Another treat for the anniversary of ‘I Have A Dream’. This is one of my favorite preachers, Rev. Tamara Lebak, Associate Minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you only listen to one sermon today, make it Dr. King’s, but if you listen to two, make this the next one.
50 years ago today, this speech was delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Take just 17 minutes of your day today and listen to it in its entirety. Let Dr. King inspire and challenge you once again. His dream has not yet come true. May it come true in our day.
My final sermon at First Presbyterian Church of Boonville, NY:
I would like to say a few words this morning on the subject of freedom. Specifically, I would like to talk about where freedom comes from and what freedom is for.
A discussion on the subject of freedom is particularly apropos this week as we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, which he delivered on August 28, 1963. Dr. King’s words represent a great moment in the history of freedom and I will have more to say on them in a moment.
For my biblical text this morning, I will take our reading from chapter 13 of the gospel according to Luke. This also is a noteworthy text on the subject of freedom. It begins with the story of a woman who attended a synagogue where Jesus was preaching. They tell us she was afflicted by “a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.”
Let me ask you this morning: how many people do you know who are crippled in spirit? How many are “bent over” and “quite unable to stand up straight” in our churches and on our streets?
Let me tell you something: when I hear that women in this country still make only 81 cents for every dollar made by a man, I see people bent over and quite unable to stand up straight. When I read that there are more African American men in jail than there are in college, I see people bent over and quite unable to stand up straight. When I see 20% of the population controlling 80% of the resources, wallowing in luxury while millions starve, I see people bent over and quite unable to stand up straight. When I talk to Americans with foreign-born spouses who long to return home to their country but can’t because the federal government refuses to recognize the legitimacy of a marriage between two partners of the same gender, I see people bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.
This is the reality we live in. And it is certainly crippling to the human spirit. Skeptics and cynics believe that there is nothing to be done, that you can’t fight city hall, and these problems are just too big to solve. But there is another reality that we all live in. As the apostle Paul says, there is a God in whom we “live, and move, and have our being.” Jesus has something else to say to those who are crippled in spirit, bent over, and quite unable to stand up.
The Bible tells us what Jesus did. First, it says that “he saw her”. Jesus looked at this woman with all the compassion that heaven could muster; he looked at her with a love that knew her name and counted the hairs on her head. How many times do we just let those statistics just wash over us? How often do we look the other way or change the channel on those of God’s children who are bent over and quite unable to stand up straight? We don’t see them, but God does. And the Bible tells us that the first thing Jesus did for this woman was see her, really see her, as she was.
Next, the text says that he “called her over”. Not only did he know her name, he spoke it. He singled her out and drew her close to himself. He took this no-account, poor, sick woman and brought her to the center of the life of the religious community, the synagogue in which he was preaching. Jesus interrupted his own sermon to call and empower the least likely and most forgotten member of their church. The one who sat in the back, trying not to be noticed, found herself suddenly placed at the center of what God was doing in the life of her community. That’s how God works: taking the people in the margins and placing them in the middle.
Finally, Jesus said to her, “Ma’am, you are set free from your ailment.” And there’s that word again: Freedom. Isn’t Jesus’ choice of words here interesting? He doesn’t say “You are healed of your sickness.” No, he says, “You are set free from your ailment.” There is something freeing, even liberating about what Jesus is doing in this person’s life. Somehow, it’s not just about recovery from a medical condition, it’s about freedom.
There is a great deal about freedom we can learn from this passage. In fact, I think we have to. In this age when terms like faith, family, and freedom are tossed around as political buzzwords on the campaign trail, we owe to ourselves as voters and critical thinkers to know what these words really mean, especially the word freedom.
So first, I want to look at where it is that freedom comes from. It seems that those who hold public office in this country would have the people believe that freedom is a commodity to be regulated and doled out by our leaders as they see fit. They anoint themselves as champions and defenders of freedom in times of crisis. They tell us that freedom comes from the barrel of a gun or the platform of a party. Some would even have us believe that our rights and freedoms ultimately come from the Constitution, but this is not so.
The truth is that Americans do not revere the Constitution because it creates freedom, but we respect it because it recognizes freedom. In point of fact, it was Thomas Jefferson who identified for us the true source of freedom in the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote. Jefferson says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Jefferson is quite clear about the source of our rights and our freedom. He does not say that “we are endowed by our government”; he does not say that “we are endowed by our military strength”; he does not say that “we are endowed by our Constitution”. He says that “we are endowed by our Creator” with the unalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That is where freedom comes from. Freedom comes from God. Any system of government is at its best when it recognizes said freedom and holds it in high esteem. Any claim to the contrary amounts to a totalitarian usurpation of the throne of God, which is blasphemy.
This is the truth that emperors and despots the world over have failed to realize throughout history from Pharaoh to Caesar, from Napoleon to Nebuchadnezzar, from Stalin to Hitler, from the Confederacy to Governor George Wallace, and from Monsanto to Halliburton: that freedom is the gift of God to all the world. We disregard it to our own peril.
Jesus distributed this gift liberally in his encounter with the bent-over woman. When he calls her to the center of the church, he does not play 20 Questions, he does not ask her anything about her theology or her morality, he does not check her criminal record or her charitable donation history with the synagogue, he does not require her to take a literacy test or present a government-issued photo ID. No, he simply lays his hand on her and proclaims with the authority of God alone, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Now, it seems that some folks in the church didn’t like that very much. One of the leaders of the synagogue was indignant with Jesus. That happens a lot, by the way: whenever Jesus shows up in church, the preachers and the elders get real uncomfortable (probably because they never know what he’s going to do). So, they decided real quick that they needed to shut this thing down. The leader stepped in, saying something about the church bylaws and biblical precedent, but Jesus wasn’t having any of it. Jesus set him straight pretty quick. You can’t stop the Spirit, once God gets moving; all you can do is hop on board or get out of the way. That’s how it is with Jesus: he gives God’s free gift of freedom for all, uninhibited by the religious or social institutions of the day, because freedom comes from God and God gives freely.
You don’t get freedom from bullets or ballots. Freedom cannot be legislated. Freedom is. Those among us who are truly free know that they are free whether the government chooses to recognize their freedom or not. That’s the strength that led Christians to continue gathering for worship in communist Russia, even though churches were outlawed and the practice of religion was forbidden. That’s the faith that led Martin Luther King into jail where he sang hymns of praise to God like Peter and Paul in the New Testament book of Acts. These people were all free, living in the freedom that God gives, regardless of the government’s recognition of their freedom.
So, that’s enough about where freedom comes from.
Let’s talk a little bit about what freedom is for. We can see this in the gospel story too. After Jesus had seen the woman, called her over, and proclaimed her God-given freedom, the text says “immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.” So you see, she wasn’t just set free from something, she was set free for something.
This is probably the most ignored aspect of the gift of freedom in this country. We selfish folks tend to think of ultimate freedom as the freedom to be left alone while we do whatever we want, but that’s not what God has in mind. God’s will is not that we should be set free from tyranny and oppression in order to be left alone; God’s will is that we should be set free in order to be together. When we are no longer weighed down by the burdens of guilt, fear, injustice, and suffering, we are finally free to love our neighbors as ourselves as we see the image of God in them and they see it in us.
We are freed for love. Love is the inner law that binds us to one another with chains of affection. There is no threat of punishment that keeps us in line with the law of love. It works by persuasion, so that love’s fruit is genuine and free.
In a world so full of injustice and un-freedom, where our brothers and sisters, God’s children, are bound, bent over, and quite unable to stand up straight, we are commanded to love them and work with them until all have obtained God’s promised freedom in equal measure. This is the gospel. This is good news in action. This is the freedom for which Christ has set us free. We are free to love, free to be loved, and free to live together as God’s beloved children on God’s green earth.
I don’t normally post one article after another, but this was too good to pass up.
I have been a bi-vocational minister for the last five years and am getting ready to begin my first full-time position in September. As one who has tried it, I can whole-heartedly agree with the author of this article. Bi-vocational ministry (a.k.a. Tentmaking) is downright tricky. If we’re going to hold it up as a viable option for ministry in the mainline denominations of the future, then we absolutely must re-evaluate how we practice and support it. Especially for young(ish) pastors like me, simultaneously starting two careers and a family without retirement or healthcare benefits from either job is straight up unsustainable.
Let me be clear that I don’t intend this as a slight or knock to the congregation I have served for the past several years. They have struggled and bent over backwards for me. They have provided every ounce of support they could muster. I have been blessed.
These words should be directed to churches and denominations at-large as they seek to blaze a trail for future generations in ministry.
In my opinion, bi-vocational ministry is a more viable option for second-career clergy and commissioned/licensed lay ministers who don’t bear the burden of seminary student-debt. Our denominations should also continue exploring options of merging and yoking congregations. I do not recommend telling first-career seminarians that they should expect to never have a full-time job. Frankly, that would decimate the church.
Reblogged from the Christian Century:
I know that we cry about not having enough money, and we certainly don’t have enough money to be doing things in the same way, but our denominations have great abundance. We have property, assets, and foundations. We have wealthy members. In many denominations (like the PCUSA), there are great income disparities among our clergy. One pastor is living off food stamps while her neighbor makes six figures. Sometimes they’re on the staff of the same church.
To be starving off our leadership seems like a determination to dwindle. We can do without a lot of things, but it would be difficult for us to thrive without our pastors. We have enough, can’t we learn to be creative and support our clergy?
Follow-up to my previous post: I am Racist
Reblogged from Gawker:
We’re getting close to the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which is, hell, as good a time as any to reflect on how racist we still are. Are we really, though? We are!
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
Don’t you hate that? I sure do. And what I hate most about it that it rings so true. There is no plan so perfect, no system so airtight, and no arrangement so ideal that life cannot find some way to mess with it. Sometimes, I just wish the universe could just leave well enough alone for once. But, as we all know, that never happens. Eventually, something comes along to change every circumstance, for better or worse. Those of us who are invested in the way things are usually have the toughest time adjusting to the new situation (especially when we feel like we were just getting used to the old situation). Life is frustrating that way.
Of course, we don’t mind sudden and unexpected change so much when it happens to other people. In fact, we kind of relish it. I think this is because it makes us feel better about the chaos in our own lives to watch others go through it and survive. Just think: how many of your favorite books, TV shows, and movies involve plots where the hero is thrust into action against his/her will?
Lately, I’ve been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic, The Hobbit, with my four year old. For those who haven’t read it, it’s the story of a hobbit, a little person, named Bilbo Baggins, who lives in a quiet little village in a land called the Shire, where life is simple and no one ever goes on adventures or does anything unexpected. Hobbits like to eat, drink, work in their gardens, and watch fireworks. Anything else is far too exciting for them. Those who seek greener pastures and broader horizons are frowned upon by the rest of hobbit society.
Then, one fine day, a wizard named Gandalf the Grey shows up on Bilbo’s doorstep with a band of rowdy dwarves. Suddenly, Bilbo finds himself unwittingly thrust into a most dreadful adventure, full of goblins, dragons, lost treasure, and one magic ring (that later proves to be most significant indeed). He never asked for it and didn’t even really want to go on the trip. He just wanted to stay home, read books, and smoke his pipe. But the remarkable thing is that Bilbo only becomes the hero he’s destined to be because of all the unexpected things that happen to him along the way. Those chaotic changes, for all their inconvenience, enable Bilbo to discover who he is and what he is capable of. As readers, we can definitely agree that The Hobbit wouldn’t be much of a story without the unexpected changes. After all, who would bother to read a book or see a movie where the hero never leaves home and never has any problems of any kind? Nobody, that’s who.
Chaos, change, and conflict drive the plots of our favorite stories. As it is in fiction, so it is in life. If our lives didn’t keep getting interrupted by unfair and unwelcome changes, they wouldn’t be very interesting. We would never learn what we are capable of. We may hate the change and curse the chaos, but we need them because they make us into the heroes we’re meant to be.
This is what evolution looks like: the unfolding emergence of life through struggle and chaos. When unexpected change comes, it is not the devil trying to steal your peace, it is God’s way calling you to new adventures of the spirit.
Jesus knew how to embrace the flow of this constantly unfolding process in life. He talks about it somewhat enigmatically in today’s gospel reading. He says in the beginning, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”
If you look past the metaphors of fire and baptism, you can see Jesus talking about something that is not yet finished. He is telling his followers that he is involved in something that is not yet completed.
Going on from there, he elaborates, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” This is an unusually harsh thing for Jesus to say. We’re used to thinking of him as the ultimate champion of world peace and family values, but here he talks about conflict and the breaking up of families due to his influence. What are we supposed to make of that?
What I hear Jesus saying in this passage is that his job is not to uphold the status quo in life or society. “The way things are/have been” is of little or no interest to Jesus. His job, as he sees it, is to shake things up.
Understandably, this agenda would have been particularly frustrating to the religious leaders of his day, who saw it as their solemn and sacred duty to maintain the status quo and defend traditional family values. In the eyes of the people, they were the ones who had all the answers when it came to issues of faith and morals.
But Jesus is challenging their authority. He makes the claim that their so-called insight is really nothing more than pretense. “You hypocrites!” He says, “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
Jesus is exposing their so-called insight as deficient. They, with all of their sophisticated arguments and developed systems of ethics, really have no special knowledge about the nature of reality beyond that which is available to everyone. The word hypocrite, which Jesus uses here, is actually the Greek word for actor. These leaders have built their reputation on pretending to have knowledge and insight. They keep up appearances and see to it that the show goes on.
The implication is that, if they really had insight, they would be able to see this unfolding process that Jesus was describing in images of fire and baptism. The truly wise among them would know that growth requires change and change is hard. If they knew “how to interpret the present time,” as Jesus said, they would be open to interpreting the challenges of the future as opportunities presented by God for our growth and development, our evolution, as people of faith. But, as it is, these close-minded authorities are simply standing in the way of God’s work with their beliefs, their tradition, and their family values.
This is a hard and enigmatic word that Jesus gives us today. We mainline Protestants in the 21st century are really not all that different from the Pharisees of the first century. We too are concerned about preserving what we have, especially when it comes to church, tradition, and family.
There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it’s quite admirable to honor the best of what has been handed down to us from previous generations. However, we have to always keep before us a sense of the renewing nature of faith in each generation. The challenges that our grandparents faced are not the challenges that we face. We would do their legacy a disservice if we were simply to repeat and regurgitate what they had passed down to us.
Our task, as believers in this day and age, is to make the Christian faith our own as we reinterpret and apply its message today. Sometimes, this means doing away with old ways of thinking or doing things. We have to be open to each new challenge, not as a threat against the integrity of our faith, but as an opportunity presented by God for our growth and development.
Holding this kind of perspective, which I call ‘seeing with the eyes of faith,’ will keep our attention focused where it needs to be: on the unique possibilities presented by each new situation as it arises. As believers, we are called to face the future with the conviction that we are being loved and led into new beginnings. That’s what faith is.
Our ancestors had to do adopt this risky perspective in times past. The earliest Christians found their experience with Jesus to be at odds with traditional Judaism; John Calvin found his study of the Bible leading him to challenge established Catholic doctrine during the Protestant Reformation; other Christians at various times have been led to adopt new ways of thinking and living in relation to issues like the abolition of slavery, the theory of evolution, the ordination of women, and marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.
Change is nothing new for us Christians. It goes all the way back to the very beginning of our faith, including Jesus himself, if we take today’s passage seriously. For almost two thousand years, the Spirit of Christ has been kindling a fire in the hearts of people the world over. This spiritual fire has put them at odds with their peers and mentors, who couldn’t understand that what was happening through them was the work of the Holy Spirit. If we would honor our ancestors’ legacy, then we must open our hearts to that same inner fire of the Spirit. We have to look at the constantly changing chaos around us as God’s gift for our evolution.
This church is about to enter into yet another one of these times of change. After three wonderful years as your pastor, I will soon be moving on to a new call at another church. I recognize that it’s easy for me to stand here this morning and ask you to embrace change with openness because I know exactly where I am going next and what I will be doing when I get there, while you remain here without so much knowledge. It might even seem trite or cruel to hear these words from me, but I wouldn’t be your pastor if I didn’t challenge you to look beyond these present circumstances and see, with the eyes of faith, the hand of God leading you into new opportunities as a church.
Whatever the future looks like, it will not look like the past. I can’t even guess what new realities will emerge for you from the womb of possibility. What I do know, and what I can tell you is this: If the Holy Spirit is calling me to a new ministry, then the Holy Spirit is also calling you to a new ministry. The question for you to answer is: what might that new ministry be? I can’t answer that one for you. What I can tell you is that the God who has been “our help in ages past” will continue to be “our hope for years to come.” The same God who loved our ancestors into their new beginnings is faithful to love us into ours. That much I know. This much I trust.
My prayer for you, as I prepare to leave next week, is that you, as the Church of Christ, will embrace the challenge of the coming days in the spirit of faith, which looks for opportunities and possibilities. Silence in yourselves the voices of fear and despair. This church is neither dead nor dying. We are alive with potential and bursting at the seams with possibility. This church is a powder keg, waiting only for the fire of the Spirit to ignite us into explosive new realities.
Trust this. Be open to each new opportunity as it comes. Like Bilbo Baggins, become the heroes you’re meant to be. Honor the legacy of your ancestors by showing yourselves to be the kind of Christians who “know how to interpret the present time” through the eyes of faith.
Meditation by Rabbi Cassi Kail of Temple Emanu-El in Utica, New York. Rabbi Kail has impressed with her work and compassion ever since her arrival in town. As a fellow young clergy-person in central New York, I salute this rising star!
This afternoon I was honored to speak at an event on immigration reform put together by Nuns on the Bus. There immigrants, clergy, and advocates of reform spoke to an interfaith audience. These are the words I delivered:
I am an immigrant.
Sure, I was born in the US. My parents were born in the US. Even my grandparents were born in the US, and my grandfathers were both Army vets.
Yet, I am an immigrant.
Why? Because we are all immigrants. Almost all of us have ancestors who came to the land of America in search of something—be it opportunity, equality, or to run from persecution.
I am an immigrant, just like my ancestors were immigrants—from Abraham who left his home in search of his Promised Land, to my great-grandparents who came to America in search of opportunity and a land without persecution.
And I wonder if I would…
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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NBtWMruHxM%5D
A lot of media attention has gone to the mysterious ‘miracle priest’ who showed up and seemingly vanished from the scene of a car accident in Missouri earlier this month. The priest, Fr. Patrick Dowling, has come forward and identified himself. What he has to say is pretty much right on the money in spirit:
If you’re a priest/pastor/person of faith and you see an accident, YOU STOP.
If you have any questions, I recommend that you go read Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which is found in chapter 10 of Luke’s gospel.
Some folks might be disappointed that Fr. Dowling didn’t turn to be an ‘angel’ (in the supernatural-being-with-wings sense of the term), but I have to say that I think he was. The word angel (Mal’ak in Hebrew, Angelos in Greek) just means ‘messenger’ (i.e. one who is sent with a message and a purpose). I think it is perfectly legitimate to believe that Fr. Dowling was ‘sent’ to that scene with a message and a purpose. If you wonder what that message is, watch the video again… and if you see someone in need or trouble: YOU STOP.
Dear Superfriends and Blogofans,
I have a great big announcement to make.
As many of you already know, this blog was born as the theological reflection component of our Community Chaplaincy ministry at St. James Mission in Utica, New York. I wanted a forum to meditate on and discuss the theological issues that arose from doing street-level ministry with people in the margins of urban society.
Ever since the Community Chaplaincy program was ended in 2011, this blog has become a much more generalized theological reflection post for Christians from the liberal/progressive end of the church spectrum. During these past couple of years, I have been serving as the part-time pastor of a small rural congregation in Boonville and teaching in the philosophy department at Utica College.
My announcement today is that the shape, scope, and location of ministry is about to change again, this time in a much more drastic way. As of this morning, I have received a call to serve as the pastor of North Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
North Church is a small congregation in the Northside neighborhood that has focused all of its energy for the last generation on building community and doing ministry with mentally ill people in the greater Kalamazoo area.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be moving into full-time pastoral ministry with people on the edges of society. Once again, I will be “taking to the streets” as a pastor in this ministry of solidarity, care, community, and advocacy.
North Church is a unique congregation in that it is primarily funded by other churches who believe in this vision of ‘ministry with’ rather than ‘ministry to’. My learning curve will be steep, but all parties are going in confident that the Holy Spirit has called us together and will light the way for our common future.
Look for changes in the blog as it returns to its original purpose as a forum for theological reflection and discussion about ministry in the margins.
Once again, the Street Pastor is heading back to the streets…
Here is a bit of background about the history and vision of North Church, borrowed from the website of the Presbytery of Lake Michigan:
History: Kalamazoo North was founded in 1864 by four young women of First Presbyterian who began a Sabbath School for people settling in the north east side of Kalamazoo at the corner of what is now Gull Road and Riverview. From the beginning those who came to the weekly gatherings included low income immigrants from other parts of the United States coming north for opportunity and to live in freedom. The Presbytery of the time officially chartered the congregation in 1878. From its founding days, the congregation has placed itself in the midst of residents who are poor and struggling with all the issues that poverty exacts on people. It has been a congregation whose members represent many caring professions: social work, nursing, teaching, community based work such as feeding the hungry. The congregation with its pastors has been instrumental in establishing a wide array of community ministries including Ministry with Community, Habitat for Humanity, Housing Resources, Inc., and now a ministry of accompaniment, inclusion and support with people living with severe and persistent mental illness. This ministry, The Togetherness Group, began in 1988 under the pastorate of Rev. Fred Cunningham. Facing the end of state support for community based programs of social support, several members of the congregation asked Rev. Cunningham if it would be possible to begin a social group for members of the church dealing with mental illness issues. With consultation and support from the Session, the congregation embarked on what has been a life changing journey for the congregation and a life affirming ministry with people living with mental illness and other disabilities.
Vision: From the beginning the vision has been to exhibit the Kingdom of heaven to the world (Great Ends of the Church). That vision includes all people but especially those traditionally seen as outcasts and people to be feared. The congregation has created a place of welcome and caring and a framework of normalcy as people share together in worship, participate as deacons and elders in leadership roles, join together in book groups and bible studies, and serve as leaders in the community organization, I.S.A.A.C., which North Church helped found in 2002 with 17 other congregations and partners in Kalamazoo county. The congregation engages in special projects such as creating banners for the worship space, and participating together as interpreters of our ministry in a variety of settings. North Church means faith and community.
The Togetherness Group is an outreach of the congregation to all of Kalamazoo County. Members of the Group and the congregation are united in believing that life can be well lived and filled with hope when a community of support exists that creates opportunities to see one another as God sees us – people of promise living founded on God’s promise. Our ministry takes us into relationships with Community Mental Health programs, the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), college social work classes, and the Presbyterian Serious Mental Illness Network (PSMIN) in which some of our members have participated.
They say growing up is hard to do. And I think they’re right. Because growing up involves change and kids generally like to have a regular, predictable routine. I remember one time when life interrupted my routine and I had to adjust to a new way of doing things. It happened at the beginning of fifth grade. I was having a hard time adjusting to my new classroom, my new teacher, and more challenging homework assignments.
When I finally had all I thought I could handle, I made an appointment to see the school guidance counselor, Mr. Arnold. I walked into his office with my mind made up. I had a plan. I thought I already knew the solution to my problem, so I told him: “Mr. Arnold, this fifth grade stuff is too hard. I don’t like my teacher, I can’t keep up with the material, and I’m just not happy here. I’m obviously not ready for this. I think I just need to back to fourth grade.”
Well, you can imagine what Mr. Arnold’s response was. When he finally stopped laughing, he told me in no uncertain terms that returning to the fourth grade was not an option. Then he introduced me to a new word, one that I’ve carried with me ever since. To be honest, I think he made it up, but it describes so well what I was doing by asking to go back to fourth grade. Mr. Arnold’s word was awfulizing. He said, “You’re awfulizing this situation, and no, you can’t go back to the fourth grade.” And then he explained what he meant by that: my ten-year-old self was choosing to see only the negative parts of fifth grade and blowing them out of all rational proportion until I convinced myself that the only solution was to go backwards and stay in my old comfort zone.
Growing up is all about facing the future. We all have to do it: as individuals, as churches, as a society, and we Christians have a choice to make in that regard: we can either face the future with fear or we can face it with faith.
In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus has a lot to say about the future. As usual, he’s speaking metaphorically; he’s telling stories. In the first story, he describes the coming future as a bridegroom coming back home after his wedding. In the second one, he describes the future as a thief breaking into a house in the middle of the night. What this says to me is two-fold: first, the future is full of the potential for great joy; second, the future is full of great potential for danger. Both of these realities are true in the same place, at the same time. Neither the joy nor the danger outweighs or cancels out the other. Both are simply true. That’s how reality is.
The only thing we have to decide is how we will respond to this dual-reality of joy and danger, which the future presents us with. Again, ours is a choice between facing the future with fear and facing the future with faith.
We already have a pretty good idea of what it looks like to face the future with fear. We see people do it every day because fear is the easier of the two choices. When individuals choose fear over faith, it looks like despair, cynicism, sarcasm, and broken relationships. People give up on themselves and each other in order to lead lives of “quiet desperation” as Thoreau said. People give up on life because they’re scared that things might not turn out like they’d hoped or planned, so they’d rather just shrivel up and get cold and hard inside while life passes them by.
When whole communities like churches, businesses, or countries choose fear over faith, the consequences are far more dire. The people in these communities turn inward and get defensive, circling their wagons against the onslaught of a hostile environment. They build walls and weapons to protect themselves from anyone who might look, think, love, or pray differently than them. In a world governed by fear, rather than faith, the best defense is a good offense. It’s kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, so you’d better get it while the getting’s good and do unto others before they do unto you.
That’s fear. It gets you nowhere. Whether we’re talking about people, churches, or countries, living in fear just perpetuates the cycle of violence over and over again for generation after generation until there is nothing left of this world but a smoldering trash heap.
Isn’t that what we see happening on the news every day? People are scared; they’re hurting each other because they’re scared; they think that will keep them safe, but it won’t. It’s just going to make the problem worse. Mahatma Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye, and eventually the whole goes blind.”
But Jesus said there is another way. We don’t have to choose fear. We can choose faith instead. Faith in what? What is the basis for choosing faith over fear? Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Let’s break that sentence down and take a closer look. First of all, who is Jesus talking to? The “little flock.” Who is that? Who were the people who liked to hang around Jesus in his day? The riff-raff, ragamuffins, tax collectors, sinners, outcasts, insignificant people, sick people, and poor people. In a nutshell: people who don’t matter. Jesus had a reputation for hanging out with these kinds of folks. It made all those decent, church-going, uptight upright, law-abiding citizens sick to their stomach to see Jesus eating dinner with that “little flock” because, in that culture, people eating together meant that they accepted each other with no questions asked. When Jesus did it with the most forgotten and outcast members of his society, he was saying, “I love you and I accept you, just as you are.”
Question: Who occupies that space in our culture today? Who is the “little flock”?
Let’s keep going. The next two words I want to look at are “good pleasure.” What does that mean? It means, “This is what makes God happy,” and “God gets a kick out of this,” and “This makes God laugh.” Jesus is saying that God is playing a great big joke on us and here’s the punch line: “…it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
What is the active word there? Is it God’s good pleasure to sell you the kingdom? Is it God’s good pleasure that you earn the kingdom by how well you behave or by what you believe? None of the above. It is God’s “good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
The active word is give. It’s a gift, a free gift. Theology-types have a word for this: grace. Grace is unconditional love and unmerited favor. Grace is God’s basic orientation toward us. We didn’t earn it, so we can never lose it. Furthermore, because we didn’t earn it, we don’t get to have any say in whether or not God extends that same grace toward anyone else (which she does). It’s a free gift, given to all without discrimination.
Finally, what is being given? The kingdom. This is a very important idea for Jesus. In fact, it’s the central idea of his ministry. For Jesus, the kingdom of God (sometimes called the kingdom of heaven) is not some happy place where people go when they die. No, for Jesus, the kingdom of God is a vision of this present world, not as it is, but as it should be: turned upside down and transformed from the inside out.
So, let’s put it all together now. What Jesus is saying is that God, ever since the beginning of the world and continuing until its end, has been playing a joke on us. While we have been fighting with each other in our rat race to protect what we think is ours, God has been working slowly and quietly beneath the surface and under the radar of the powers that be. What really makes God laugh are those moments when true peace and justice are established on earth, not by the big shots with their bombs, bucks, and bureaucracies, but through the “little” ones, those forgotten lives who don’t matter to the powerful, working in small, local communities to actualize Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
That’s who God is, according to Jesus. That’s how God works in the world: slowly, gently, never stopping, and never giving up. The kingdom belongs to these little forgotten ones because God has freely given it to them. That truth, according to Jesus, is our basis for choosing faith over fear when we face the future with all its potential for great joy and great danger. We can choose to have faith in the laughing God who always works slowly and patiently through the little things of this world in order to turn it upside down and inside out.
God is doing this, God has been doing this for all time, and God will keep doing it for all time. That’s why Jesus can say, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Facing tomorrow with this kind of faith has a profound effect on the way we live our lives today. Because we believe it is God’s “good pleasure to give [us] the kingdom,” we are now ready to hear Jesus say, “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Fear seeks only to get things for itself; faith wants to give to others. True believers are those who are able to trust in the reality of this mystery we call God and then live, in grateful response to that mystery, with open and generous hearts toward their fellow creatures. That is what it means to be the church; that is what it means to possess Jesus’ kingdom of heaven on earth; that is what it means to face the future with faith, rather than fear; and that is all we need in order to turn the world upside down and transform it from the inside out.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 