Tag: bible

An Impact Beyond the Intent

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Photo credit: Enrique López-Tamayo Biosca, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent.

Click here to read the biblical texts.

Back before my wife Sarah and I had started dating, we were in that awkward stage where we were both noticing each other, but neither one had worked up the courage to make a move, so we just kept dancing around the subject. One night, Sarah invited me to a party at her house, and we ended up talking on the couch long after everyone else had left. It was getting late, Sarah reached forward for her drink on the coffee table, I unconsciously stretched, and she accidentally sat right back into the spot where my arm was. Sarah was like, “That was smooth! Can we talk about this?” On the outside, I played it very cool and calm, but on the inside, I was like: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Anyway… to make a long story short: It went pretty well and we’ve been married for 20 years.

The moral of the story is that our actions sometimes have an impact beyond what we intended them to have. That was certainly the case with St. Mary of Bethany in today’s gospel.

Mary’s anointing of Jesus happens at a very important turning point in the larger story of John’s gospel. Up until this point, Jesus had been dropping hints about his true identity, but from this point forward, he would begin to speak more openly as the story moved toward its climax with his crucifixion and resurrection.

In the chapter just prior to this one, Jesus raised Mary’s brother Lazarus from the dead. This miracle, according to John, was the catalyst that caused the religious leaders to begin plotting to have Jesus killed. As this part of the story begins, Jesus is having dinner at the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. The memory of Lazarus’ death and resurrection was very fresh. Mary would have been deeply moved by the miracle she had just witnessed. Not only had Jesus turned her grief into joy, he had also rescued Mary and Martha from a life of poverty and degradation, which would have absolutely happened to two unmarried women who no longer had a man to speak for them in their patriarchal society. Jesus had saved, not one life, but three lives in his raising of Lazarus from the dead. Mary probably felt that she owed Jesus her life at this point.

As a sign of her gratitude, the text tells us that Mary took “a pound of costly perfume.” The Greek word for “costly perfume” is myrrh, which was used for burial rituals. It is quite likely that Mary had bought this perfume to use for her brother’s funeral, which was no longer necessary, thanks to Jesus. By breaking it open and pouring it on Jesus’ feet, she was expressing her relief and gratitude for what Jesus had done for her and her family.

This, all by itself, would have been a powerful statement, but Jesus gives it an even greater significance that Mary herself could not have known. Jesus says, “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”

Jesus knew, whether through supernatural clairvoyance or just an insightful hunch, that his own death was impending. Mary’s act of devotion meant more than she could possibly have known. Just as Mary honored Jesus with her gratitude, Jesus honored Mary with the knowledge of what her gesture truly meant to him.

The moral of this story is the same as the one I told about my wife and me: Our actions sometimes have an impact beyond what we intended them to have.

Our individual lives are a part of a larger story. Like ripples in a pond, God’s grace expands the meaning of what we do to cosmic significance. If, as Jesus says, even the hairs on our head are numbered, then surely no small act of goodness or kindness goes unnoticed by the God who made the universe.

My favorite modern example of an action that has a greater impact than its intent is the story of Fr. Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican priest who ministered in South Africa in the early twentieth century. Fr. Huddleston was an outspoken activist against the apartheid policies that discriminated against people of color in South Africa. One of the many racist laws on the books at that time was that, whenever a darker-skinned person passed a lighter-skinned person in the street, the darker-skinned person had to step off the curb into the gutter and lift their hat in deference to the lighter-skinned person. Fr. Huddleston, who was himself a lighter-skinned person, thought this racist law was absolutely ridiculous. So, he made it his regular practice that, whenever he passed a person of color in the street, he would step off the curb and lift his hat in a gesture of respect to this fellow child of God. Technically, this was an act of civil disobedience against South African law, but Fr. Huddleston practiced this as an act of divine obedience to the higher law of God, which says that all people are created equal.

One day, Fr. Huddleston was walking down the street and saw a little boy and his mother coming his way. As was his usual practice, he stepped off the curb and lifted his hat in a gesture of respect as they walked by. The boy and his mother were people of color. The little boy asked his mother, “Mummy, who was that man?” And the mother replied, “Son, that man is an Anglican priest, and furthermore, he is a man of God.”

The little boy, telling this story years later, said, “That was the day that I decided I too wanted to be an Anglican priest, and furthermore, a man of God.” That little boy grew up to be Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who helped President Nelson Mandela dismantle the satanic apartheid system that kept God’s beloved children in chains for so many years. It is possible that Fr. Huddleston might have had no memory of that particular day, in which he acted with the same integrity that inspired his actions every day. Like St. Mary of Bethany, Fr. Huddleston could certainly not have known that his simple act of stepping off a curb would have a ripple effect that would eventually lead to the undoing of the twisted system against which he was protesting.

Kindred in Christ, I invite you today to consider how your own simple acts of compassion and courage may have a similar ripple effect on the world in which we live. One never knows when a word of kindness or a gesture of gratitude may have an impact far bigger than its intent. Many such acts are known to God alone, but rest assured that they are known. Jesus says, in his Sermon on the Mount, “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-4).

Dr. Martin Luther King, in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

As witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I want to encourage you this day to speak up whenever one of our siblings in Christ has offered some small word or deed that has impacted your day. It is quite possible that the giver of this gift is unaware of what it meant to you. Be quick to offer thanks to them, and to God for them.

If you are on the receiving end of such recognition, I invite you to listen with ears of your heart, giving thanks to God, who has multiplied the impact of your small gift to mean more than you intended.

Dearly beloved, our lives are not our own and they are not lived alone. It is up to us to enlighten our neighbors with knowledge as they have enlightened us with the love of Christ in their hearts. Who knows whether that grateful acknowledgement might be the very encouragement needed by a weary soul who is secretly despairing of life itself? By adding our small gesture of thanks to the common wealth, we may provide the necessary means by which a life might be saved.

Like St. Mary of Bethany, our actions have an impact far beyond their intent. Let us remember this fact and draw strength from it. May we trust that our lives matter more than we know.

Amen.

The Prodigal Father

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent.

Click here to read the biblical texts.

In his brief novel, The Great Divorce, Anglican author C.S. Lewis writes about an imaginary bus tour of heaven and hell. One of the many interesting things about this book is how he imagines hell. For Lewis, hell is not a realm of fire and brimstone where the wicked are eternally tortured for their sins on earth. Instead, he depicts hell as a place where people live in huge mansions and get whatever they want, whenever they want it. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it? Well, the catch is that, with so much space and instant gratification available, people don’t need each other, so they just pack up and move farther away whenever anyone upsets them for even the slightest of reasons. This leaves vast tracts of empty cities where no one roams. Instead, everyone has locked themselves inside their own mansions and pace the empty halls alone all day, muttering about their “rights” and complaining that everything bad that has ever happened to them is not their fault. The real kicker is that the gates of this hell aren’t even locked; people can get up and go to heaven any time they want, except that nobody wants to. They would much rather stay stuck in their mansions, totally alone, and utterly convinced of their own self-righteousness. The souls of the damned in The Great Divorce bear a striking resemblance to the elder son in today’s gospel reading. I begin today’s sermon with this story because I too have a tendency to act like the self-righteous elder son in Jesus’ parable.

Here is my honest confession: Earlier this week, someone greatly offended me with something they said.

(PLEASE NOTE: If you are hearing this and wondering whether it was you, I want you to be assured that it was not. It had nothing to do with anyone in this room, this parish, or this town. I won’t tell the whole story here because it’s not important to this sermon. All you need to know is that my feelings were hurt and I was very angry about it).

I spent much of the week stewing in my self-righteous indignation, replaying the conversation over and over in my head, and losing sleep over it.

When I sat down to write this sermon, I read the passage and froze stiff when I got to the part about the elder son. I realized that, after my week of angry pouting, I could not, in good conscience, stand in this pulpit on Sunday morning and preach about the good news of God’s amazing grace without being a complete and total hypocrite (because that’s exactly how I’ve been acting). Like the elder son in Jesus’ parable, I wanted my enemies to be punished for what they had done to me; I wanted the scales of justice to be set right, only to realize, when I was confronted by the words of Jesus in Scripture, that I am, as my mother used to say, “full of bologna.”

“Holding onto resentment,” as the Buddha once said, “is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die.” That was me this week.

What struck me so hard is that Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is not really about the prodigal son. It has more to do with the elder son. Jesus tells this story in response to a group of upstanding and religious citizens who were offended that Jesus was “hanging out with the wrong crowd.” In response to their complaints, Jesus tells three stories. The first and second stories are about a lost sheep and a lost coin, respectively. The third and final story was about a lost son who ran home with his proverbial tail between his legs after going on a bender and waking up face-down in a pigsty.

The part of the story we know best begins with the younger son asking his father for his share of the family inheritance. Normally, this sum of money would only be given out after the father had died, so this request was the equivalent of the younger son saying to his father, “You’re dead to me.” I can only imagine the pain that the father felt in that moment. But, instead of berating his son for saying something so stupid, the father honors the request and divides his wealth between his two sons.

As we know from the story, the younger son squandered his inheritance by partying hard until the money ran out and he fell on hard times. When he finally hit rock bottom, the younger son came to his senses and decided to return home. It’s important to note that this decision was not based on any sense of remorse for his actions, but out of the base desire for self-preservation. The younger son concocted a rehearsed speech, through which he hoped to con his way back into his father’s good graces.

When the younger son gets within sight of his family home, Jesus tells us, in what I think is one of the most comforting passages in the entire Bible, that “while he was still far off,” his father got up and ran to meet him. I love this verse so much. The father did not wait for the son to make it all the way home, but ran to him “while he was still far off.” This verse should be a great comfort for those of us who realize that, even after years of following Jesus, we are still very far away from where we ought to be, spiritually.

The father was not standing on the front porch with arms crossed, tapping his foot and waiting for his son to finally crawl his way up the driveway. No, Jesus says that “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran to him and put his arms around him and kissed him.”

The younger son, probably taken aback by this extravagant display of affection, nevertheless starts into his rehearsed speech, but his father doesn’t let him finish. He interrupts the speech with an enthusiastic call to start a party. This interruption should call into question everything that Christians have come to believe about the proper order of confession and forgiveness. The father does not wait to see if his son is sincere about his change of heart. He does not even let him finish his prepared speech.

(I wonder what it would be like if the priests in our church were to interrupt the congregation’s prayer of confession during the Sunday service and pronounce the absolution before they had even finished!)

The son is already forgiven before he even finishes confessing his sins, so great is his father’s love for him. So great is God’s love for you and me, as well, according to Jesus.

God does not forgive us because we repent; God forgives us before we repent. God’s amazing grace is what gives us the strength to repent and amend our lives in the first place.

So, a celebration ensues at the house. But, as we know, all is not well with the elder son, who had stayed home to work dutifully on his father’s farm. We learn a lot from the elder son’s reaction to the news that his brother had returned home. Unlike the father, the elder son was not happy to see him. We learn even more about the elder son’s misconceptions about who his father is.

He says to his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you.” This is our first clue that something is off about the elder son’s perception of his relationship with his father: he thinks of himself as a slave, not a son. He thinks that his father is only interested in obedience, not love. He sees their relationship as merely transactional, not personal. He assumed, quite wrongly, that their relationship would end if the son was not perfectly submissive to the father’s power. The younger son’s return to a celebration would have completely upended the elder son’s faith in a morally-balanced world.

The next thing the elder son says is, “I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.” Now, this is a very puzzling statement. Earlier in the story, Jesus remarked how the father had “divided his property between [his two sons],” at the younger son’s request. Presumably then, the elder son would have already received his share of the family estate which, according to the inheritance laws of that time, would have been a double-portion of that which was given to his younger brother. So, when the father tells his eldest son, “All that is mine is yours,” he was not just speaking metaphorically or hyperbolically; he meant it literally. The fact that the elder son still sees himself as a slave, who has never received anything from his father, is incontrovertible proof that the elder son has entirely misjudged the character of his father.

In the end, this is not actually a parable about a lost son, but about two lost sons. The younger wandered away and wasted what had been given to him; the elder stayed home and forgot that he had been given anything at all. The elder son, by Jesus’ account, is the one who is in the more spiritually precarious position.

The real story, however, is not about either of the sons, but about the father. The father comes out to meet both of his lost sons where they are, in the midst of their self-made mess. Traditionally, this story has been known as “the parable of the prodigal son.” The word “prodigal” comes from a Latin word meaning “lavish or extravagant.” The most lavish and extravagant thing in this parable, as I see it, is not the younger son’s wastefulness, but his father’s graciousness and love toward both of his sons. For this reason, I would like to suggest that we rename this story, “the parable of the prodigal father.”

Kindred in Christ, the good news of this story is that our Father in heaven, as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, loves us more than we deserve, more than we expect, and even more than we understand. God’s amazing grace and unconditional love annihilates all of our manufactured misconceptions about who God is and who we are, in relation to God.

The truth is that we are loved and we are forgiven by God. Full stop. No provisos, addenda, or quid pro quo. It is a free gift; we did not earn it, so we cannot lose it. Nothing is required.

The only thing God requests of us, out of love, is that we trust in that love and pass it along to others, through our words and actions. Even this meager request is more for our benefit than God’s.

In a world torn by self-righteous violence, the humble testimony of those who know that they are loved, in spite of our best efforts to prove otherwise, has the power to undo the shackles of our own self-righteousness and liberate us from the hell of our own making.

May each of us trust that we are forever held by this love and do our best to demonstrate it to others, to the end that they too might join us in proclaiming the good news of God’s amazing grace.

The Gardener Who Never Gives Up

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent.

Click here for the biblical readings.

Hi, my name is Barrett and I make poor life choices.

Back in 2013, my family and I moved from upstate New York to western Michigan. We figured it would take a couple of days to pack up our stuff, load the truck, and get on the road. After all, we had made a similar move just a few years earlier, coming from the west coast of Canada to New York.

What we failed to account for, though, is that our previous move involved two broke seminarians in a one-room apartment. Everything we owned fit in the back of a modest U-Haul. Over the course of the intervening years, we had amassed a much larger collection of furniture, books, and kids (with all their accompanying accoutrements). A couple of days and a U-Haul wouldn’t be nearly enough to get the job done this time.

A visitor to my house asked, “Hey, aren’t you moving to Michigan next week?”

“Sure,” I said, “I figure I’ll just throw some stuff in boxes and hit the road.”

My friend very wisely took that opportunity to gently talk some much-needed sense into me, “Listen, you’ve got a lot more stuff in this house than you did when you got here. I don’t think a couple of days is going to be enough time.” Thank God for good friends, because this blessed soul organized a whole cadre of neighbors who descended upon my messy house for the entire week that it took the lot of us to get things packed and cleaned before moving day. In the end, everything came together right on time, but there’s no way it would have if it hadn’t been for the love of these people who rescued me from the mess of my own making. All in all, the stakes were relatively low in this crisis, but I was very grateful for the community that made a safety-net for me, when I needed it.

For other people, the stakes aren’t so low and a safety-net is not always there when they need it. Most of us have made regrettable decisions, of one kind or another, in our lives. Tragedy often strikes when unfortunate circumstances combine with our poor choices to leave us in a real pickle. Some of our unhoused neighbors, for example, could tell us heart-rending tales of woe about how they ended up living on the street, through no fault of their own. Others who have never experienced housing insecurity might be tempted to dismiss such stories as mere excuses. “The poor are poor,” some might say, “because of their own fault. If they had made better choices, they wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Thinking this way is tempting because it provides a false sense of security. Some might think, perhaps unconsciously, that they can protect themselves from disaster by being smart enough, good enough, or careful enough. But the reality is that life is rarely so simple. All of us have known good and hardworking people who nevertheless suffer hardship. The scary fact is that all of us are more vulnerable than we would like to think. Moralizing about the causes of disaster will not protect us when bad things happen to good people, especially since good people are also prone to making mistakes, from time to time.

So then, the real question for us Christians is not, “Why are the poor poor,” but, “What will we do about it?” That is the question that Jesus addresses in today’s gospel.

At the opening of the passage, Jesus talks about two terrible events that had happened in recent memory for his listeners. The first was a violent attack on worshipers at the temple by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The second was a building collapse in which eighteen people had been killed. Jesus answers the question about blame in a very straightforward manner: “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

Jesus typically asks more questions than he answers and often responds to questions with figurative stories, but this is one of the few times when he gives a direct and unequivocal answer: Did these people deserve what happened to them? No, they did not.

What he says next, however, almost undermines what he just said. Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did!” In this moment, Jesus almost sounds like an old-timey southern preacher, screaming through a megaphone while standing on streetcorner soap box. But that’s not what Jesus intends.

It helps to understand that the word “repent” has very little to do with feeling guilt or fear. The Greek word translated as “repent” is “metanoia,” which literally means, “change your mind.” Likewise, the word used for “perish” is not just referring to physical death, which eventually happens to everyone, but spiritual death. The best definition of “perishing,” in the spiritual sense, was given by Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Jesus’ warning about “perishing” is about this kind of spiritual death that we are in danger of experiencing, if we do not change our way of thinking about the misfortunes that befall our fellow human beings.

What then is the alternative that Jesus recommends we follow? To answer this, we need to look at the parable Jesus tells in the next part of the passage. It’s the story of a fig tree that is not performing as expected. The owner of the field wants to tear up the tree and throw it away to make room for other, more productive plants. But the gardener recommends patience and care instead. He says, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.” He recommends that more attention, not less, be given to the plant. He doesn’t give up, but gets involved. God, according to Jesus, is more like the gardener than the owner of the vineyard.

Jesus presents us with the image of a God who does not give up on us, but is willing to get the divine hands dirty with hard work. The implication is that, if God doesn’t give up on us, then neither should we give up on each other.

What I find most interesting about this parable is the unresolved ending. We, the audience, don’t get to find out how the story ends. Did the owner agree to the gardener’s suggestion? Did the extra effort pay off, in the end? Jesus doesn’t say, so we just don’t know. The open ending of this parable does not leave us with certainty, but with hope. There are no guarantees in this life, but the stance of getting involved, rather than giving up, is the best hope we have for making a future that is better than the status quo we are enduring at this moment. The ending of this parable is Jesus’ way of telling us, “The ball is in your court. What are you going to do?”

When I failed to adequately plan for my big move from New York to Michigan, my friends could have easily shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, that’s just what happens when you fail to plan ahead!” They could have rightly left me stewing in a mess of my own making. I am so grateful they did not do that. Out of their great love for me, they made my problem their problem and turned a moment of crisis into a moment of grace.

Kindred in Christ, the uncertainties of life and imperfections of human nature mean that we are all in the same boat together. We can choose to give up on each other and say, “It’s every man for himself,” or we can get involved with each other, get our hands dirty, and lean into the hope that we can make a better next year than we had last year.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus gives us some practical advice on the kinds of things we can do to show up for each other. The Church has traditionally called them, “The Corporal Works of Mercy.” They are: To feed the hungry, to give water to the thirsty, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned, and to give alms to the poor.

Like the gardener’s suggestions in Jesus’ parable, the Corporal Works of Mercy are not a guaranteed plan of social reform; they are a list of virtues that Christians ought to be practicing, for their own sake. We cannot solve the world’s problems, nor can we protect ourselves from the dangers of calamity and our own stupid mistakes, but we can show up for each other in a spirit of care and concern, willing to get our hands dirty with the kind of work that Jesus Christ calls us to do. By following Jesus, and practicing the virtues he taught us, we bear witness to the loving presence of the God who does not give up on us, who gets involved in helping each of us clean up the messes of our own making, and gives us hope for a better tomorrow than we had yesterday.

Friends, our God does not give up on us, so let us not give up on each other. Let us work together in hope, because it is a hope worth working for. Amen.

The Way We See Things Matters

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon3 Comments

Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.

Click here for the biblical readings.

The way we see things matters.

For example, when I worked as a hospice chaplain, one could say that I was a highly trained professional, providing expert care for my patients’ spiritual needs. On the other hand, one could also say that I was simply “heaven’s UPS guy,” making special deliveries to the pearly gates. It depends on how you look at it.

The way we see things matters.

One could see the world as a battleground between us and them, the haves and the have-nots, the fit and the unfit, or the good guys and the bad guys. What matters, according to this worldview, is ensuring that our side wins and the other side loses.

One could see the world as a meaningless conglomeration of matter and energy that is ultimately indifferent to the needs and wants of human beings. What matters, according to this worldview, is imposing our will and our ingenuity onto the chaos and forcing it to satisfy our desires.

The Christian worldview does not see the world in either of these ways. As Christians, we follow the guidance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who teaches that our Father in heaven “makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Later on, Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (6:26) and, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these” (28-29).

Jesus sees the universe as a good place that is constantly being created and cared for by God. According to the creation stories in the book of Genesis, which Jesus grew up reading, God created a wonderfully good universe, formed humankind in the divine image, and placed us in the world in order to help care for this beautiful place. Anyone who has read the account of the life and teachings of Jesus in the gospels knows that Jesus is not blind or indifferent to the complicated realities of conflict and suffering, but he regards all of that as secondary to the central truth of a good God who created a good world and continues to sustain it in love.

The fourteenth century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, was the first woman to write a book in English. While lying sick in bed and near death, Julian describes her own experience of the kind of worldview that Jesus wanted to instill in his followers.

Julian writes that God,

“showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and I perceived that it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought: What can this be? And I was given this general answer: It is everything which is made. I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that it was so little that it could suddenly fall into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.”

(Julian of Norwich, Showings, IV)

The way that Julian and Jesus see the world is very different from the way that nationalists, terrorists, and other fanatics see the world. For Julian and Jesus, there is no struggle between us and them, no cosmic indifference to suffering, because there is only the God whose name is Love.

The way we see things matters.

In today’s gospel, we get to see the beginning of the Christian worldview taking root in the minds of Jesus’ disciples, Saints Peter, James, and John. We read that Jesus takes these three friends up a mountain and there, far away from the bustling crowds, “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Luke 9:29). While this might sound like the beginning of a commercial for laundry detergent, no sales pitch was forthcoming. The gospel writers preserved this story in order to express the way they saw Jesus. For them, Jesus was more than just a good man or a wise teacher; he was full of divine radiance. In later centuries, the bishops of the Church would develop this experience into the doctrine we now know as the divinity of Christ.

One of the things that makes Christianity unique among the religions of the world is that we find God in a person. In Judaism and Islam, Moses and Muhammad are respected as prophets who proclaim the divine message. In the Buddhist tradition, Siddartha Gautama is the enlightened sage who reveals the Eight-fold Path. In Christianity, on the other hand, Jesus Christ does not reveal the message, but is the message itself. Christians find God in Jesus and, through Jesus, we find God everywhere else.

This is why Jesus refers so frequently to nature in his parables. When people ask him to tell them about the kingdom of God, he says, “Do you see those crops growing in the field? Do you see that woman baking bread? Do you see that farmer sowing seed?” Jesus invites us to “consider the lilies of the field” and “the birds of the air” as reminders of God’s presence. For Jesus, all of these mundane occurrences are revelations of the divine.

The way we see things matters.

If our worldview is shaped by the class warfare of Marxist communism or the market forces of industrial capitalism, we will see the world as an endless fight for survival. If our worldview is shaped by (so-called) Christian nationalism or (so-called) Islamic terrorism, we will see the world as a battleground over who is right and who is wrong. But when our worldview is shaped by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our Transfigured Lord will show us a transfigured world that glows brightly with the radiance of God.

I think about the story of the Transfiguration whenever I am outside in the evening and happen to catch those glorious moments near sunset, when all the trees and buildings seem to be shining with a golden light. I feel like I have to stop and make the sign of the cross because it seems like God is granting us a moment, however brief, when we get to see the world the way God sees it all the time.

I think also of another moment of transfiguration, that took place on a busy streetcorner in Kentucky. It was recorded by a 20th century monk named Thomas Merton.

He writes:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being [human], a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

(Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 156-157)

What does this vision of the Transfiguration look like, when we live it out on a day-to-day basis?

Earlier this week, one of our parishioners at St. Mark’s came into the office and shared a very meaningful, true story with me. It stands out as a reminder of what life could be like, if we tried to see the world the way Jesus sees it. I share that story now with her permission.

Our parishioner is an elderly lady who had been feeling sick all week. After several days, she finally felt well enough to go to the grocery store for supplies. Upon returning home, she was struggling to unload the groceries from her car in the bitter cold. As it happened, a mailman was driving by at that exact moment. When he saw the lady struggling, he parked his truck, got out, and carried the groceries into the house for her. It was a relatively small gesture of neighborly kindness, but it meant the world to this lady. She thanked him profusely, and was absolutely floored by the next thing he said:

“Well ma’am,” the mailman said, “I just figured that’s what Jesus would do.”

This response blew me away. This is what life could be like, if we saw the world the way Jesus sees it.

Kindred in Christ, the way we see things matters.

I encourage you this week to draw inspiration from the great spiritual masters like Jesus Christ, Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich, and that mailman from Coldwater, Michigan. I invite you to become followers of Jesus, to see the world the way he sees it, full of divine glory. I invite you to look at your fellow beings on this Earth, not as enemies to be defeated, but as neighbors to be loved.

May this Christlike way of seeing transfigure you from the inside out and lead you out to transfigure this world in the name of the God whose name is Love, and in the name of the Love whose name is God.

Amen.

Loving Hard in a Hard World

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany.

Delivered at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Coldwater

Click here for the biblical texts.

Sermon recording:

Photo credit: Image of Archbishop Desmond Tutu by Elke Wetzig (Elya), CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

There is no manuscript this week. Here is my outline:

I. Introduction – “I love Jesus, but sometimes he makes me mad.”

1.                 “That’s not what I said”

(1)                You be nice to me and I’ll be nice to you
(2)                I’ll try to be nice to people who aren’t nice to me, but there’s a limit
(3)                Be nice to terrorists and racists, approve whatever they do
  • Being nice doesn’t enter into it
    • Nice is a tool
(4)                Like your enemies

II. What Jesus actually said:

1.                 “Love your enemies.”

(1)                Love is a choice, not a feeling

2.                 “Turn the other cheek”

(1)                Cultural context: Walter Wink
  • Insult, not injury
    • Open right hand only
      • Left hand too degrading (used for sanitation purposes)
        • Turning face gets nose in the way, assailant liable for damages
        • Closed hand (fist) reserved for equals
(2)                Nonviolent resistance
  • Make them hit you like an equal
    • Take the power back, but don’t return violence for violence

III. The heart of the Gospel

1.                 In a hard world of violence, God loves even harder

(1)                Radical love, impractical love, offensive love

2.                 When humanity turned away from God and fell into sin, God did not turn away from us.

(1)                God took on flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ, who taught and demonstrated love in every moment of his life
(2)                When the political and religious powers-that-be tried to shut Jesus down, he spoke up and acted out even louder
(3)                When that didn’t work, they unleashed all their powers of hate and violence at Jesus in order to silence the voice of love, once and for all
(4)                But even that didn’t work, because Love Itself cannot be contained, even by death, which is why Jesus rose from the grave on Easter morning, conquering the power of death, and bursting open the gates of hell from the inside
  • Easter Sunday is the biggest jailbreak of all time

3.                 Eucharistic Prayer D in the Book of Common Prayer sums it up beautifully (p. 373)

“When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation. Holy God, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Jesus lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy. To fulfill your purpose Jesus gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.”

The Book of Common Prayer, p. 373-374

IV. As Gospel people, we ought to love with the same wild and reckless abandon: radical, impractical, offensive

1.                 Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Truth and Reconciliation Commission

(1)                Mother of murdered son, to his murderer:

“I am very full of sorrow. So I am asking you now – come with me to the place where he died, pick up in your hands some of the dust of the place where his body lay, and feel in your world what it is to have lost so much. And then I will ask you one thing more. When you have felt my sadness, I want you to do this. I have so much love, and without my son, that love has nowhere to go. On turning to the policeman she said ‘So I am asking you from now on – you be my son, and I will love you in his place.”

2.                 On a smaller, more personal/local scale

(1)                Nonviolent Communication Strategies (Marshall Rosenberg)
  • “When you did ____.”
  • “I felt ____.”
  • “Because I value/need/want ____.”
  • “I request that you ____.”

V. Conclusion

“Goodness is stronger than evil,
Love is stronger than hate,
Light is stronger than darkness,
Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours,
Victory is ours,
Through God who loves us.”

Prayer by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Whole Truth: Working With Feelings of Inadequacy

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.

Delivered at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Coldwater, MI

Click here for the biblical readings.

One of the many things I love about our liturgy in The Episcopal Church is our lectionary. For those who may be newer to our church: the lectionary is a cycle of prescribed Scripture readings that repeats every three years. Whether you attend St. Mark’s, Coldwater or St. Stephen’s Church in Durham, North Carolina, every Episcopal congregation in the country will be hearing the same readings that Sunday. I think that’s a neat way for us to stay connected to each other.

The other benefit of our lectionary is that it gives us a very thorough and robust diet of Scripture to mentally digest during our Sunday worship. Each week, we have four readings: one from the Hebrew Scriptures (a.k.a. the Old Testament) or the Acts of the Apostles, a Psalm, an Epistle, and a Gospel. The fact that we read so much of the Bible in each service keeps us preachers accountable to the whole witness of Scripture and prevents us from preaching the same sermon, over and over again, based on our favorite few verses.

My usual practice for sermons is to pick one of the readings in a given week and focus my message on that particular text. Most of the time, that helps me stay focused and allows me to delve deep into one reading, rather than trying to force a connection between all four readings. This week, however, I’m going to break my usual rule.

When I was looking over the readings for this Sunday, a repeated theme jumped out at me from three of the four readings. That theme is the felt sense of inadequacy. I found the theme of inadequacy in the readings from Isaiah 6, I Corinthians 15, and Luke 5.

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah experiences a mystical vision of God during a time of political upheaval. The passage begins: “In the year that King Uzziah died.” The death of a king was always a fraught period in the ancient world. The power vacuum left by the former king was often contested by rival claimants to the throne. The people held their breath while they waited for the administrative dust to settle. They probably wondered things like, “What kind of ruler would this new king be? Would he uphold their sacred traditions? Would the people have peace and prosperity during his reign?”

It is during such a time of upheaval that Isaiah writes, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne.” I think that detail is significant: the old king was dead, but the throne was not empty. The people may have felt uncertain about the immediate future, but their ultimate destiny was secure, not because of their political leaders, but because God remains eternally on the throne of the universe. This is a thought that can continue to comfort us today.

In the midst of this vision, the prophet Isaiah is overwhelmed by the sight of divine glory. He says, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts!” Standing in the presence of God, Isaiah is overcome by the felt sense of his own inadequacy and insignificance.

St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians in our Epistle reading this morning, talks about experiencing a different kind of inadequacy. He writes, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” For Paul, his experience of inadequacy comes from the guilt he feels over his past actions. Earlier in his life, Paul had been part of a systematic attempt by the authorities to wipe out the Christian faith. He had hunted and killed Christians in the same way that Nazi officers had gone door-to-door in search of Jews during the Holocaust. To imagine what Paul must have been feeling, imagine a Gestapo officer ripping the swastika armband off his uniform and asking, “What have I done?” Paul’s felt sense of inadequacy says to him, “What you’ve done is so horrible, so irredeemable, you can’t possibly hope to play any part in God’s plan for this world.”

In today’s Gospel, St. Peter (a.k.a. Simon) experiences his own sense of inadequacy when Jesus borrows his boat to use as a pulpit. After the sermon, Jesus tells Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon, a career fisherman taking advice from a carpenter, is skeptical at first, but eventually goes along with the suggestion. When the nets come back up, overfull to the point of breaking, Simon is dumbstruck by someone who knows how to do his job much better than he does. As an amateur guitar player, I’ve had that experience when listening to professional musicians who can play circles around me. Whatever skill or talent you may have, you’ve probably met someone who is much better at it than you are, and felt completely inadequate. Simon, when he saw how full the nets were, fell down on his knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

All three of these biblical figures, Isaiah, Paul, and Simon, experienced a felt sense of inadequacy because of the enormity of their situation, shame for their past actions, and the limitations of their own abilities.

In that sense, they are not that different from you or me. Who among us has not felt overwhelmed by the state of the world? Who among us has never felt regret for our past actions? Who among us does not occasionally get overshadowed by a talent much greater than our own? All of us have been there, at one time or another.

The conventional wisdom of pop psychology and self-help books encourages us to repress these feelings of inadequacy by “staying positive” and allowing “good vibes only” in our thinking. The problem with this approach is that, if we ignore the voice of inadequacy, it just shouts louder than before. We end up self-sabotaging our lives, jobs, and relationships in our attempts to prove that voice wrong. We transform ourselves into egotistical poseurs or delicate wallflowers in our efforts to numb the pain that says, “You’re not good enough.”

The Gospel, on the other hand, offers us a different solution than the one suggested by the strategy of repression. In Isaiah’s case, an angel takes a burning coal and presses it to his lips, the very part of himself that he had bemoaned as “unclean.” Fire is a blacksmith’s tool that has been used, since ancient times, to purify metal and temper steel. The angel says to the prophet, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” In Simon’s case, Jesus calls the man into a new and deeper dimension of his profession, not as a fisherman but as an apostle. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus says, “from now on you will be catching people.” In Paul’s case, the experience of God’s grace leads him to find his identity, not in the sum of his past mistakes, but in the unconditional love of God. Paul writes, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”

The Word of God transforms the inadequate feelings of Isaiah, Paul, and Simon, not by ignoring or going around them, but by embracing and moving through them. The voice of our inner critic tells the truth, but not the whole truth, about who we are in the eyes of God. God looks at us with unconditional love and teaches us how to view ourselves with compassion, courage, and curiosity. Each and every one of us is greater than the sum of our mistakes, inadequacies, and feelings of overwhelm.

There is, deep in our heart of hearts, a calm center where Christ sits on the throne, seeing and guiding all with wisdom and love. This calm center is who we truly are. As we sit next to Christ on the throne, he teaches us how to see ourselves and our world as he sees it. Using the tools he gives us in our spiritual exercises, we grow in self-awareness and self-compassion. In time, that inner transformation begins to leak outside and influence the world around us. Under the influence of grace, the concerned citizen becomes a prophet, the Nazi persecutor becomes a theologian, and the fisherman becomes an apostle.

This is the work of God’s amazing grace in our lives. If we let it, God’s grace can change the way we see ourselves and lead us out from there to change the world. Amen.

The Amazing Grace People

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church,
Coldwater, MI

The biblical text is Luke 4:14-21. Click here to read.

In the 2001 movie Shrek, the titular ogre tries to explain to his friend, the donkey, how ogres are complex beings.

“Ogres are like onions,” says he.

The donkey replies, “Why? Because you smell bad?”

Shrek: “No.”

Donkey: “Because you make people cry?”

Shrek: “No… because we both have layers. Onions have layers; ogres have layers. You get it.”

Just like ogres and onions, today’s gospel also has layers. Specifically, it has three layers: Jesus, Isaiah, and Jubilee. We are going to have to unpack each of those layers in order to fully appreciate what Jesus is saying in this passage of Scripture.

In the first layer, we have Jesus preaching a sermon at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. This would have been very exciting for the people of that town. Many of our parishioners at St. Mark’s will remember the late Bishop Tom Shaw, who grew up in this parish and later became a monk, a priest, and a bishop in The Episcopal Church. We still keep a candle burning in his memory between the pulpit and the altar. Imagine how exciting it would be for Bishop Shaw to come back and say Mass here, at the parish church where he grew up. That’s how big a deal it would have been for the people of Nazareth when Jesus came home to preach.

This story is also a big deal in the gospel according to Luke because the author uses it as Jesus’ inaugural address at the beginning of his ministry. In the same way that a president’s inaugural address sets the tone for that president’s term of office, this sermon is Luke’s way of setting the tone for the rest of Jesus’ ministry.

So, what is the tone that Luke is trying to set? To understand that, we need to look at the second layer of this passage: Isaiah.

The passage of Scripture that Jesus read in the synagogue comes from the book of Isaiah, chapter 61. The prophet, in this section of Isaiah, is writing to the Jewish people as they return from a half-century of exile. In 587 BCE, the Babylonians invaded the southern kingdom of Judah and hauled their leaders away as slaves. During the next 50 years, the Babylonians tried to do to the Jewish people what white settlers did to indigenous tribes in North America: They displaced the people from their homeland and tried to erase their culture by outlawing the speaking of their language and the practice of their religion.

Thankfully, the early Jews resisted this attempt at forced assimilation. They pushed back against their enslavers, wrote down their ancestral stories in the Torah, taught those stories to their children, and went on strike once a week, on the Sabbath, to remind themselves and their captors that they were not the property of the Babylonians, but beloved children of God. After two generations of resistance, the Persians conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return home and rebuild.

Isaiah 61 was written as the Jews were beginning that process of rebuilding after the Babylonian Exile. During this time, the people were looking for some kind of inspiration to guide them in that process. The prophet provided that inspiration by looking even further back into Israel’s history. When Isaiah talks about “good news to the poor,” “release to the captives,” and “the year of the Lord’s favor,” he is talking about the year of Jubilee, which leads us to the third and final layer of this story.

The year of Jubilee was prescribed as one of God’s laws in the Torah. It appears in chapter 25 of the book of Leviticus. According to this law, there was to be a general amnesty of debts, once every fifty years. All debts would be forgiven, all enslaved people would be freed, and all land would return to its original owners. Practically, this would mean doing a hard reset on the economy. It would interrupt patterns of generational poverty and allow a fresh start, so that grandchildren were not still paying for the mistakes of their grandparents. Spiritually, the year of Jubilee communicated to the ancient Israelites that their God was a God of fresh starts and new beginnings. The God of Israel is, not just a God of law, but also a God of mercy. Compassion and forgiveness were established as foundational principles in the Torah, which is why Isaiah pointed to them as foundational principles of the new society that Jews were rebuilding after their return from slavery and exile in Babylon. The people had just been through a horrible period of collective trauma, so the prophet wanted to ensure that their new society would be a safe place to heal from that trauma. That’s why Isaiah pointed to the year of Jubilee as the model for what this new society would look like. The ancient prophet Isaiah understood what the 21st century prophet, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also understood: that “there is no future without forgiveness.”

This brings us back to the first layer of our story: the layer of Jesus. Jesus appeals to the prophet Isaiah, who appeals to the year of Jubilee, to establish the fact that the foundational principle of God’s kingdom on Earth is the principle of mercy.

Mercy is the driving force behind everything that Jesus says and does. He demonstrated mercy by healing the sick and feeding the hungry. He showed mercy by welcoming tax collectors and sinners. He taught mercy by saying, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7) and “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Finally, Jesus embodied mercy in his death on the cross, praying for his executioners, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

The reason why the author of Luke’s gospel has Jesus quote this passage from Isaiah, who refers to the year of Jubilee, in his first sermon, is to establish the fact that mercy is foundational principle of Jesus’ ministry on Earth. Therefore, if mercy is the driving principle behind Jesus’ ministry, then it ought to be the driving principle behind the Church’s mission as well.

Mercy is, and ought to be, an unsettling topic. Mercy takes away any sense of power from those who need and receive it. Mercy is shocking to those who still cling to their illusions of control. Mercy is offensive to the self-righteous, but, in the words of the late author (and Episcopalian) Rachel Held Evans, “What makes the gospel offensive is not who it keeps out, but who it lets in.”

Scripture and history are rife with examples of people for whom the mercy of Jesus became the central fact of their life. St. Paul the Apostle was transformed, by God’s mercy, from a persecutor of the Church to its first theologian. He writes, “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain” (I Corinthians 15:9-10). In the same way, the Rev. John Newton, who began his career as the captain of a slave ship, later experienced the mercy of God, repented of his sin, and became an Anglican priest. He dedicated the remainder of his life to ending the Atlantic slave trade and penned the most famous hymn in all of Christian history: “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

According to Luke, in today’s gospel, mercy lies at the heart of everything Jesus does, therefore it ought to lie at the heart of everything the Church does in his Name. As receivers and conduits of God’s mercy, we are, and ought to be, the “Amazing Grace People.” The world ought to look at us with shock and awe when they see how indiscriminately we lavish the mercy of God upon those who deserve it least. As sinners, saved by grace, we ought to be offensive in our witness to the mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Mercy was the driving force behind the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25; mercy was the foundational principle of the new society that the prophet was rebuilding in Isaiah 61; mercy was the theme of Jesus’ ministry in the gospel according to Luke; and mercy is the Church’s reason for existing today.

Kindred in Christ, we have opened the Scriptures and examined Church history to wrap our minds and hearts around this overarching theme of God’s mercy. One question still remains: Where does this leave us, today? Will we be Christians or not? Will we risk everything to be conduits of God’s shocking and offensive mercy or not?

Thankfully, because of you “Amazing Grace People,” I don’t have to look very far to find an answer to that question.

Last Friday, I had the privilege of touring and speaking with the staff of Tommy’s House, which you may already know as a transitional residence for women recovering from the disease of addiction. The director of Tommy’s House, a parishioner in our congregation, explained to me how Tommy’s House provides a safe and supportive environment for its residents, helps them get back on their feet, and empowers them to begin new lives, beyond the shackles of chemical dependency.

During the tour, one of the staff members (who had previously been a resident in their program), asked me, “Why is it that, wherever we go, we always find that it’s the Episcopal churches in a city that open their doors to our Twelve Step recovery meetings?”

What a great question! There are two answers.

First, Episcopalians were there when the Twelve Steps were invented. Bill Wilson, the original author of the Twelve Steps, had a spiritual mentor named Fr. Samuel Shoemaker, who was an Episcopal priest. Bill W. often referred to Fr. Shoemaker as “the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.” Fr. Shoemaker, of course, denied this allegation and gave full credit back to Bill. The fact remains, however, that The Episcopal Church was there when it happened and continues to be recognized as a safe space for Twelve Step recovery meetings.

The second, and more spiritually significant, reason why Episcopal churches are frequently known as reliable hosts for AA and NA meetings is because we are an “Amazing Grace People.” We believe that God is a God of second chances. We understand that a finite sinner cannot out-sin the mercy of an infinite God, therefore we are “the Amazing Grace People.”

Friends, I send you into the world this week in full assurance of the infinite mercy of God, which easily overwhelms the finite number of your sins. May the mercy of God be the foundation of your new life, from this day forward, just as it was for Isaiah, Jesus, and all who continue to minister in his holy Name. And “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen” (II Corinthians 13:14).

Faithful Wounds and Tough Love

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Today’s first reading at the Office of Vigils was from Jonah 1:11-17.

Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them.

I love the story of these sailors at the beginning of the book of Jonah. So gentle and humane are their spirits that they would even defy the pronouncement of divine judgment for the sake of their fellow human being. It reminds me of my own approach to life and ministry: Let theology be flexible; only let me care well for those entrusted to me.

Generally speaking, I think we need more people like these sailors in today’s world, where relationships are often sacrificed on the altars of ideology: opponents are demonized, gay and lesbian children are kicked out of homes by their parents, and friendships are ended (or never begun) because two people see the world differently. Where are kind souls who would risk their own lives (or their theologies) for others’ sake?

Nevertheless, there comes a moment in the development of relationships where it becomes impossible to go on, to grow as human beings in relationship, unless we risk confrontation and have the courage to tell one another the bad news.

This takes an incredible amount of trust between all parties if it is to work well.

St. Benedict writes in chapter 69 of his Rule:

Care must be taken that no monk presume on any ground
to defend another monk in the monastery

This sentence is written for those people who have made a lifelong commitment to one another in the intentional community of a monastery. Such commitment is not made lightly and only comes after an extended period of formation in the novitiate. People who have reached the point of professing permanent vows have presumably built enough trust with one another (and their superiors) to engage in the difficult work of truth-telling. We should be able to say the same about marriage, parenthood, and a handful of other relationships in life.

Rescuing (Benedict calls it “defending”) one another, so that our loved ones never have to experience any pain or hardship can sometimes short-circuit God’s work in their lives. There are trials we must endure if we are to grow as human beings and we must be able to trust God and a few others to help us work through them, rather than avoid them.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” goes the old saying in Proverbs 27:6 (KJV). Speaking the truth in love is an icky-tasting medicine. It should be used like a surgeon’s scalpel: as rarely as possible and only with great care by one who has earned the right to be heard.

The sailors on Jonah’s ship reached the point where they could not go on any longer. Like the addict who has “bottomed out”, they had to make a choice between drastic action or death. After a final prayer, they did what had to be done: they tossed Jonah overboard.

As it turns out, this hard act of trust had salvific implications, not only for their physical lives, but their spiritual lives as well. They came away from this encounter with a deepened reverence for Yahweh. Likewise, the sailors’ willingness to do the hard thing opened up the possibility for Jonah to fulfill his own destiny. The doom he feared did not come upon him: Jonah was rescued (albeit in the most disgusting way possible) and he went on to be the vessel of Ninevah’s deliverance from destruction. An entire city was saved because of the sailors’ willingness to let go and cast Jonah overboard.

Do we have that kind of faith in God and each other? Are we willing to do the hard thing and “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) when necessary?

Many who participate in Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12 Step groups have learned that kind of trust through their sponsors and the power of the group. Tough love makes recovery possible.

I learned it from a trusted mentor when I was in college. He loved me enough to back me up against a wall and tell me some hard truths when I needed to hear them. He did not employ this technique often or lightly. He did not do it just to “be right” or for the sake of his own ego. He earned the right to be heard by me. Faithful were the wounds of this friend.

The Well in the Desert

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized4 Comments

File:Adi Nes 004.jpg

Have you ever experienced rejection?

If you’ve ever been a sixth-grader at a school dance, chances are you have.

“Eww, I’m not gonna dance with you, you dweeb!”

It’s a hard thing to go through, especially when you’re a kid. Those painful memories stay with you forever. Those of us who have kids of our own or care for other people’s kids know that crestfallen look in their eyes when they come home from school. We remember what it was like to be that age and experience rejection. It’s like our body still remembers the feeling of that knot in the stomach. We didn’t know how to fix it then and we don’t know how to fix it now. The best that any of us can say is that, by the grace of God, we got through it. So, when we see the kids we care about going through it right now, our heart goes out to them. Knowing that we don’t have any way to fix it (or even answers as to why it’s happening), all we can do when we see that look in their eyes is put our arms around them and say, “I’m so sorry.” We know that it’s just puppy love, but it’s real to the puppy. We know that our love for them can’t take away the shame of rejection, but we hope that somehow, it will help them get through it.

If we’re honest, we grown-ups can admit that we still feel that same pain sometimes. It might not come from the same sources (e.g. a twelve-year-old calling me a dweeb today will not phase me much), but there are certain things that other people can say or do that take us right back to feeling like that sixth grader at the middle school dance. It’s like the worst kind of time-travel. People can say things to us like: “I don’t have room in my life for a relationship with you… We don’t feel like you are a good fit for this position… Not tonight, I have a headache.”

It hurts, doesn’t it? And even though we are now adults facing adult situations, the pain we feel is still rooted in that childhood experience of rejection. Our brains may know the difference, but our bodies and our hearts do not. That old pain is still with us: the pain of not being chosen or wanted.

In our first reading this morning, from the book of Genesis, we heard the story of Hagar and her son Ishmael, two of the Bible’s most famous underdogs. They were two people who understood better than most what rejection feels like; what it feels like to be “not chosen” in ways that really matter.

Hagar and Ishmael are not “main characters” in the biblical story by any stretch of the imagination. They are the supporting cast, they are “extras” in someone else’s story. In this part of the book of Genesis, Sarah and Abraham are the main characters; they are God’s “chosen people.” God appeared to Abraham and said to him, “You shall be called the father of many nations. I will bless you and make you a blessing to all the nations of the world.”

Now, there was a problem with this arrangement because Abraham and his wife Sarah were already too old to have kids. And Sarah, being a very rational and practical person, came up with a solution: “I have this slave-girl, Hagar. She’s young enough to bear children. Here, Abraham, you go ahead and have a baby with her, so that God’s promise can come true.”

And this is where things get complicated. At this point, the biblical story almost starts to look like a “reality TV” show. Jealousy and rivalry set in quickly. Hagar and Sarah never seem to get along after this point.

First, Hagar does have a baby with Abraham and names him Ishmael. And Sarah is jealous of Hagar for this. Later on, after Sarah does have a baby against all conceivable odds, she decides that she doesn’t need Hagar anymore, so she tells Abraham to break up with Hagar and send her packing.

It’s interesting to note that Hagar never has a say in anything that happens to her. She is Sarah’s slave: an object who just gets passed around and used like a piece of property that can then be disposed of when she is no longer needed. Sarah and Abraham were the chosen people, but Hagar and Ishmael were leftovers… afterthoughts.

Sarah comes across as pretty heartless in this passage. Abraham fares a little better, but not much. The text says that he is “distressed” (we might say “stressed out”) by Sarah’s demands. After all, Ishmael is his firstborn son. He loads them up with as many supplies as they can carry, but it’s not much: a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. And then he sends them out into the desert, knowing that he will never see them again and they will most likely die there.

Out in the desert, Hagar’s water runs out pretty quickly. And here she is: all alone in the desert with a baby and no water. She’s been used, abused, and eventually abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of her.

She keeps going for a little while: as long as she can, which is obviously not long in a place like that. But eventually her strength gives out. She knows what will happen next: she and her son will die out here and their bones will probably never be found.

If there is anyone in this story who is lower-down and worse off than Hagar, it’s Ishmael. He is just a baby at this point. He owes his very existence to this twisted situation. He didn’t ask for any of this. You could say that he never even had a decent shot at life. The playing field of opportunity was never really level for him. And now, because Sarah and Abraham, God’s chosen people, were acting so petty and hard-hearted, he was going to die.

This is where Hagar reaches her breaking point. She can’t go on, so she gives up and throws in the towel. Above all, she can’t bear to watch Ishmael die, so she abandons him: she sets him down under a bush and walks away. She can hear him crying behind her, but she won’t turn around. It’s too late for them. It’s over.

And then… in that moment… the moment after all hope is lost, hope finally begins to dawn. That’s when God finally decides to show up in this morbid scene: not alongside the chosen people, but with the rejected ones; not in the city or the camp, but out in the desert; not with the rugged, faithful, positive-thinking overcomers who soldier on no matter what, but with those who have given up and given in to the worst parts of their humanity. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “It is only for those who hold on for ten minutes after all hope is gone that hope begins to dawn.”

God shows up in the least likely places. In this story, there is a definite hierarchy among characters: At the top there is Sarah, who just doesn’t care. Next you have Abraham, who is caught in the middle of his two wives and sons. The text tells us that he is “distressed” by what is happening. After that, you have Hagar, who is rejected, abandoned, and heartbroken. And finally, at the very bottom, there is Ishmael, who never asked for any of this. This baby is going to die because God’s chosen people are too hard-hearted to see past their own petty issues. (Sounds like the Church sometimes, doesn’t it?)

And where is God in all this? Sitting on heaven’s throne, objectively evaluating the situation? Does God make excuses for the chosen people, justifying their selfishness, no matter what the cost?

Whose voice does God listen to in the end? Not Sarah’s, not Abraham’s, not the chosen people’s, not even poor Hagar’s. Genesis tells us that “God heard the voice of the boy.” Ishmael. The voice that mattered least. The voice that no one else wanted to hear (not even his own mother, in the end). Ishmael was the least of the least in this situation, the one who even the rejects rejected. He didn’t even have words to form, much less a theology for calling out to God and arranging salvation. The only thing that came out of him was the wordless wail of a child who has just been abandoned by his mother.

Rejection. Ultimate rejection which, in his case, meant certain death. And God heard the voice of the boy. God shows up where the pain is greatest and the hope is gone. In spite of the sacred covenant established with Abraham and continued through Isaac and Sarah, God cannot help but reach out to be with these forgotten folk, particularly this baby boy.

God speaks to Hagar his mother and says, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m listening. Go, pick up your son and hold him close, because this kid has a future. I will make a great nation of him.”

And then, according to the text of Genesis, God opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw something: a well of water in the desert. Not just a bottle, like Abraham had given her, but a full-on well where she and her son could drink and drink to their hearts’ content.

According to the text and history, God made good on that promise to Hagar and Ishmael. They learned how to survive out in the desert. They made a life for themselves. Ishmael grew up, got married, and became a great bow-hunter.

He even became “a great nation,” as God promised he would: our Muslim neighbors trace their ancestry to Abraham through Ishmael, just as Jews and Christians trace their lineage through Isaac, Abraham’s son by Sarah.

What I take away from this story is God’s special love for the least of the least of the least. God really does seem to have a thing for underdogs. Church teaching has historically referred to this as “the preferential option for the poor.”

God is not neutral or objective when it comes to injustice. God sides with the poor and powerless people of the earth in their suffering. It’s not that God loves some people more than others; it’s that some people need God’s love more than others. God stands in solidarity with the oppressed peoples of this world, therefore we, as God’s people are called to do the same.

I believe the Church is called to be a safe haven for our outcast sisters and brothers. We’ve all heard stories of faith communities rejecting certain people, sending them packing, or kicking them out for one reason or another, perhaps sending them off with a single bottle of water to sustain their faith in the spiritual deserts of this world…

I believe the Church’s call in those moments is to be present with those rejected people, like Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. Rather than turning our heads and walking away because we can’t bear to see their suffering, I believe we are called to hold each other close in the darkest hours, to open the eyes that are blind, and inspire our hurting neighbors to believe in a future for themselves that they would not even dare to imagine.

We are not meant to pass out little bottles of water and then send people on their way. We care called to be that well in the desert, where exhausted travelers and fellow rejects can find rest and build a new life together out of the ashes of their rejection.

This is the kind of ministry that North Church has been doing for over a generation. We are the well in the desert. We stand together today, poised at the brink of an unknown-but-promising future, facing new challenges, ready to pursue new opportunities, and certain of this: that God is with us. We know this because we are the poor, we are the homeless, we are the addicts, we are the disabled, we are the mentally ill, we are often overlooked and outcast, we are the freaks and the geeks, we are the queer, like Hagar and Ishmael, we are the rejected ones: and that’s where God lives. Amen.

Redefining Success

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Image
Károly Ferenczy [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Introduction

What would you say are the marks of a successful church?

Here are some of my ideas for North Church:

  • We’re going to court some billionaire investors. Not donors, but investors. We want to incentivize their giving by promising a lucrative return. Once we have their money, we’re going to make use of it.

  • First of all, because we need to keep them happy (so they’ll keep sending us money), we’re going to turn our upstairs balcony into a skybox where our wealthiest members can observe the service in comfort, with leather recliners and a full wait staff serving champagne and caviar.

  • For our music ministry, we’re going to hire a full-time, paid, professionally trained choir (we already have the best organist in Michigan, so we won’t need a new one of those). Our contemporary worship team will get brand new, state-of-the-art AV equipment.

  • We’re going to get TV cameras so our service can be broadcast live via satellite around the world.

  • We’ll get paid endorsements from celebrities like Derek Jeter (add Christina Hendricks and George Clooney for sex appeal), who will tell everybody how great North Church is.

  • And finally, we’ll need to protect all this new stuff, so we’ll need to get a security force to guard the church. And I’m not thinking just some smiling, helpful rentacops either… I’m talking about SWAT team gear with assault rifles: I want such an overwhelming display of power that nobody will even THINK about messing with our church.

If we had all of those things (i.e. money, fame, and power), we would be a successful church, right? Wrong.

Blessedness

Jesus’ definition of the word success is different from the one accepted by the rest of the world. The world has a very self-centered definition of success, but Jesus presents us with a God-centered definition of success. The word he uses is blessed, which can also mean successful or lucky when you take away the spiritual side of it. That word blessed, by the way, comes from the Latin beatus and is where we get get the word Beatitude from. Blessedness, from the God-centered perspective of Jesus, is quite different from the world’s self-centered idea of success.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The world sees wealth as a sign of success: the Armani tux, the Vera Wang dress, the Italian sports car, the yacht, and the mansion. The world looks at people who have those things and calls them successful/lucky.But Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The kingdoms of this world (governments, corporations, institutions) cater to the desires of the haves, but the kingdom of heaven (Jesus’ vision of an ideal society) will serve the needs of the have-nots. On the day when God’s dream for this world comes true, no more will Senators and CEOs vote to give themselves raises and go on vacation while the people whose jobs they cut sleep in shelters and line up outside soup kitchens. That’s not going to happen anymore.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The world looks at people who seem to be happy and calls them “successful.” Today is Super Bowl Sunday, the one day a year when people watch TV just as much for the commercials as they watch it for the program. How many people plugging products in those commercials will be average-looking folks, looking bored, and saying, “Meh, I guess this product is okay…”? Not very many, I think. TV commercials are full of beautiful, smiling people who are excited to tell you all about how a particular cleaning solution changed their lives forever. They want us to believe that we’ll be as beautiful and happy as they are if only we buy what they’re selling. The world says that happy people are successful people, but Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus invites us to not buy into that “cult of happiness.” Jesus doesn’t want us to turn away from the pain of this world, he wants us to look at it and do something about it. That’s what compassion is: Showing up with food or clothes, visiting the shelter, the drop-in, the hospital bed, the courtroom, and the prison cell. That’s the kind of love Jesus showed us and it’s the kind of love he wants us to show others. Wherever there’s pain, there’s Jesus, so that’s where we should be too.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

The world says that successful people are tough-minded alpha-dogs who stand their ground and don’t compromise. Those are the big-shots who end up in running the show. The world puts them in charge of things. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek (i.e. gentle, flexible), for they will inherit the earth.” I like this one because I read a book by a couple of biologists last year that talks about how competition is not the only driving force behind evolution. They make the case that cooperation plays just as big a role in the ongoing development of life. When God’s dream for this world comes true, the ones in charge will be the ones who know how to work well with others and value relationships more than ideologies.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

The world believes that truly successful people lack for nothing. They have everything they could ever want. They benefit from the way things are. Insulated by wealth and power, they don’t sense the urgency of the situation or feel the need to challenge the system. But Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (i.e. justice, fairness), for they will be filled.” That last part is especially ominous because history has shown, time and again, that poor people will not stay quiet and submissive forever. If the leaders will not change the system, the people will change the leaders. Jesus has been proven right more than once: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

The world says that successful people know how to give as good as they get. If you hit them, they hit you back. They make an example of you so that others know not to mess with them. That’s the politics of power. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” Real power, according to Jesus, comes from knowing that you could rip your enemies to shreds but choosing not to. What’s more is that mercy is contagious: it comes back to you. It stops the cycle of violence from going around and around and escalating until the situation is out of control. The United States and the Soviet Union spend the latter half of the twentieth century with nuclear missiles pointed at each other in the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). But then the Cold War ended, not with a mushroom cloud, but with a party: people singing and dancing as the Berlin Wall came down. The doctrine of MAD-ness did neither side any good in the end.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

The world says that successful people are savvy: they know how to read between the lines and close the deal. They’re street-smart; they have guile. Successful people know how the game is played and stay two steps ahead of the competition. These savvy, successful people are sure to see great big dividends on their investments. But Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Savvy, street-smart people see the world for what they can get out of it, but they’re missing a whole other dimension of reality. Those who see the world like Jesus does get to see the hand of God at work in creation. These blessed folks know that they’re not alone and that life has meaning. I like to compare this one to the scene in Star Wars when Han Solo is laughing at Luke Skywalker as he trains to be a Jedi Knight. Luke says, “You don’t believe in the Force, do you?” Han replies, “Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen *anything* to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. ‘Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.” Han is savvy but Luke is pure in heart. Luke is learning how to see the world through a different set of eyes and so, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said about him, he’s taking his “first steps into a larger world.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

The world defines success by winning. Whether it’s trophies on the shelf or notches on the bedpost, the world wants to know about your conquests. This was especially true in ancient Rome, where the empire was built on the doctrine of Pax Romana: world peace through global conquest. They believed that Roman order would prevail over the barbarians of the world by the mighty hand of Caesar. And Caesar himself was worshiped and given a very special title: “The Son of God,” Sol Invictus, “the Unconquerable Sun.” But Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers (not the conquerors), for they will be called children (lit. ‘sons’) of God.”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Finally, the world says that respect is a measure of success. They say a good name is as good as gold. If people listen to what you say, you’re successful. If you get invited to the White House to advise the President on a matter, you’re successful. The world says it’s good to be admired and respected. Those who possess the kingdoms of this world are accorded respect, whether they deserve it or not. But Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Notice the parallel with the first beatitude. God’s ideal world belongs to the have-nots, the disrespected, the ones without a voice, and those who suffer and die for standing up and speaking out for what’s right. When God’s dream for this world comes true, these are the people we’ll be listening to, not the flattering bootlickers who only tell powerful leaders what they want to hear. We need people of conscience who will “speak the truth in love” to the powerful ones in charge. That’s what prophets do, but they’re almost never listened to or given the respect they deserve. Nevertheless, Jesus calls them “blessed” and commands us to keep doing it.

Conclusion

Jesus redefines success. He takes the world’s self-centered idea of success and replaces it with his own God-centered idea of blessedness. In the mind of Christ, success is not a blessing and blessing does not look like success. God’s blessing is upon the poor and oppressed peoples of this world, the ones without a voice, the ones who weep in the night, and the ones who are literally starving for change. God’s blessing is upon the gentle, the compassionate, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers.God’s blessing is upon those who face the pain of this world and do what they can to make a difference. God’s blessing is upon those who are a blessing. And so it is that I say to you:

May God bless you and make you a blessing, this day and every day. AMEN.