Mark – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

The Wilderness: Learning to Lean on the Lord

Posted on March 17, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Exodus 15:22-27, Luke 3:21-22, 4:1-2a, 4:14-15

This year, we are taking a journey through the wilderness during the season of Lent.

Most years, we spend one Sunday, if that, focused on the time that Jesus spent in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry.
However, the wilderness is not something to be glossed over.

So over these six weeks of Lent, we will take our time with these stories.
We will slow ourselves down and really chew on them.

Today, we focus on what the wilderness itself represents for Jesus and the Israelites.
It is the In-Between place, a liminal space, a transition between what was and what would be.

While it looks like we have a collection of random verses in our gospel text today, what we have are bookends of a transition into ministry.

Jesus was born and grew up in the home of Mary and Joseph. He was obedient to them and matured in wisdom and years, Luke tells us. But we don’t really know much else about his life as a child or a young person. Not until he suddenly shows up on the banks of the Jordan River to be baptized by John.

There, the heavens split open and the Holy Spirit descends and Jesus is named the Son of God.

But what next?
How do you go from a nobody to a viral sensation who teaches and preaches across the region as our third set of verses tell us?
How do you transition from a quiet life in Galilee to a world-transforming movement of love and grace and justice that challenges the religious and secular leadership of the world?

You pause for a minute.
You take a breath.
You figure out who you are and whose you are.

That same Spirit that descended upon him, led Jesus into the wilderness. Led him into a time of temptation and wrestling. A time to clarify his values, his power, his mission, his message.
Over the next several weeks, we will look individually at each and every one of those temptations and what they tell us about who Jesus is and how we are supposed to live.

For today, we simply want to remember that he took this time, this beat, this moment between those two realities to get ready for the future.

And when he was ready, the Spirit sent him back into the world.

When he was ready.

Scripture tells us that Jesus was in that wilderness for forty days, but the reality is, Jesus was in the wilderness for as long as it took him to get ready.

That number, forty, shows up 159 times in scripture and it is not a coincidence.

Instead, the number itself is a representation, a symbol, a clue as to the significance of the moment. It speaks to the reality that this is a time of testing that is meant to form the person or the people into a more faithful future.

The earth was flooded in the days of Noah for forty days, Jonah warned Nineveh for 40 days of its impending destruction, and Ezekiel laid on his side for 40 days to symbolize Judah’s sins – all represent a transition from our sinful past to the possibility of a new future.

Moses and Elijah, like Jesus, fasted for forty days in the wilderness – and these times were important transitions as they waited upon the Lord to give them instructions for leadership.

And then there were the Israelites.
They had been slaves in the land of Egypt.
All they knew was oppression and toil.
They didn’t know what it meant to live without Pharaoh’s rule, much less what it meant to live as the people of God in a new land.

The wilderness was not just the path they had to travel to the land of milk and honey.
It was also a time of transformation and testing where they would be strengthened and learn how to lean upon the Lord.

Exodus tells us that as soon as the Israelites were truly liberated on the other side of the Reed Sea, they celebrated their victory and began to move forward into this new land.

Together, they traveled for three days. Three days is all it took for the Israelites to journey through the wilderness without water before they started to grumble and complain and fall apart.

And God does a miracle in that place. The Lord has Moses throw a stick into the bitter, undrinkable water they had discovered, and suddenly it is sweet and refreshing.

They are learning to lean on the Lord.
They are learning to trust in God’s power.
But they are really just beginning to learn.

I look at this map and you know what really strikes me…. Where Marah, this place of bitter water is situated.

It only took them THREE days to travel this whole distance.

And it took them forty years to make the rest of their journey.

Because days were not enough time.

Years were not enough time.

It was going to take a generation of testing and transition and wilderness wandering before the people of Israel could leave behind what was and truly be ready for what was coming next.

Forty days…. Forty years… it took however long it needed to take for the people to be ready.

Right now, the wilderness is calling out to us.

Matthew, Luke and Mark all tell us that Jesus is led by the Spirit out into this liminal space, but Mark uses even stronger language. The Spirit forced him to go. He was pushed out there.

Just because you are led doesn’t mean you have to go. You chose to obey.

But to be forced… it means I don’t want to do something, and I don’t have a choice.

Did Jesus want to be in the wilderness?

Did he want to spend forty days wrestling with Satan?

I get the sense that any rational person wouldn’t choose this situation.
Jesus didn’t want to be there, but he had to do it.
He had to spend this time apart.
He had to get ready for what was to come.
Jesus had to make sure his head and heart and body were aligned before his ministry started.
It was going to be a rough journey and he was going to be working with some knuckleheads of disciples… not to mention the cross that would loom before him.

This time apart was necessary, because after the wilderness, there was a job to do.

Friends, we also have a job to do.
We are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
We are called to be God’s church, the Body of Christ, and to live according to his example.
We are called to make other disciples and to transform the world.

Are we ready? Have we prepared ourselves?
Or are we like those Israelites who are only a few days into a journey and already we are making excuses and want to go back to the way things were and we need to be forced to stop and take it slowly and re-orient ourselves to God.

I think some of us have to be forced into the wilderness of Lent… and that includes myself.
I’m too busy to spend any extra time in prayer and fasting and study… I’ve got a job to do, right? That’s what we tell ourselves.
But when we force ourselves to stop…
When we hand a piece of our lives over to God for a while…
Well, then suddenly we find that all those priorities re-align.
We remember it’s not about me or my desires or my needs… but about God.
And about getting ourselves ready for what God needs us to do in the world.

To be God’s people.
To repent and live differently.
To lead in a new way.
To offer ourselves for others.

This time of testing and preparation and wilderness is not about suffering for the sake of suffering. It is not in itself pleasing to God for us to be tempted and tried.

Remember, after all, that Jesus was already beloved, dearly loved, just the way he was before being sent into the wilderness.

No… the wilderness, these forty days, are only pleasing to God because they get us ready to come back OUT of the wilderness.

I am reminded of that old gospel song, “Come Out the Wilderness.”

It reminds me that we are going to come out of this time of wilderness.

Sometimes this time will make us want to weep… or pray… or shout.

But most importantly, when we come out the wilderness, when we finish this journey, when we get to the other side of this “in-between” we will do so leaning on the Lord.

So during this season…
During these forty days…
During this time in the wilderness….
What do you need to do to get yourself ready…
What do you need to do to lean on the Lord?

Bible 101: Quantum Mechanics, Elephants, and JEPD

Posted on January 20, 2019Leave a comment

Text: Selections (interwoven) from Mark 1, Matthew 3, Luke 3, John 1 on John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus

In Western Christianity, we want to know the right answer.

We have been conditioned, educated, by our schools, our philosophy, our churches, to look at facts and to believe there is only one truth.

2+2=4

Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States.

This is a glass of water… well, I supposed you are taking my word for that one… but at least we would agree it is a glass.

And, this book, the Bible, is the word of God for the people of God… thanks be to God.

We open up its pages and read a single verse or passage of scripture and because this book is true, we think – “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

But embracing only one right answer, only one perspective is not the way other cultures around the world or throughout history have approached the truth.

Consider the Indian parable about the blind men and the elephant.

Six blind men thought they were very clever. One day, an elephant came into their town. Now these blind men did not know what an elephant looked like, but they could smell it and they could hear it. “What is this animal like?” they said. Each man reached out to touch and feel with their own hands. Without realizing it, they each grasped a different part of the elephant.

The first man touched the elephant’s body. It felt hard, big, and wide. “An elephant is like a wall!” he said.

The second man touched one of the elephant’s tusks. It felt smooth and hard and sharp. ‘An elephant is like a spear’ he said.

The third man touched the elephant’s trunk. It felt long and thin and wiggly. ‘An elephant is like a snake’ he said.

The fourth man touched on of the legs. It felt thick and rough and hard and round. ‘An elephant is like a tree’ he said.

The fifth man touched one of the elephant’s ears. It felt thin and it moved. ‘An elephant is like a fan’ he said.

The sixth man touched the elephant’s tail. It felt long and thin and strong. ‘An elephant is like a rope’ he said.

The men began to argue. But a little girl heard them and said, “Each of you is right, but you are all wrong.”

In the parable, it is only when each person’s experience and perspective is combined with that of the others that the truth is discovered. They were each right… and they were each wrong.

Or, as the Apostle Paul later put it in his letter to the Corinthians “now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Cor 13)

What I find fascinating is that we have traveled a long way from the way Paul saw the world to the way that we have been taught to see the world through a modern, Western lens.

Western thought has led us to believe that there is only one objective reality and therefore only one answer to be found for the questions we seek… but modern science is beginning to shatter those understandings and in fact take us back to ancient was of understanding reality. So… we are going to take a quick dive into the field of quantum mechanics. Now, I LOVE science. I was a physics minor in college and what I discovered with nearly every class I took on cosmology or space-time relativity is that the deeper I got into the science, the more faith questions I had. The more I discovered just how awesome and complex and mysterious the world is. The deeper I went in my understanding of God.

We all know that our body is made of cells. Those cells are in turn made of atoms. And atoms are made up of even smaller particles – neutrons, protons, and electrons. And there are also subatomic particles like photons, quarks, and neutrinos.

What we have discovered is that these quantum particles refuse to be put in a box. Sometimes they act like particles… other times they act like waves.

In fact, there is an experiment that was designed to try to figure out once and for all what these subatomic particles are. They took a photon gun and shot individual photons at a slit to determine how it interacted with the material behind it.

I’m going to use an illustration of this that I heard from Science Mike on the Liturgists podcast.… Imagine if you had a large 8’ by 8’ metal plate with a gigantic slit down the middle and shot a golf ball at it, you would expect to see an indentation the shape of a golf ball on the other side. If you shot a hundred golf balls at this plate, some might bounce off, but others would hit that slit and you would end up with an impression the same shape as the slit on your surface. That’s the way any particle behaves when it is shot at a sensor with one slit.

Now it is hard to imagine how a wave might make a different impact, but imagine this… IF however, you filled the room with water and dropped a bowling ball in the space, it would create ripples, waves, and that same slit could be used to measure the pressure of the incoming waves. You won’t see indentations… you’d see the impact of the energy from the wave instead. Same metal plate, same slit, but the measurement you get looks very different because what you are tracking is a wave.

Waves and particles act differently and create different impressions. So you can use the exact same device and determine what is being shot at the plate.

Now… imagine there were two slits.

Do the same experiments again and you would discover with the golf balls, our scaled up particles, that you would have two identical impressions left in each of the two slits from the impacts.

But… with the waves, what you would instead see is an overlap as the waves interact and interfere with one another.

So what has happened when we have done the same tests with photons, with these quantum particles, is that in a single slit experiment, it acts like a particle. It leaves an impression. But when you add a second slit, they act like waves and you see interference. When you add more sensors… they begin to act like particles again.

In fact, physicists today are running these sorts of weird quantum experiments and are now starting to wonder if what we think is reality doesn’t really exist in the way we think it does until we start to measure it. It’s like that old saying, if a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well? Does it? And the more measurements we do, the more solid and real and identifiable any particular quantum particle becomes.

It’s the story of the blind men and the elephant all over again. The more data, the more observers, the more perspectives, the closer to reality you come.

This is actually a way of thinking about the universe and existence and truth that has been shared by Eastern cultures and philosophies for millenia…. We learn more about reality by sharing perspectives. Each person, each sensor, each perspective gives you a point of information, but it is the intersection of multiple points that gives us insight.

Or as Science Mike puts it in the Liturgists podcast, “literally, additional observers make the universe exist in Quantum mechanics.”

The cultures and peoples that were inspired by God to write this sacred text were comfortable embracing many perspectives. To be honest, the authors of scripture were not really concerned with the details what really happened. They were not seeking one singular answer to the questions they were asking but were trying to explain how God showed up in their lives and their experiences.

And, the Bible did not arrive on the planet as one pre-packaged and published manuscript. All of these stories and writings and teachings were arranged and put together by later editors and chroniclers. They recognized the limitations of human knowledge and understood that truth comes out of the wrestling that happens as we seek to find meaning in a multiplicity of perspectives.

One example of this is the composition of the first five books of scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah… or the Teachings of Moses.

As biblical scholars have wrestled with how to make sense of some of the contradictions and repetitive stories within these books, there became a theory that rather than these five books being one composite teaching, all written by one person, Moses, it is likely a combination of different traditions, from different perspectives, all woven together at a later time. While we love the idea that Moses sat down with a quill and a scroll and wrote all of these words himself, what we know is that many of these stories were passed down through oral traditions. And just like different members of the family might tell a story differently… same story, same truth, but slightly different perspectives, our scriptural stories were passed down the same way.

At some point, those stories were all woven together. And while we might prefer a neat and tidy compilation where each tradition and perspective is clearly identifiable, that wasn’t important to people in the past. It was how they were woven together that made the scripture come alive.

And so there is this theory that tries to pick back apart those different strands. This is the JEPD theory… Where each letter identifies the source and the background.

The Jawist (Yahwist) story begins in Genesis 2 – and it includes much of Genesis and parts of Exodus and Numbers. God is personal and reaches out in the lives of people.

The Elohist describes God not as Yahweh, but as El or Elohim. This is like Aunt Sally’s version of the same events, but she uses a different name for God.

The Priestly tradition likely comes from around 500 years before the birth of Christ and the stories that it tells often relate to worship and order and the temple. Genesis 1 is understood to be from this tradition… as are the parts of the story from Noah and the ark that talk about not two of every animal, but seven pairs of each of the clean animals… Because you need additional animals to sacrifice!

And the Deuteronomist is responsible for the final book of the Torah. The name literally means, second law, and it was a rediscovering or a retelling of the law for a later generation of people. The stories are often told, as a result, with the knowledge of hindsight.

So… how was the earth created? It depends on if you are looking at the Priestly writer in Genesis 1… or the Jawist in Genesis 2… and what about John chapter 1 “In the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God and all things came into being through him?” … but in the Jewish understanding of scripture, that wasn’t the question they were asking. They didn’t want to know one concrete answer and objective truth… they simply wanted to know who they were and how God wanted them to live… and it is all of those stories, woven together, both a cosmic, orderly God and a deeply personal and intimate God that gets us closer to the truth of the mysterious nature of it all.

But maybe the most easily identifiable example of this, are our four gospels.

Four stories.

Four perspectives.

Each sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the world.

And yet, they tell that story in completely different ways.

The facts are different. The timeline is off. The people who are important vary.

Believe it or not, aside from the events of what we know today as Holy Week – Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, and resurrection – there are only two stories that all four gospels share in common:

The baptism of Jesus and the feeding of the five thousand.

And as we heard this morning with the four voices reading this shared narrative, each gospel writer has their own take on the events of the day.

Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience and does his best to connect everything that happens with what has come before. “It is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

Luke’s gospel is meant for people who are outside of the Jewish context and so his connection points are more personal as he invites Gentiles to change their lives in light of Jesus’ actions.

Mark is a short, fast-paced telling of the life of Jesus, probably designed to make it really easy to memorize and share.

And John? Well, John is totally different from the other three. In fact, Matthew, Mark and Luke are often called the “synoptic gospels” because they see through a common lens. But John cares less about the details of the narrative. John focuses on the divine, on miracles, on the difference Jesus makes for the world, rather than in any individual life.

One way to think of these four gospels is to imagine them as four different cable news networks. Each has a different audience. Each has a different bias. And each approaches the way they communicate the truth with those things in mind.

And there came a day when religious leaders sat down and tried to figure out which of the stories about Jesus were the ones that really captured the truth. And they had a choice to make. Do we include just one version? Do we include two? No, they included all four of these gospels… those who were inspired to put them together in this particular way into our Bible knew that it was only by holding all four of these perspectives together, in tension, looking not at the parts, but at the whole, that we would even begin to be able to grasp what is True (with a capital T).

We can’t point to a single verse and capture “the answer” to the questions we ask anymore than in the parable any one of those six blind men’s experience would have captured the fullness of what an elephant is.

Like soundbites and talking points today, on their own they will never contain the fullness of the story or the complexity of the truth. But when we read it all together, when we seek to balance out our own biases, then like the blind men in the parable, or the scientists measuring from different perspectives, we can start to recognize the bigger truths.

That is why we need to read scripture.

That is why we have to read ALLof scripture.

That is why we need to take the time to balance our perspectives and not search for quick and easy answers.

God does not fit into a box.

And the truth of God is more complicated and awesome than any verse or chapter or book.

And that is an amazing, beautiful, and holy thing.

YES! We Are Able!

Posted on October 28, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Deuteronomy 8:11-18 and Mark 10:23-31

Last week, Pastor Lee from Women at the Well shared with us part of the story of the rich, young, ruler in Mark’s gospel.
This morning, we hear the second half of that story… the response of the disciples… our response… to the invitation Jesus offers this faithful follower.

Will you pray with me?

Over these last few weeks, we have been hanging out with the gospel of Mark and the challenging ways that Jesus calls us to follow.
Are we able to take up our cross and drink the cup of suffering?
Are we able to stand up for our selves or others?
Are we able to embrace difference and let others lead?
Are we able to see the vulnerable around us, especially children, and to see their gifts along with their needs?
Are we able to hear the truth about that one darned thing in our lives that keeps us from saying, “YES” with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength?

And after walking with Jesus through these chapters, I’m not surprised if we, like the disciples find ourselves frustrated when he tells us, “Children, it’s difficult to enter God’s kingdom!”
Whatever happened to, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light?”
Where are the promises that we will led beside the still waters and into green pastures?
Like James and John and Matthew and Andrew we cry out – “Then who on earth can be saved, Jesus?”

Because as must as we try, we find it awfully difficult to sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of others.
Fear keeps us from standing up for others or for ourselves.
Our need for control and stability gets in the way of our willingness to embrace and celebrate the differences among us.
We worry about what will happen if we let the kids run amok in our midst.
We are comfortable… oh so comfortable… with that one blasted thing that keeps us from standing in the life-giving stream of God’s love and grace and power.

Who can be saved?
Who is able?
Can anyone among us truly say, “YES?”

And then Jesus looks at us carefully. The Greek word here, emblepo, indicates that he is looking searchingly… clearly… directly into our very hearts….

“With human beings it’s impossible.”
We can’t do it.
There is nothing we can do or give or accomplish that will earn us a spot in God’s kingdom.
We are not able.

And that’s why the second half of Jesus’ words are so important:
“but… All things are possible with God.”

You see, our ability to be saved, our ability to enter God’s kingdom, our ability to follow Jesus, our ability to provide for ourselves or our families… none of it comes from us.
Nothing we are and nothing we have is the result of our own effort or striving or accomplishment.
It is all because of God.

As the early Hebrew community was told as they were being led out of Egypt, we need to remember, we need to never forget that it was God who rescued us from Egypt.
It was God who led us through the desert.
It was God who made water flow out of rock and sent mana from heaven.
It was God that led some people from Burns UMC out to a farmhouse on 49th Street to start a new faith community.
It was God that helped us lay the cornerstone for a new church to meet a growing worshipping congregation in 1968.
It was God that gave us the ability to build and pay for Faith Hall a decade ago.
It was God that has formed the faith of generations of children… who in turn have brought their children and grandchildren back to this place.
It was God that gave us the very breath of life and it is God that gives us the ability to work and to serve and to love and to follow.

Moses tells those Israelites in the desert – when you look around at your houses and your tables set full of food and when everything around you is thriving, don’t you dare think that it was your own strength or ability that accomplished these things.
Remember your God.
God is the one who has given us strength.
God is the one who has made us able.
God is the one who calls us… and then God equips us to answer, to follow, to say YES.

You know… I look out at the world on a week like this when evil and hatred and violence seem to be winning and I almost want to give up.
I don’t think I have the ability to stand in the gap.
I don’t have the energy to keep speaking out for the way of love and hope.
I don’t know how to change the hearts of others.

Do you ever feel that way?

But then, I come to worship.
I come to this place.
I hear these words of scripture.
I see your faces.
I sing with all of my heart these songs.

And I remember that it’s not all up to me.
It’s not my ability or skills or talents that will change this world.
But God can.
And God will.
If I just open up my life a little bit to let God use me.
If I set my fear and hesitation and need for control to the side and let God work through me.
If I place these gifts in God’s hands…
If I turn to others gathered here…
If we start with the things God has already given us the ability to do…
If we allow ourselves to be pulled, stretched, called…
If we count all of the blessings God has poured out into our life and if we just let go and trust…
God is able.
And God makes us able.

Able to give back.
Able to reach out in love.
Able to shine light in darkness.
Able to offer hope in the midst of despair.
Yes, Lord, We are Able…
And it is all because of You.
Thanks be to God… Amen.

YES! We Are Able to Care for Our Children

Posted on October 15, 20181 Comment

Text: Mark 9: 33-37, 42-43, 10:13-16

For twenty-seven years, faith communities across the United States have been observing the “Children’s Sabbath,” lifting a united voice of concern for the children in our midst.
Marian Wright Edleman has been instrumental in this work throughout her life. She recalls in a letter of introduction to this year’s observation that fifty years from Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign, we are still in the midst of the struggle to end racism, materialism, poverty, and war.
“Many are driven to despair,” she writes, “by assaults on children and family well-being – including rampant and resurgent racism; the devastations of poverty…; the daily, deadly toll of gun violence…; and the heartless ripping of children from the arms of parents seeking refuge in our country. But this time demands that we persist in hope, not despair, and fight with all our nonviolent might until justice is won.”
“All children deserve lives of hope, not despair,” Edleman proclaims.
All children.

So this morning, we are joining together with Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and other Christians to remember that all children are precious in God’s sight and to answer the call to make a positive impact on their lives.

Our faith, after all, demands that we think about the children.

In the gospel of Mark, which we have been following during this fall series, includes not one, not two, but three different instances in which Jesus prioritizes ministry to and with children… that that’s just in two chapters.
We are called to welcome children, to build them up rather than tear them down, and to even become like them.
The children around us… our children… teach us about what it means to be faithful.
And deciding to follow Jesus means being willing to say that YES!, we are able to set aside our desires and plans and limited vision and open our hearts and our lives to the needs and the gifts of the children around us.

There is another key part of these passages that might be difficult, but it is important to highlight. Our responsibility to care for these children… to set aside our agendas… to prioritize their needs… and to not impair them from abundant life… it isn’t an option.
It is a central part of our faith.
And Jesus even says that if we get in the way of these little ones – well, our own souls are at risk.
It’s that important.

So, I want to take some time this morning to talk about how we, through both the larger United Methodist Church and right here in our local community, how we can say YES! to Jesus by being in ministry with all of God’s children. I want to lift up ways we can “persist in hope, not despair.”

This past week, I was in Atlanta for our fall board meeting of Global Ministries and I want to begin by telling you about signs of hope and good news I saw through our connectional ministries.
Our Global Health Unit has a strong focus on maternal and child health and many health systems are being strengthened because of the funds that we have raised through Imagine No Malaria and other initiatives.
In Mozambique, midwives and community health workers are focusing on not only pre-natal, but ante-natal visits to help monitor health and provide education about diseases that threaten pregnant women and children. The efforts are paying off with a dramatic increase in healthy births.
Among all of the data that is collected through these visits there was one in particular that caught my attention. Last year, nearly 187 of these individuals were treated for malaria at these ante-natal visits. This year, because of our efforts to reduce transmission – only 13 individuals had to be treated. That is a 93% reduction! And a cause for great hope for children who might grow up and thrive.

We also heard a report from National Justice For Our Neighbors on our work along the border in these past months. This organization is a United Methodist ministry that provides legal help for immigrants and refugees. Their work has focused on the border with providing accompaniment for those who are seeking asylum.
In one such instance, a mother and her child from Guatemala presented themselves at the border and were separated and placed in detention until their Credible Fear Interview to verify their need for asylum. After 38 days, her interview finally came, and a JFON attorney named Virginia, helped the mother, Delia, present her case to the officer and was granted asylum. Having been found to have credible fear, Delia then had to post a $1,500 bond – which was raised by JFON.
But then, they had to raise funds to travel to where her child was being held two hours away.
One of the conditions of asylum is that individuals must be able to stay with family and so funds also had to be raised in order to get this mother and child to their relatives in another part of the United States. In the weeks for it took to complete this process, the JFON lawyer actually opened up their home for this family to stay with her.

Both of those programs and ministries are possible because we as United Methodists have said that YES we are able to care for the most vulnerable around us. We have combined our apportionment resources and special giving to be the hands and feet of Jesus all across this world.

But we also see the impact of these struggles right here in Des Moines. The neighborhood all around us is changing and part of the reason is that immigrant and refugee families are making a home in our midst. They have found here a safe place to start over, raise their children, and build a new life for themselves.
It’s the reason why Hoover High School is the most diverse school in our state.
But we also see this represented in the lives of children who attend the schools closest to our church.
We wanted to take some time today to hear about the needs right here in our local community, from one our elementary schools – Monroe.

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You and I… this community of faith… has the opportunity to bring hope and excitement to the children right here in our midst.
We can show up and volunteer.
We can support the work of these families as they care for one another.
We can pray for teachers and provide encouragement in their work.
We are going to be listening, paying attention, and seeking further ways to be in partnership with not only Monroe elementary, but our other neighborhood schools as well.

We’ve responded by collecting socks and underwear.
We’ve brought together supplies for school kits.
We’ve purchased books.
And now God is asking us to respond in a bigger way – to build relationships.
One of those opportunities is present right here in our building as we continue to get to know the Myanmar congregation and their children and together our children are growing in faith and love.
Reach out and get to know them on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.
Sit with them at dinner.
Ask them how their day is going.
Volunteer with our children’s ministry.

And… if you are interested in stepping up in a bigger way, Billie is going to be coordinating some efforts in the future to build partnerships with our schools. She’d love to hear from you.

God has given us amazing gifts, resources, a beautiful facility, and the hands and feet to help.
Are you willing… are you able… to see the children around us and bring hope into their lives?

Untitled

Posted on October 7, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Mark 9:38-41

Sometimes the best thing a preacher can do is to be real and authentic.

And so I’m going to confess that I’m really struggling with how to share this text with you this week.

This fall, we are loosely following the lectionary – the three-year cycle of texts that help us to explore the fullness of the scripture. Rather than just preaching on my favorite texts each week, the lectionary challenges us to think outside of our comfort zone.

But we also are building up to our Stewardship Sunday at the end of this month, and as we organized the texts and the themes, we wanted to ask the question – Are you able to support the ministry of others? Are you able to invest in the work of your fellow siblings in Christ – even if you don’t always do things the same way? Are you able to encourage people you disagree with?

I still want to preach that sermon.

But I admit that it is harder to preach today than it was a month ago or a year ago.

And that is because what we see all around us, in both the church and our larger political landscape and indeed in our world, is a whole lot of us vs. them mentality.

I was sitting at an event in Chicago two weeks ago with other members of the General Conference delegation from our jurisdiction. And there is this particular person with whom I have a very difficult time finding any common ground. They weren’t even sitting at the table with me, but I could see them across the room and every single time they caught my attention, I could feel my anxiety rise. My heart beat faster. My chest clenched up a bit.

I realized that I see this person as my enemy.

We are on the same team.

We both love the United Methodist Church.

And yet everything we believe appears to be so diametrically opposed… and not only that, but I feel like their position actually harms people I love within the church.

I don’t want them to win.

And I don’t know what to do about that and how it is impacting my own soul.

Politics is the social life that we share together and we have witnessed our political discourse crumble to pieces.

In these past few weeks, anyone who has tried to say something about what is happening in our nation, particularly around the Supreme Court – for or against it – is immediately swarmed by people who both criticize their position and criticize them for not going far enough.

We are so entrenched that we cannot even see clearly.

The red side and the blue side are enemies and the slightest mention of anything political and you can watch a room fill with tension as people discern when to engage and how in order to be victorious.

But, friends, there simply have not been any winners in these political battles.

We have all lost.

As we have been following the gospel of Mark this fall, we come to a moment of struggle for the disciples. They have worked so closely with Jesus and even though they don’t always get it completely right, they understand who their tribe is.

To use a sports metaphor, Jesus is the coach and they can point to the other eleven players.

They know who their teammates are.

But as our pericope begins, the disciple John tells Jesus about how he and some other disciples noticed these other people who were doing ministry in his name. Specifically, they were casting out demons, something that the disciples themselves had just failed to do successfully a few verses earlier.

What was their very first response to encountering these people?

Resentment. Hostility.

They tried to stop them.

If they aren’t part of our team, our tribe, we have to shut them down.

Into our tribalism and partisanship, into our entrenchment and division, Christ speaks.

From the message translation:

“No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side.”

Whoever is not against us is for us.

Those are really hard words to hear when you feel like you are on the battlefield.

They are hard words to hear when you consider someone your enemy.

They are especially hard words to hear when you look at the actions or the policies or the attitudes of someone and you actually believe that they will harm you or people you love or things you care about.

And maybe that is why I have struggled so much with this text this week.

Because there are bigger issues out there in the world than simply accepting or encouraging the ministry of someone who sets up communion a different way that I do.

I think our division is so intense because we believe there are issues of life and death, holiness and faithfulness, justice and covenant, on the line as a result of the direction we take… from either side.

But I wonder if what Jesus is really calling us to in this passage is a different way of engaging those battles.

What if instead of seeing those on the other side of the aisle or the other side of the church or in another part of this world as enemies, we saw them first as allies.

Jesus says that you demonstrate you are on his side by giving others a cup of water, giving the hungry food, clothing the naked, comforting the mourning.

Not by destroying those with whom you disagree.

If we continue just a bit farther in this chapter, Jesus talks about how if your hand or foot or eye causes you to stumble, cut it off. And then he reminds us that everyone will go through a refining fire sooner or later… and we need to consider how our actions demonstrate our faithfulness.

I think Jesus is calling us to get busy doing good, to worry about our own actions and our own failings, and to let God sort out the rest.

I got to thinking about my friend, Doug, as I thought about this work.

Doug was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor in the community that I first served in Marengo.

While we are both Christian, our two traditions have very different understandings of communion, ordination, and the place of women in the church.

The very first time I met Doug, I admit I had a lot of anxiety.

This was a person whose faith taught him that I couldn’t and shouldn’t be a pastor.

Everything in my being was preparing for an argument or to figure out a way to defend myself and my personhood. I had already drawn lines in the sand. I had already thought of him as a potential enemy.

Do you know what Doug wanted to talk about?

He wanted to ask if I would be willing to join him and some other pastors for breakfast every Wednesday morning to talk about the lectionary.

He didn’t see my as an opponent or someone he had to convince, but as an ally, a colleague, a friend.

He was offering me a cup of water…. Or coffee in this instance, in the name of Christ.

He was doing ministry in Jesus’ name.

And he recognized that I was doing the same.

We shared breakfast every Wednesday morning for four years.

And when we are invited to this table, we are called to set aside our weapons and our armor and to see people we believed to be enemies as brothers and sisters.

We will not agree.

We will not do things the same.

We might even believe that the actions of another person might harm our witness or people we love and care about.

But if we engage one another in love…

If we greet them in the name of Christ…

If we offer them a cup of water…

If we open ourselves to allow them to do the same for us…

Then at the very least we are preserving that place in our own souls that dies a little bit every time we consider someone to be our enemy.

Once we allow someone to sit with us at the table and break bread and share a meal, we discover that there are new ways to have a conversation about our differences.

We find there are good things that we can do together in Christ’s name.

And we have a chance to build the kind of trust and relationship that will allow us to truly hold one another accountable for our actions. We will finally have the authority and respect in one another’s life to call out actions that are done in the name of Christ that harms the body. And we can do so in love, with compassion, trusting and knowing that we are on the same team and that if our sister or brother is calling us to account it is because they want what is best for not only our own soul, but for the church and the world that we share.

So are you able to invite someone you disagree with to the table?

Are you able to point out the good things they do in Christ’s name?

Are you able to encourage them and love them so that one day you can both hold one another accountable?

May it be so.

YES! We are Able to Claim Our Faith

Posted on October 2, 2018Leave a comment

63% of American households have pets. According to 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.

And as one pet therapist noted: “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)

In our gospel lesson from Mark this morning, we discover how a woman, who was callously called a dog, broadens the circle of God’s love… even for Jesus.

First, some important background. Jesus is traveling with the disciples on the border lands of Israel – out by Tyre and Sidon. Not only were they in Gentile territory, but there was long held animosity between the people of Israel and “those people.”

As Mark’s gospel relates, Jesus really doesn’t want to be bothered. He ducks into a home for some peace and quiet, but somehow this woman knows that he is there. Before they know it, she’s inside, prostrate at his feet.

In Matthew’s version of this story, she appears yelling and shouting, begging and pleading for the healing of her demon-possessed daughter. And, 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.

When he finally does respond to her pleas, it is with these words: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Jesus is making clear that his focus, his mission, is first to the children of Israel. And this woman, this Syrophonecian, was not his problem.

We can see parallels in the kind of animosity taking place between these cultures with how Europeans denigrated Native Americans. Like the Israelites, Europeans believed that the land of America was their promised land. It was a gift from God. But those who already occupied the land had to be deal with first and what came as a result was the demonization of a whole group of people. The others were seen as nothing more than mongrels, barbarians, dogs.

She belongs to the wrong culture. She is the wrong gender to be making such a request. She was not included and not welcomed. And yet, she drops to her knees in an act of worship and begs Jesus to help her.

Biblical scholar Scott Hoezee, writes, “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 denied her want she wants, what she needs. And, he has insulted her in front of the disciples.

But what I love about this woman is that she doesn’t back down. She is quick and witty, she rolls with the punches 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 the table. Fine. But you know what? Even dogs get the leftovers. 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!”

We don’t know why Jesus initially excluded this woman, 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.

This woman reminded Jesus, in this moment of his human weakness, of the promises of his divine calling. We proclaimed them together in our call to worship. Our help is the God of Jacob. God is faithful forever. The Lord gives justice to the oppressed and makes the blind see and loves the righteous and helps orphans and widows.

She acknowledges that Jesus might have a call to first help the people of Israel, but she claims her own faith and her own place within the larger vision of God’s mission in this world.

I think that far too many of us hesitate to say “YES!” to God’s work, because we don’t believe that we are included or important. Maybe, because someone IN the church has made a comment that has put us in our place or has denigrated us… whether they meant to or not.

You are too old or you are too young.

You don’t dress the right way.

You have made different choices about how to raise children or care for aging parents.

You can’t get up early enough.

You stay up too late.

You are too busy.

This church is full of imperfect, human people and we all have a vision in our head of what our mission should be about. Sometimes, as a result, we step on one another’s toes and say things without thinking.

When we find ourselves on the receiving end of such words, it is natural to want to tuck your tail between your legs and slink away.

But I want to remind you of the persistence of this woman.

She claimed her faith.

She claimed her position.

She claimed her reality.

And she claimed her place.

You know, I admit in a church that it is easy to get caught up in one idea of what we are supposed to be about. One defined goal. But if we aren’t careful, we allow that one thing to so define our work that in fact we have 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 must remain open to whomever God sends our way.

Dan Nelson writes that “Even Jesus, who presumably has divine authorization for his limits 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.

As a fully human person, Jesus was aware of the limits of his time and energy, but as fully divine, Jesus never stopped being aware of this woman’s need.

Paul wrestles in the book of Romans with whether or not the love of God for any person changes – if people can ever fall out of their standing with God. And his answer is simple: NO.

God never turns away from us. God is always there, from generation to generation.

The church, gets it wrong sometimes. We forget that we are charged with the task of making God’s name known throughout the world – to all people in all places.

Like ungrateful children, sometimes we take the bread that was set on the table and meant to be shared and we toss it carelessly on the floor.

But as the Syrophonecian woman reminds us – even there, even in the crumbs, even in the scraps, the gospel finds a way to feed and transform and bring life to people.

We need to hear the voices from those we have set on the outside, on the margins.

We need every person who has ever felt like they have been excluded to claim their faith.

Shout out your needs.

Tell aloud your faith.

Speak your truth.

Because when you do, when you say YES to God, even if and when you feel like the church is saying NO to you, you transform the church.

You help us to recognize those we have unintentionally left out.

You enable us to respond to pain we couldn’t see.

You make us a better church.

You stretch us and stretch our hearts and stretch the gospel around the world.

We are finite and there are limits to what we can do – but when every single one of us claims OUR faith, we are able to wipe away the boundaries around the gospel – and we will find that God will give us the strength and power, mercy and compassion, that we need to be in ministry in new ways and places each and every day.

YES!: Are Ye Able?

Posted on September 23, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Mark 10:35-45

This summer, we invited each of our households here at Immanuel to read a book together: Defying Gravity by Tom Berlin. Berlin invited us to try to break free from the gravity of this world, the culture of more, and the kingdom of self-centered ways in order to follow Jesus and find freedom within the Kingdom of God.
This fall, as we approach our Stewardship Sunday we are going to be exploring ways that the early disciples found themselves saying YES to Jesus. Ways that they, and we are invited to break free from what is burdening us, so that we can follow Jesus Christ.

On first glance, the disciples James and John in our scripture today don’t seem to be breaking out of the kingdom of self-centered ways. In fact, they seem to be completely focused on their own success and glory.
In the verses immediately before our scripture reading for this morning, Jesus is predicting his own death and resurrection… but these two don’t seem to be paying attention.
In fact, they are too busy trying to find their way to the best seats at the table.

I’ve discovered whenever we go to have meals with my nieces and nephews that this very topic, where people get to sit, is really important. Sometimes, before I’ve even taken off my coat at the door, I find a nephew tugging at my hand, showing me where my seat is. It is always very strategically placed next to him.
The only problem with all of this maneuvering is that I only have a right side and a left side. And there are now four nieces and nephews all vying for one of those coveted spots. Someone’s feelings usually get hurt because they didn’t get the chance to ask first and sometimes a fight breaks out. Usually we have to do some negotiating so that if I sat next to one of them last time, it gets to be someone else’s turn. Or perhaps we are there for the weekend and we can all get a chance.
Suffice it to say – I almost never get to sit by my husband at family meals.

Well, James and John, they, too have their eyes on the best seats, right next to Jesus, at this great heavenly feast and coming of God’s glory that they keep hearing about.
They have conveniently forgotten all of the tough times that await.
Or maybe they haven’t.
Maybe they are terrified about all of these predictions about death and trials and rejection and they are doing what we all naturally do when we encounter our fears… they are trying to secure their own future.

Biblical scholar Charles Campbell suggests that “fear breeds the desire for security.” (Feasting on the Word).
We find ourselves fearful of all sorts of things in this world. Fear of strangers, fear of terrorism, fear of falling behind, fear for our children.
A good friend of mine went out for a run by herself this weekend and posted on facebook that the entire time she was uneasy and anxious in light of the recent attacks upon women who were alone, minding their own business, living their life.
And you know what – fears breed the desire for security. People quickly responded with ways to work to keep safe – from wasp spray, to sonic whistles, a buddy system and more.
Fight, flight, freeze… we seek security and protection from our fears by buying things to help us fight back or get away or we allow the fear to keep us from engaging all together.

These disciples weren’t running away from this difficult journey of Jesus, but they wanted to fight for a seat by his side when it was all over. And James and John rush to ask the question first. They want a guarantee of where they will land at the end of it all.
Jesus invites them to consider a different way. He turns their eyes from the heavenly seat of glory and instead invites them to think about images of baptism, communion, and the cross.
He’s asking them to break free from the gravity of fear that leads them to seek their own spot at the table and to instead embrace the Kingdom of God that is the way of the servant.

Are you able? Jesus asks them and us.

Are you able to drink from this cup?
We are being invited to say YES to the holy practices of the table. A table of love and grace, mercy and forgiveness. Around God’s table, all are welcome – sinners and saints – and there is no seat that is more important than any other.
Around God’s table, we discover that it is in giving that we receive and we learn that God has always provided enough to sustain us. We don’t need to fight or grasp or cling to secure our own future, God has already done the work. Christ is the bread of life, broken for us, and when we eat and when we drink, we offer ourselves as a holy and living sacrifice. We become the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood, shared with the world.

Are you able to receive my baptism?
We are being invited to say YES to the sacred practices of death and renewal. At the font, even this morning, we remembered that our very life was nurtured by God in the waters of a womb. We are invited to enter these waters and die to our old selves and to rise with Christ. And we are reassured of the grace of God that will continue to make our lives new.
In response, we are called to embody a life that rejects the kingdom of the self and all that would pull ourselves and those around us, into that black hole of thinking that we are never enough or we will never have enough. We become living witnesses to the gospel, standing against injustice and oppression and evil and proclaiming hope.

When Jesus asks James and John if they are able, the truth is that he knows they are able.
He knows that no matter the shortcomings and the fears that led them to ask this question, they can and will break free. Charles Campbell sees this as a great promise to us as the church today. He writes:
“We need not always live in fear; we need not continually seek our own security. Rather, we have Jesus’ promise that we can and will live as faithful disciples as we seek to follow him.” (Feasting on the Word, p. 193)

Are you able to take up my cross?
In a world in which rulers show off their authority and the powerful push people around, Jesus invites us to say YES to a different way. The cross, you see, is not just about the forgiveness of my personal sin. It forms all of us into a community of faith that is not organized by winners and losers, the honored and the shamed, but by how we love and care for and serve one another. As Saint Francis of Assisi invites us to pray:

O Divine Master, grant that I may not seek so much
to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love,
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

When we say YES to Jesus, we are set free from our fears and our drive to secure our own future. And we are empowered by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to truly follow Christ. We are able, not because any of our own abilities or knowledge or power… but because the practices of this church like baptism and communion fill us with the grace and strength we need to keep saying yes, day after day.

There will be many things around us that cause us to fear. But by living into the practices of community Jesus has offered, we find the courage and the strength to change the world one moment at a time. We are building a kingdom where no person will ever have to fear again. Thanks be to God, Amen.

Breaking the Rules

Posted on February 25, 2018Leave a comment

As children, our understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, and the direction of our moral compass is shaped by our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, older siblings, friends, and neighbors.
Sometimes, they do this through gentle encouragement. Other times, it is by laying down strict boundaries. In other cases, it is the failure of such people to guide the lives of young people that leaves them lost, swimming without instructions in a sea of temptations.

That doesn’t mean, as young people, that we immediately understand the influence that the people we love have on us.
A few weeks ago, I invited you all to share with me stories of the heroes in your own lives.
One of you wrote to me that you didn’t recognize your hero at first. He was hidden behind a lot of rules and regulations: how to be a gentleman… how to keep your shoes polished… the proper way to do something.

Our friend here in the church wrote that it took nearly twenty years to start seeing past all of those rules to come to understand who their father really was. In the process, he began to understand the life lessons that came along with all of those rules and procedures: lessons of respect, the giving of time together, the ability of something to be transformed. Once understanding really seeped in, the role that hero played in his life stuck with him… and will continue to do so, even though his father is now deceased.

This week, as we explore what makes a hero, Matt Rawle focuses on the story of Spiderman. In many ways, Peter Parker, the teenage boy in the suit, is a lot like our friend here in the congregation. While he had lost his parents, his Aunt Mae and Uncle Ben took him in and raised him and tried to shape his life. It took time for him to understand the lessons that these important adults were teaching.
There is a scene in the 2002 movie, starring Toby Maguire, where Uncle Ben is determined to have a chat with Peter.

However, Peter is too wrapped up in the temptations of his new powers, too focused on winning fights for some money, and too self-centered to listen to the advice of his Uncle in the moment. Only later, after his uncle’s death, do the lessons begin to sink in and shape the moral code of Spiderman.

Biblically speaking, we are shaped and guided by the influence of the saints that have gone before us – the heroes within the scriptures like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, David, Matthew, Mark, and Paul. Sometimes we learn from the mistakes that they have made. Other times, we are encouraged to follow the rules from God that they have passed down. Still other times, we are encouraged to let their example shape who we are.

At the beginning of this year, I began with a group of friends to read through the bible, chronologically. Our reading plan will take us through every verse in 365 days.

So far, we’ve spent a lot of time in the rules and regulations of the Torah, the law of God passed down through Moses. There are rules about everything – what to eat, how to treat slaves, when to pray, who you can and can’t have sex with. Some of these rules make absolutely no sense to us today… and some would have been quite strange for their day as well.

And that was because God was trying to form and shape a people who would be holy.
Set apart.
Other.
Just like Uncle Ben told Peter that he was becoming the man he would be for the rest of his life, God wanted these people to become the kind of people, holy and set apart, that they would be for the rest of their lives.

God wanted people to take one good look at the Israelites and be able to tell that they belonged to God and lived according to God’s values.

At first, that holiness was shaped by relationship. God was in relationship with the patriarchs of our faith like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – speaking to them personally and leading them along the way they should go.
But in order to shape a community, a society, rules were a more effective way to teach these lessons of holiness. Behind each commandment or law, God was forming a people who would honor God, honor creation, and honor one another. It was not the rule that was important… but how the rule would shape our lives.
There comes a time, however, when those same old rules handed down generation after generation start to lose their power.
When we forget the lessons behind the rules and the relationship with the God who gave them to us and we begin to idolize the rules themselves.

I heard a story once about a church that stood up and turned around to face the back doors every time they said the Lord’s Prayer.
A new pastor arrived as was puzzled by this strange practice so she asked why they did so.
No one knew. No one could remember. It was just the rule for how they did it.
A few years later, they were updating the sanctuary. The wallpaper was being removed so they could freshen the space up with some paint. And as they peeled back the wallpaper on that back wall, they discovered the words of the Lord’s Prayer. In year’s past they had been painted there on the back wall. The church must have stood and turned to read them together.
But reason behind the practice had long since faded away. Only the practice remained.

This was the reality that fell upon the people of God as Jesus walked among them. The Pharisees believed that by following the rules of God and the traditions handed down from previous generations that they were being faithful to God.

Whenever they encountered others who broke such laws, they were quick to point out their flaws.
And so in today’s passage from Mark, they criticize Jesus and the disciples for picking heads of wheat, even though it was a Sabbath day on which no work should be performed.

Jesus replies that the law, and the Sabbath, were made for humanity… not the other way around. We were not meant to fit our lives into the boxes of rules written ages ago, but those rules were meant to bring us life and rest and honor and wholeness.
If in this new time and place, if in this particular situation of need, the rule actually limits the ability of God’s people to be set apart or to honor God, one another, or creation… then sometimes those rules need to themselves be set aside.
We can point to heroes in our world like Rosa Parks, Ghandi, and others, who willfully chose to disobey laws in order to help shape our societies into places that were more just, equal, and loving places.

But Jesus also teaches us that sometimes, simply following the rule is not enough.
When Jesus faces temptation in the wilderness, the devil tries to steer him away from his path of ministry by quoting scripture. But Jesus points to other scriptures that better fulfil God’s intent.
As he taught the people in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus also took some of the familiar rules we knew and made them even stronger. In Matthew 5, there are a number of ways in which even the Ten Commandments are reframed –
“you have heard it said to those who lived long ago, ‘Don’t commit murder,’… but I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment.” (5:21-22)
In these stories of our faith, Jesus is helping us to see that the rules themselves do not determine what is right or what is wrong.
They are not the ends themselves, but a tool which helps to shape who God wants us to become.
Sometimes, to do what is right, means to break the rules and do what others might believe is wrong.
And sometimes, it is to take the rules we know and love and live them out even more deeply.

How are we supposed to know what is right and what is wrong?
How are we supposed to respond when not just biblical laws, but societal laws that form and shape us, no longer support the values that God is trying to shape in us as a people?
The good news is that we do not simply have rules that are handed down, written in stone, that will never change.
No, we have an example to follow.

I tended to be a rule follower as a child, but I can remember a few times when a rule was being enforced but I didn’t understand the purpose or intent behind it.
It especially made me mad when the people who were sharing the rule were not following it themselves.
“Do what I say, and not what I do” was a phrase that frustrated me to no end.
I think that was because I knew even then that the rules themselves are not what make our actions right or wrong, but it is the example and the life we lead as a result of them.
When the people we are supposed to look up to or emulate aren’t following the rules, they lose their meaning.

But we do have an example to follow.
We have a Savior who walked among us and dealt with our temptations.
We follow someone who not only had a relationship with God, but was God, and who lived out God’s values in every step taken upon this earth.
And so while the rules in our lives might guide us, our job is to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus.
When we are in relationship with Jesus, and allow God’s ways to fill our heart, then every step we take will be holy.