doubt.

I know that some of you have expressed concerns about how low attendance has been on some Sundays, or the fact that it seems like the same group of people are the ones who always show up for events or bible studies. I hear that. But what I hear from Paul in Romans is a word of hope. It is a reminder that even those branches that appear to be dead and dying have the ability to be restored by God’s grace.

What I have realized though, is that we can’t sit like a planted vine in a pot and wait for God’s grace to reconnect others to us. That is perhaps the limitation of the vine metaphor – it makes us think that we are supposed to be rooted and fixed in place.

But when we read our passage from John in context, we notice that right before our gospel reading for today, Jesus has finished dinner with his disciples and is getting ready to move. “Rise” he says, “Let us be on our way.” And then he starts into a long goodbye speech to his disciples, reminding them of everything that they need to know to continue on without him. This vine is not meant to be planted firmly in the ground, but is meant to move and be engaged in the world! (Kate Huey’s reflection, Charles Cousar)

Just as we take fellowship and God’s word to our homebound members who are unable to physically be present with us on Sunday mornings – or to our members who are residents at Rose Haven or those in the hospital, so too do we need to take the vine with us to those who are in danger of being cut off.

I want to challenge us as a church to go as the hands and feet of Christ and perhaps be the reconnection point for someone that you know. It might be your own son or daughter. It might be a friend. It might be a neighbor who hasn’t been in a very long time. With God’s grace and strength flowing through us, simply sit with them for a while. Have a cup of coffee together. Ask how they are doing. And as a first step in this process of grafting, simply be present. Let the love of God that abides in you overflow into your love for them.

A few conversations down the road, maybe invite them to come to church with you one Sunday, or to a small group gathering. But for now, I want to challenge you to simply be present – to carry God’s abiding love and grace to those who you know are disconnected.

AND – I want you to tell me about it. Invite me to come along for a cup of coffee if you want. Help me to be a part of the process of tending and pruning and let me hold you accountable to continue in that relationship of simply being present.

Because we don’t do this whole faith thing alone. It takes all of us, living together in love to be the body of Christ in the world. We are not alone. Amen and Amen.

torture, ethics, and the state

Posted on May 2, 2009Leave a comment

I commented at the end of my last post about a survey which shows Christians are more likely to support torture than non-church goers. Here is what my friend Matt has to say:

The Truth As Best I Know It: The Danger of Supporting Torture: “We can give all the lip-service we want to the name of Jesus, but when we sanction the cruel treatment of God’s children in the defense of the security of the nation-state, we are giving our first loyalty to something that is much less than God. The Bible has a word for that: idolatry. And the two major complaints of the Hebrew prophets were idolatry and injustice. We’re clearly guilty on both counts.”

Usually when I hear people around me who are Christian wanting to support the idea that these tactics were acceptable in the instance of these three people, they are arguing not at all out of their Christian perspective, but rather flip into a consequentialist ethic in which the good which comes out of any particular action is determined not by the individual being harmed, but by how great the good is that can occur. The ends are justified by the means. Sure, torture one person if thousands of lives are saved. In my mind – that is the same ethic that led the Jewish leadership to hand over Jesus to Pilate.

I would be willing to hear of them and would love to find out who they might be, but I am not familiar with hardly any Christian consequentialist thinkers. As I was searching via google, the closest I cam was Neibuhr’s pragmatism – but in articles I explored, even in his pragmatism, the options are arrived at deontologically (or based on our duties and responsibilities – or in the Christian tradition, based upon God’s commands).

Besides the duty based ethics – in which we act ethically and morally when we follow God’s will (as in love your neighbor as yourself, pray for those who persecute you, do not murder), there are virtue ethics. In this ethical strain, it is the character of who we are that determines the ethical action, not the consequences of said action. We ask ourselves, what kind of person do I become if I commit such actions? What kind of nation do we become if we permit such actions? Are we more loving? More just? More faithful? I’m not sure that “safe” is a virtue – but most of the arguments I am hearing is that we are more “safe” because of what we have done. I would argue, we are probably less safe. Yes, particular terrorist actions may have been prevented – but have we bred hatred abroad that will only be fuel for cell recruitment? What was our response when we learned that our own were being tortured? Anger, hatred, resentment.

The last kind of argument I have been hearing is probably more of a deontological ethics than anything else. It claims that the state is given to us by God for a reason and that it is the state’s duty to protect its citizenry. Because that was the state’s duty – it performed these acts of tortuous interrogation in order to protect the people. The Christian response to this is that since the state is there by God, and it is simply performing its duty, we need to support it.

This is where we have to do some careful weighing of our ethical priorities. Because I believe here is where we have ethical principles that conflict. Yes, perhaps in some cases we would want to support the state as it makes its decisions. The bible gives us room to do so. BUT – when what the state is doing conflicts with other ethical principles, like love and justice, then it is our duty AS CHRISTIANS to stand up and speak out against such ethical violations.

Now, I’m not sure at all about prosecution and guilt in this matter. That in many ways is a state issue. But we have to clearly and inequivocally say that what happened was wrong and that it will not happen again. Period. End of story. And as Christians, we need to hold the state fast to those promises.

it’s the small things

Posted on February 15, 20091 Comment

People might ask me what kind of amazing things my husband did for St. Valentine’s Day. And to be honest, I was kind of dreading that question, because we had already promised not to do anything for one another. We have done a lot of the romantic cheesy stuff already – we’ve been together for over 9 years now! And sometimes we don’t feel very creative.

So, with the pressure off, I just kind of enjoyed my day.

And you know what I got.

1) a cuddle on the couch during a movie. Ever since we got our sectional in the basement, we have each had our side of the couch. (which to be honest is more comfortable) Tonight, we cuddled up together on the one corner, just like we have done since our very first movie watching – Jaws.

2) I got a promise that he would wash dishes and do laundry – all of it. I’ve been really busy lately, and most of that category has been my responsibility. He chips in, but he also does a lot of outside stuff, cold or warm, and he cleans the bathrooms. (yuck). It was kind of a routine that we had settled into long before marriage. But tonight, he said he would take care of it.

3) all day, he kept reaching over and touching me – grazing my hair or my arm. Some of it was tickling, but mostly, he was just close. And it was super nice. I credit our rearranged couch. (although I totally hate where it is placed – but that is a different story… it’s a lot harder to hate now!)

It really is the simple things that matter the most.

B is for Bound Together

Posted on September 7, 2008Leave a comment

When I think about this very difficult passage from Matthew today I’m very aware of the fact that there are some things in this life that only a mother could say to you – some things about ourselves that we will never hear unless they come from the lips of someone who unconditionally loves you.
As we think about that – I want you to watch this clip from the movie, “Spanglish.” In this film, Deborah, played by Tea Leoni is the wife of a simple and carefree chef. Deborah is a bit self-absorbed and blames everyone but herself for her problems – a trait which has led her straight into an affair. Her mother, played by Cloris Leachman decides to step in and confront her about it.

(watch clip)

In my family, and maybe in yours, we call these sorts of talks “come to Jesus” moments. Those times when someone has strayed from the path and really need someone to let them know – to hold a mirror out in front of them and to help them to see what they are doing wrong and how they are hurting themselves or others.

When we look at this text from Matthew however, Jesus isn’t talking about our family lives. He’s talking about how to treat one another in the church. And the truth is we have a really hard time figuring out how to put these things into practice as a congregation. Our churches today, are not places where we feel comfortable having hard and truthful conversations with people. It is much better to pretend like a problem never existed, or to quietly remove yourself from the community than to get real with someone about a problem between you or an unhealthy situation.

I think part of the reason why we do so is because churches today – and by churches I mean the groups of people who come together as church – aren’t bound together. I was watching the Hawkeyes play yesterday morning, and in truth, congregations have much more in common with football fans than with the kind of community Christ is calling us to be in the scriptures. We are brought together by our common love, football in one case, worshipping God in the other, we sing/chant/cheer together, we pray together, but when the game is over and after we have had our coffee and cookies or hotdogs, we head home – back to our lives.

There is little if any sense of obligation to one another, much less accountability in many churches today, and, honestly, our church is one of those places. We don’t have a history of successfully handling conflict amongst ourselves – in fact, leaving the community, just not showing up, has been the most common way of dealing with problems in the last decade. I’m not sure if this is because we aren’t willing to say that there is a problem, or if it’s because when we voice a problem, we aren’t listened to – but in either case, the kind of relationships Christ calls us to model are not being lived out.

So we have to do is look at what it is about a family member, or even a best friend, that helps us to hear and respond to them when there is a problem.

And I think the real difference between those people we listen to and the church today is a sense of commitment. It truly takes unconditional love and unwavering concern for the kind of intervention and reconciliation that our passage from Matthew calls us to. The big question for us today is what kind of church would we have to become for Christ’s words to become a reality?

The answer I believe comes from recent Applebee’s commercials. Maybe you have seen them – the ones where a young man is sitting on a bench with headphones on, eating a sandwich and texting his friends. The “spokesapple” as it is affectionately called, encourages the young man to have a face to face conversation with his friends around the table. “Together is good” is the new theme the restaurant is trying to convey.

Now, whether or not you have seen the commercial, or eat at Applebee’s, the point is that we listen to the people we eat with. We care about the people we eat with. We want what is best for the people we eat with.

A friend of mine from Nashville has a family meal night with his family. While they are all very busy and the kids have school and extra-curricular activities and he and his wife work long hours – every Tuesday night they have a family dinner. Anyone else who happens to be around that evening is invited as well and for that one night a week they all sit around the dinner table together.

At the table – everyone has a chance to speak, and everyone is invited to share something about their week. Everyone is heard, everyone is listened to, and everyone has a place – even their youngest son who is 3.

The table is one of the most important images of the Christian church precisely because it is around the table that Christians are bound together. It is around the table that community is formed. It is around the table that the body and blood of Christ transform us into the body of Christ.

The hymn we just sang reminds us of that calling: Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found. Brought here together by Christ’s love, by love are we thus bound. Let us recall that in our midst, dwells God’s begotten Son. As members of his body joined, we are, in him, made one.

We are in Christ made one. We are made one in our baptisms, we are made one in our commitment to this church, we are made one in the holy sacrament of communion.

And as a community of people who are not only brought together by Christ’s love, but bound together by that love, the rules of engagement with one another change. As Christ’s life transforms our community, then how we treat one another changes as well.

Monastic communities all across the world understand this and so when someone decides to enter their communities, they agree to live under certain rules. Rules about how to treat one another, about what to do when someone sins, and about the things that are and are not acceptable in the community.

What are the laws that we live by? What are the rules that govern our life together? Whether we want to admit it or not, whether we live it or not, when we become a part of the church, we promise to support the church – the community of Christ- through our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service. And we promise to live a Christian life and to remain a faithful member of the body of Christ.

But perhaps the simpler answer is found in the book of Romans – where we are reminded of the greatest commandment – to love God and to love one another. Especially as we think about our life together- we must remember the command to love. According to the Jerusalem Bible translation of verse 10 – Love is the one thing that can never hurt your neighbor.

Philip Lawrence is the Abbot of the Christ in the Desert Abbey in New Mexico and he has this to say about our life in community:

“We must arise from sleep. We must be aware that it is this community in which we live. This does not mean that we think that things are perfect in this community. We must be radically honest about this. Our brothers and sisters are not saints… None of us is perfect; none of us follows every direction of the Customary or the traditions of the house perfectly.”

But you see, the thing is, when we do fail one another – when we do make mistakes, and we will – the instructions from Jesus that we find in Matthew are not designed to help us kick people out, but to help us love them back in.

Too often, we allow conflicts and problems to remain hidden, we fail to talk about them and we are not willing to hold one another accountable for the promises that we have made.

As a new minister, I know that this accountability piece is something that I too have to work on. All of our charge conference forms came across my desk the other day and again I was reminded that we have nearly 200 members and over 100 young people who have been baptized but who have not yet joined the church. That is over 300 people who are under the care of this church and yet we only have 50-60 here on a Sunday.

As the pastor who is about to fill out those forms, I feel a great burden to think about how to love those people back into our midst, rather than to simply let them slip away. And I am going to be putting myself out there this fall and in the coming year to hold myself and them accountable to the promises we have made. But this passage reminds me that this is a burden that we all share together.

When was the last time that you asked one of your brothers or sisters in Christ why they are neglecting their promises and aren’t giving faithfully? When was the last time that you asked a child’s parents why they were neglecting the promises they made by not bringing their young ones up in the church?

Those are not easy questions to ask! And perhaps you would not ask them in precisely that way. But for too long we have talked about people and their problems and their failings behind their back rather than reaching out and letting them know that we are here, and we want to be on this journey with them.

We treat one another as strangers instead of as brothers and sisters. And we believe that we have justification for doing so precisely in this same passage from Matthew for it says: If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

We forget that we have all sinned. We have all hidden pieces of our lives from the light of day and from the scrutiny of others. And we forget that how Jesus treats tax collectors and gentiles is that he goes to them… and he eats with them… and he loves them.

Again here these words from Abbot Philip Lawrence:

“Perhaps one of the most important facets of our formation as monks is the process of acceptance that we are all sinners, that we are all imperfect. I must accept my brothers as they are, with their sinfulness and their imperfections and their faults–and my challenge is to love them just as they are. Also I must come to accept my imperfections and my faults and I love myself properly as I am. My challenge is to allow the Holy Spirit to change my life from within. I cannot change anyone else’s life, but I can ask the Spirit to change my life, to transform me. I can use my energies to fight against my own defects, faults and sins.”

That is all we can do. Love one another deeply – help to point out a fault or a wayward action – but then, even if that person will not listen – simply love them. Love them and pray for them. That is after all what the mother did in our movie clip. She spoke the hard truth and said her piece, and then she made sure her daughter’s seat belt was fastened =)

Love them and pray for them… That is something that I know we all know how to do here. This is a church that loves deeply when someone is in need. Whether a love one is dying or someone is simply having a tough time – this is a church that knows how to treat others as family – as flesh and blood – rather than as strangers. You never cease to amaze me with your outpouring of love… and so as we love one another, we must let that love continue to move us deeper into relationship, deeper into the tough questions and may the love of Christ that has brought us together, bind us together. Amen and amen.

Throw Me a Bone Here!

Posted on August 17, 2008Leave a comment

Some days, I think that my cat Turbo secretly wishes to be a dog. He does things that are at times very odd for a cat – like wanting to have his belly rubbed or playing fetch. He also is very good about communicating to us when he is ready to play because he walks into the room with a toy firmly in his mouth and meows… Mraow!

The thing is, our lovely, adorable, little Turbo never wants to play when WE are ready to play. It’s always in the middle of writing a sermon or in the middle of a really intense part of a movie that he shows up ready to go. And he doesn’t make it easy for us either. You see, Turbo likes to stand just outside of the reach of our arms – about four feet away from wherever we are sitting and he drops his toy and looks at us. It’s like he’s saying… “Come and Get it!” Get up and come over here. Drop whatever you are doing and pay attention to me!

Sometimes, I think that its rather annoying. Sometimes I really just wish that he would go away and find someone or something else to play with. Because I have other more important things to focus on. But he stands there near me, with that cute little mraow! And pretty soon, I can’t help but give in.

How many of you have pets in your family? Whether they are big or they are small, whether they live outside or inside, pets are in 63% of American households. I was curious to find out a little more about all of these pets and found estimates from the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association that Americans own approximately 73 million dogs, 90 million cats, 139 million freshwater fish, 9 million saltwater fish, 16 million birds, 18 million small animals and 11 million reptiles.

That’s a lot of animals!

The thing about pets is that they have this amazing ability to make us better people. According to a pet therapist, “Love is the most important medicine and pets are one of nature’s best sources of affection. Pets relax and calm. They take the human mind off loneliness, grief, pain, and fear. They cause laughter and offer a sense of security and protection. They encourage exercise and broaden the circle of one’s acquaintances.” (http://www.sniksnak.com/therapy.html)

This morning, we hear a very different sort of story from Matthew about a how a woman who was callously called a dog – widened the circle of God’s love for Jesus, for the disciples, for the church itself, all in a conversation about table scraps.

And so as I thought about those two things together: about how much I love my cat and how sometimes he really pushes me to the limits and challenges me to move beyond what I am doing, about how he helps me to love more – and about how much that woman was hated and yet how she pushed the boundaries of the gospel and helped Jesus to love better – I got to thinking about table scraps and ever-widening circles. Table scraps and ever widening circles.

First of all, a little background on this passage of scripture. Jesus is walking around with his disciples way out on the border lands of Israel – out by Tyre and Sidon. Now, this would have been like venturing into Iowa State territory for these disciples…. If they were Hawkeye fans that is. People talk funny out there, people look different (okay, well not all that different), but there is definitely some long held animosity between the people of Israel and the people “over there.”

Before they realize it, this woman comes up to them…. And not just any woman, some crazy, foolish Canaanite woman, who starts yelling and begging and pleading with them to heal her demon-possessed daughter. I can just see the disciples now… are you sure that your daughter needs the help… because you are kind of freaking us out!

And then Jesus – the one who is always supposed to have the answers and who models to us how to treat others – surprisingly just ignores the woman. Doesn’t even bother to give her the time of day.

Now, if I were a disciple, and I saw Jesus ignoring someone – I’m not quite sure what I would have thought. It probably seemed like an affirmation of their worst thoughts and assumptions about this woman. It probably seemed like they were way too good to stop and pay attention to this persistent, annoying woman who was starting to make a scene. And so one of the worked up the courage to tug on Jesus sleeve and said… “Let’s figure out some way to ditch this lady… she’s getting on our nerves!”

Now, in most of our scriptures about Jesus, here is the point where Jesus would very firmly put the disciples in their place – take care of the woman’s concern – no matter who she was – and they would be on their way. Hopefully with the disciples having learned a very important lesson. Whenever I read this passage from Matthew, I am ready and waiting and longing for Jesus to give those hooligans a talking to.

But he doesn’t. We don’t know what is going on inside of his head, but he says something very strange to our ears – even today. Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” I was sent only to the Jews – that is my mission, that is my focus, that is what I am going to do.

And this woman, this Caananite, certainly wasn’t a Jew. In the gospel of Mark she is called a Syro-Phoenecian woman, but whatever way you look at it, she was definitely not included in the bunch Jesus had in mind. If you remember all the way back to Moses and the promised land, all the way back to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob… the Israelites were promised the land of the Caananites – the land of these people – to live in, to have as their inheritance from God.

Probably the best way that I can communicate to you the kind of racism, hatred and animosity that existed between these people is to think back about a hundred years to the way that Native Americans were treated in our country. Although they lived here long before Europeans ever set foot on the continent, those who came believed that this land of America was our promised land. It was a gift from God and a place where we could grow and live and love. But what came as a result of that was the demonization of a whole group of people – who were seen as nothing more than mongrels and barbarians and dogs to the white culture.

So imagine that kind of history between them, with those kinds of walls dividing this Canaanite woman and Jesus and his disciples, not to mention the fact that he is a man and she is a woman…. knowing that she is not included and not welcomed – this woman drops to her knees in an act of worship and begs Jesus… Lord, Help me.

Scott Hoezee, a biblical scholar wrote in his reflection this week that Jesus’ “ministry is a kind of extended heavenly feeding. (In the previous chapter Jesus fed bread to 5,000 people. Immediately following this morning’s story he will do something similar feeding bread to 4,000 people. Jesus is the bread of life.) And so, this woman is asking for a place at the table, but Jesus, chillingly, relegates her to the floor of life. ‘It’s not right to toss perfectly good bread meant to feed the children to the dogs.’ Jesus calls her a dog. It’s a kind of slur, an epithet, and the disciples no doubt approved.” (Scott Hoezee http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php)

Jesus has just denied this woman what she wants, what she longs for. He has not only done that, but he has insulted her in front of all of these other people.

But what I love about this woman is that she never backs down. She is quick and witty, she rolls with the punches that are thrown at her and she boldly speaks back. “Okay, so you want to call me a dog? Fine. You say that as a dog I don’t deserve the food off of the table. Fine. But you know what? Even dogs get the leftovers from the table. Even dogs get the crumbs that fall under the children’s feet. Even dogs deserve that… so, c’mon! throw me a bone here Jesus!”

Table scraps and ever-widening circles.

Edwin Markham once wrote a quick little poem called Outwitted that describes for me what is going on here. It goes:

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

We drew a circle that took him in… table scraps and ever widening circles.

We don’t know why Jesus initially excluded her, except that he felt like he had a mission to preach the Kingdom of God to the Israelites. So in a sense, he had drawn a line – a boundary – he had placed a limit on what he was willing or able or felt called to do. He had drawn a circle that shut her out.

But then this woman had the wit and the courage and daring to flip his statements on him and to draw the circle big enough so that she was not only included, but that others could be included as well.

In our Roundtable Pulpit discussion this week, we talked a lot about the table scraps – the crumbs from the gospel feast that are leftover or fall to the floor. Jesus is of course talking about himself, and his ministry and his calling to find and feed and care for the children of Israel. But even as he does so, as he goes out into the world teaching and preaching, there will be others around who will benefit also. They might have been eavesdropping as Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe they were the neighbors of someone who was healed. Perhaps they saw the multiplication of the loaves and fishes – were on the outskirts of the crowd as the food was passed around. In any case, there were numerous people who were not of the Jewish faith and heritage, who were receiving the gospel. Whether or not Jesus was talking directly to them.

We don’t know if Jesus knew this all along and he was just acting out the kind of transformation he wanted his disciples to embody, or if Jesus really did learn and grow as a result of his conversation with this woman.

What we DO know is that after she had drawn the circle bigger – by having the courage to say that even she, a “dog though she may be”, had the right to eat the table scraps – Jesus had nothing but praise and willingness in his heart toward her.

“Woman! You have GREAT FAITH!” He cried out. Like she had won a prize at the fair he made sure that everyone around him – Jew and Gentile alike – knew that this woman, this Canaanite, this nobody who he had but moments ago unkindly called a “dog” – was not only faithful, but that her plea for help would be answered. Immediately, we are told, her daughter was healed.

Here is the talking to I was waiting for! Here is the moment when this woman and Jesus partner up to stretch all of our hearts open just a little bit farther. And as they do so, they challenge all of us to think about who we are ministering to out in the world.

You see, it’s easy to get caught up in a mission. It’s easy to get caught up in one defined goal. But if we aren’t careful, we allow that one thing to so define our work in the world that we have in fact drawn a circle. We have built a wall and we have imprisoned the gospel. Because, although we may think we know exactly who should be included in our ministry, we have to remain open to whomever God sends our way. Because as Taylor says, God [is busy] rubbing out the lines we have drawn around ourselves and calling us into the limitless country of his love.

Dan Nelson writes that “Even Jesus, who presumably has diving authorization for his limits” – you know, that whole “I was sent…” thing – Even, Jesus “allows those limits to be stretched by another’s necessity. In other words, the rule here is that there is no rule, only a creative tension between our finite capacities and the world’s infinite need.” (http://sio.midco.net/danelson9/yeara/proper15a.htm)

Our finite capacities and the world’s infinite need.

Jesus as fully God never stopped being aware of this woman’s need and he never stopped loving her. But Jesus as the person who was also fully human was very aware of his limitations – of the demands on his time and energy. And maybe in this situation he had some of his priorities mixed up, but the love and the mercy were always there.

That’s the message that we get from our Romans text this morning. Paul is here writing about whether or not the love of God changes – if people can ever fall out of their standing with God – if we can ever be rejected. And his message is simple: NO. You see, as many times as we turn our back upon God’s grace and mercy, God never turns God’s back upon us. God is always there, waiting to take us back in and longing for each one of us to turn to him.

In the Old Testament, Israel was chosen, not because they were the only ones that God loved, but because they were to be a beacon to the nations – they were charged with the task of making God’s name known throughout the world. God’s vision and God’s love was always universal in scope – but that love began in just one corner of the world with one group of people.

As Paul writes Romans, he is living in a world in which his own people – those lost children of Israel that Jesus kept talking about – have rejected Jesus as their savior. They are like ungrateful children who take the bread that has been graciously set on the table and throw it on the floor.

And ironically – Paul says – their disobedience, has allowed all of us to gather up the crumbs and has allowed all of us to enter into a life with God.

The Message translation of the Bible has this wonderful way of sharing that message with us and it reads:

There was a time not so long ago when you were on the outs with God. But then the Jews slammed the door on him and things opened up for you. Now they are on the outs. But with the door held wide open for you, they have a way back in. In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in.

God makes sure that we all expedrience what it means to be on the outside, so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in. The reality is, all of us have disobeyed. All of us have turned our backs on God at one point in our lives or another. All of us are as unworthy as the disciples thought that Canaanite woman was to receive God’s grace.

And yet it is offered anyways.

And it keeps being offered in ways that stretch us and stretch our hearts and stretch the gospel around the world. In our final hymn today, we will sing in the second verse the following words:

Wider grows the kingdom, reign of love and light;
for it we must labor, till our faith is sight.
Prophets have proclaimed it, martyrs testified,
poets sung its glory, heroes for it died.
Forward through the ages, in unbroken line,
move the faithful spirits at the call divine.

Forward through the ages, that love of God has gone. Forward through the ages there have been people both shut out and pulled into that glorious kingdom by our actions and by our words.

We are finite and there are limits to what we can do – but never should we put boundaries around the gospel. Never should we try to determine who is and who isn’t worthy. Because our boundaries will never be able to contain the vastness of God’s love and mercy.