How Long?

How long, O Lord?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
this sorrow in my heart day and night?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

In the book of psalms we encounter voices of exuberant praise and confident teaching, as well as voices of lament and questioning. How long? Four times in Psalm 13 the question rises from the heart to the heavens, and there is no answer, only this outpouring of a longing to be remembered, noticed, heard, and answered. How long, O Lord? How long until I can come to you once again with songs of joyful praise?

We don’t know. All we do know is to let the questions rise with honesty, seeking answers, waiting for answers, knocking on heaven’s door, day and night. Prayer born of gratitude flies up like a bird, but when prayer is little more than painful longing, the night can be long, much longer than it was for those Chilean miners. And sometimes the moment when we have to put on sunglasses because the light of day is so much brighter than what our eyes have gotten used to, sometimes that moment doesn’t come.

We pray fervently that our friend will be cured of cancer and live, and the battle is fierce and long, but the moment doesn’t come and she dies, too young.

We pray for an end to violence and war, but the past has a powerful hold on the present, and the moment doesn’t come, and people young and old continue to die on battlefields, in their own homes, and in the streets of our cities.

We pray, and sometimes we wonder if perhaps we should be less bold in our prayers: lower our expectations to reduce the impact of the disappointment, only ask for patience and the strength to take whatever life throws at us? Or we stop praying altogether. If we don’t get our hopes up, perhaps we don’t fall so hard?

Jesus told the disciples a story about a judge and a widow. A widow in Jesus’ time was in a very vulnerable position. When her husband died, all his belongings became the property of his sons or brothers, and she depended entirely on them for her survival. They had certain responsibilities, but that didn’t necessarily mean they took them seriously; disputes involving widows and orphans were quite common. It was the judges’ responsibility to help resolve those disputes in the community.

Moses had charged Israel’s judges saying,

Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. Deuteronomy 1:16-17

Now this widow had Moses and the prophets on her side, but the judge ignored her. He was a man without shame. Didn’t want to hear her case. Pretended she wasn’t there. Expected her to go away. Ignored her plea for justice. And she had nowhere else to go. No friends in high places, no advocate. All she had was this remarkable capacity to make a scene, and she made good use of it.

She didn’t go away. She stood outside the courtroom shouting, “Give me justice.” She knocked on his door, “Give me justice.” She caught him on the street on his way to lunch, “Give me justice.” She left messages on his answering maching, “Give me justice.” She even followed him to the golf course, shouting, “Give me justice.” She was unrelenting, untiring, insistent and shameless.

And she finally wore him down. Not that the judge suddenly discovered he had a conscience or reverence for God or respect for others, he just wanted to get her off his back. He finally did the right thing – for the wrong reasons, but still, he did the right thing. Now, Jesus said, if the worst judge you can possibly imagine will respond to a persistent widow’s plea, how much more will God grant justice to you, God’s beloved children, who pray night and day? Will God delay long in helping you?

Luke says, Jesus told us this story about our need to pray always and not to lose heart. To pray not with an eye on the clock or the calendar, but trusting in God’s desire for justice and God’s faithfulness. To pray boldly and tirelessly. To pray as if the coming of God’s reign depended on nothing but our prayers. To let our longing for righteousness and peace rise from our hearts to the heavens, asking, seeking, knocking with unrelenting persistence.

I read this great little story about the day that Mother Teresa went to visit Edward Bennett Williams, a legendary Washington attorney who was the lawyer for Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon, among others.

Mother Teresa came to his office on a fundraising tour for an AIDS hospice. Williams was an influential member of the Knights of Malta, and she came to ask for a contribution. Before she arrived, Williams told his partner, Paul Dietrich, “AIDS is not my favorite disease,” whatever that was supposed to mean. They were looking for a way out and they rehearsed a polite refusal: they would hear her out but say no.

She came in. Little nun. Williams, the man to see. Between them, an enormous desk,immovable as a rock. She made her pitch, and Williams apologetically, but firmly, declined.

“Let us pray,” said Mother Teresa and bowed her head.

Williams looked over at Dietrich, and the two men bowed with her. When she was done, she made exactly the same appeal. Again, Williams politely declined.

Once more Mother Teresa said, “Let us pray.”

Williams looked up at the ceiling. “All right, all right,” he said, and pulled his checkbook.[1]

Parts of this story resonate with Jesus’ parable. Know what you want and go after it. Pray with the insistence of this little nun. Pray with the doggedness of this widow.

But there’s another dimension to Jesus’ story. It is quite a privilege to worry about the state of one’s prayer life while widows worry about food, housing, and affordable health care. You see, the widow in the story isn’t just an illustration  for good prayer habits, she’s also alone in her struggle for justice. She’s crying out not just to move a judge who cares nothing about God or neighbor, but to move you and me. She makes a scene to remind us that God’s reign of justice is a future we await with great longing and also a present reality whenever we allow God’s compassion and mercy to rule our actions. She needs us to pray like her, but she also needs us to pray with her, and to help her wrangle justice from corrupt human institutions.

Yes, the night of waiting can be long and we must be persistent in prayer to keep the flame of hope alive and to nourish our faith. We need prayer to remember that our dignity and the dignity of our neighbors is rooted in God’s justice, not in the countless forms of human injustice. Prayer has the power to let the priorities of God reorder the priorities of our lives. Prayer is two-way communication. Yes, we cry out and we are bold in claiming God’s promises for us and for the life of the world. And we ask how long, and we seek answers with honesty, and we knock on heaven’s door. And when we keep at it, the longing that rose from our hearts, returns.

That’s what happened to me. I prayed that little story. I sat with it and turned it round and round in my heart, and then it turned my heart around and God came to me in the widow – persistent, unrelenting, determined to get my attention, asking questions, seeking me, knocking on my door, challenging me to respond to the presence of God’s reign in Christ.

“How long will you hide your face from me,” she asked. “Look on me and answer. How long will children in this city go to sleep hungry? How long will old women cut their pills in half so they last till the end of the month? How long?”

Prayer is two-way communication. Prayer has the power to let the priorities of God reorder the priorities of our lives.

The world is changing in ways we struggle to understand and at an unprecedented pace; everything happens so fast that our souls can’t keep up. It would be tempting to seek a spiritual life that simply helps us to keep our head above water and breathe. Something to give us the strength of heart not to fall behind in the crazy rush. Something to assure us of God’s love in a world that’s going everywhere at once and nowhere. But that kind of spiritual life wouldn’t go deep enough.

We need prayers that allow us to take our needs and questions to God and that open us to God’s persistent, unrelenting, questioning presence. We need prayers that remind us that Christ has claimed us as citizens of the kingdom.


[1] Evan Thomas, The Man to See: Edward Bennett Williams (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1992) p. 390



The Region Between

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.

If you wanted to find that region on a map, you’d have to make it up. There is no region between Samaria and Galilee just like there is none between Kentucky and Tennessee. There is a line, and in the case of Samaria and Galilee, this line runs between two groups of people who haven’t been friendly with each other for generations. Some readers of Luke comment, almost apologetically, that the author isn’t very familiar with the lay of the land between Nazareth and Jerusalem. Others notice that Luke’s odd geography serves a theological purpose.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and there he’ll face our rejection and damnation; he is on the way to the cross where he’ll be executed, a stranger who stands outside all the lines that define human communities. Jesus is on his way to become the ultimate outsider and to bring reconciliation, and his path leads him between groups and nations with hands stretched out to either side of the boundary line. The region between is not a geographical entity, but the place of Jesus’ ministry.

By making up a region between Galilee and Samaria Luke also subtly reminds us that there are people who live in that no-man’s-land, people who belong neither here nor there and who would disappear altogether if there were cracks for them to fall through. The region between is the invisible land where invisible people live – or perhaps I should not say live, but long for life.

The region between is where Jesus encounters ten lepers. It doesn’t matter anymore what side of which border they once came from. It doesn’t matter if they used to be poor or wealthy, men or women, highly educated or illiterate, young or old, pious or irreverent, natives or aliens. It doesn’t matter who they used to be or could have been; they have a disease that isolates them completely by rendering them ritually unclean. Whoever they used to be, now they are lepers, untouchables. They have been pushed out for fear of contagion and left to wander in the region between.

Jewish law states,

Persons who have the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of their head be disheveled; and they shall cover their upper lip and cry out, “Unclean, unclean.” They shall live alone; their dwelling shall be outside the camp Leviticus 13:45-46.

These ten whose dwelling had been outside the camp for who knows how long approached Jesus, but instead of crying out, ‘Unclean, unclean,’ they shouted his name and begged, “Jesus! Have mercy on us!” What do you think it was they wanted? Something to eat? A hug? A friendly conversation? Or did they approach him seeking life?

Jesus, we read in Luke, when he saw them, said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Jesus saw them, which is no small thing in a world where so many people and things demand attention, and yet remain invisible. Jesus saw them, and he responded to their cries with a simple command. Go, show yourselves to the priests. It was the priests’ responsibility to examine their skin in order to determine their physical health and, if all was well, to restore them to life in the community. Go, Jesus said, trust my word, show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean.

The ten, after their encounter with Jesus, left the invisible land and returned to life. They were finally able to go home and kiss their spouses, hold their children, pray in the synagogue, do their work, and eat and drink with their friends. You know they came home laughing and singing, and they danced around the bonfire in which their old, torn clothes went up in flames. They were alive, they were at home.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

Ten cried out for mercy, longing for life. Ten were made clean. But one of them saw something the other nine didn’t. One of them didn’t return to the life he once knew before he had been pushed out. He returned to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice. One of them returned to the region between and to the one who embodied God’s healing, saving, reconciling, and fulfilling presence there.

Ten cried out for mercy. Ten were made clean. Nine of them got their old lives back. One of them found new life.

He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

Again it was a Samaritan who saw what others didn’t or wouldn’t see. At the beginning of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus told a story about a man who fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. You know the story. A priest happened to come down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Next a Levite came to the place and saw the man, and he passed by on the other side. And then a Samaritan came near, and when he saw the man, he was moved with pity. Three men saw a wounded man by the side of the road, but only one saw a human being crying out for mercy, and that one was a Samaritan.

In Luke, Jesus tells us two stories where it is an outsider who sees what those considered insiders do not see or perhaps cannot see. It is an outsider who shows the meaning of love of neighbor. It is an outsider who recognizes the meaning of Jesus.

Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Ten cried out for mercy. Ten were made clean. Nine went home and lived happily ever after. One returned and gave praise to God. One returned because in Jesus he had seen the healing, saving, reconciling, and fulfilling presence of God. It was a Samaritan who saw that God had entered the invisible land where outcasts long for life to restore wholeness and bring creation to fulfillment.

For centuries, leprosy was an incurable condition that pushed a person outside the community, often isolating them in every way imaginable. Leprosy became a metaphor for forces beyond our control that cut us off from life. Complete isolation may be difficult for some of us to imagine. But to the degree that we don’t feel fully at home in our lives, we all know what it means to dwell in the region between. It doesn’t matter if we are young or old, women or men, black or white, poor or wealthy – to the degree that we are not at one with the world and each other and ourselves, we all know what it means to wander the roads outside the camp. 

To me, the story of the ten lepers is a story about us. It is a story about our hunger for life, our need to belong,  and our hope that God hears our cries for mercy. And it is a story about God’s mercy for all and how hard it is for us to fully see what Jesus has done for us. There is a wholeness that awaits those who see in Jesus God’s mercy at work in the world and who return to him with songs of praise on their lips. And it’s not just about gratitude which leads us to humbly and joyfully receive life as a gift instead of simply taking it as a given and demanding more. The other nine, for all we know, may well have thanked God in their respective houses of worship, and every morning when they woke up and every night before they went to sleep. But the Samaritan didn’t return to Samaria but to Jesus to offer his gratitude and praise to God. He knew where to find him. It wasn’t in Jerusalem or in Samaria or in Galilee, but in the region between where God meets us to reconcile and make whole what sin divides and breaks.

“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well,” Jesus said to the Samaritan. Your faith has saved you. Your faith has made you whole.

The Samaritan saw that the way of Jesus was the way of healing and wholeness for the whole world. The Samaritan saw that the way of Jesus didn’t introduce yet another tribe to a world already torn by hostility between tribes and peoples. The Samaritan saw that with Jesus the reign of God had come to the region between, to the invisible land where the outcasts of all camps and tribes long for life.

The way of Jesus leads to the cross, and the cross stands outside the city gates, in the region between Samaria and Galilee, between Jerusalem and Rome, between Jews and Gentiles, between us and them. There we find him, hands stretched out to either side, waiting for us to see and embrace the things that make for peace. Lord, open our eyes.

A Brief Meditation on Ministry

World Communion Sunday is a day when we are particularly attentive to something we do all the time. We Disciples are people of the table, and anytime we gather for worship, we gather around the table.

Other traditions within the church have books that allow them to speak of their particularity, a book of common prayer, a book of confessions, a book of discipline, or a catechism. We Disciples don’t have anything like that sitting on the shelf, but we find ourselves returning again and again to the table of Christ. And when we talk about our particular witness within the one church of Jesus Christ, we point to the table. More than by any particular doctrine or set of doctrines, we are people shaped by the meal we call the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, or Communion.

We can’t help but proclaim the gospel of salvation in terms of God’s hospitality, of God’s desire to heal our sinful divisions. And on this day in particular we remember that this table is not ours, not the church’s, but God’s table for all the world’s peoples.

It is a table of reconciliation, set for us right on the lines that divide us from God and from one another, and we come with joyful wonder at the wideness of God’s mercy. We come with thanksgiving for the ministry of Jesus Christ and the church’s witness around the globe. We come with deep gratitude for this tangible, inhabitable assurance of forgiveness; this solemn proclamation of the Lord’s death until he comes; this joyful celebration of God’s new creation in the midst of the old; this foretaste of the heavenly feast on earth.

On this World Communion Sunday we are particularly attentive to something else we do all the time, ministry. Angie’s ordination gives us an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be in ministry, do ministry, have a ministry, or be a minister.

Contrary to widely held public opinion ministry isn’t whatever it is ministers do. Ministry is God’s work in the world. Before it becomes something we do, ministry is God’s life-giving presence and redemptive movement in the world, and in particular God’s ministry to all humanity in Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, sings of this redemptive movement as God’s downward mobility in Christ,

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

In the gospel according to John, the same movement is captured in the beautiful scene of the footwashing on that last evening. Jesus takes off his outer robe and ties a towel around himself. Then he gets down on his knees and washes the disciples’ feet.

The Lord is the servant, the servant is the Lord. This is how he wants to be known. His entire life and mission are characterized by this act of intimate, loving service.

Peter speaks for all of us, when he tells him that the Lord cannot do a servant’s work – and Jesus responds that this is how it must be, that we must place ourselves in his hands. To be in relationship with him we must receive him as he comes, the lowly servant embodying the love of God. And then he gets up and puts on his robe again, and he tells us to do for one another as he has done.

To do ministry is to enact the love of God through humble service. To be in ministry is to participate in the work of God in the world, in Jesus’ name. Just as God’s hospitality and service to us in Jesus Christ has changed our relationship to God and to each other, so this ministry of God has changed our relationship to the world, and our place in it. We now live to make known the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ.

Here at Vine Street, we give new disciples a sign that represents this new way of being in the world; it’s an apron. I brought one today, as a gift for Angie and a reminder for us all that ministry isn’t something some of us do, but rather something all of us participate in by virtue of our baptism. We are members of the body of Christ who continues to serve in the world, offering forgiveness, healing, and new life. Inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the church participates in Christ’s mission. All who are baptized become part of the church’s ministry, and all are given the awesome task of letting  their lives reflect the glory of God.

So why do we ordain Angie, if she’s already a minister? We ordain her to affirm God’s call to her to lead the church, to fulfill tasks that are necessary for the vitality and faithfulness of our common ministry, to equip, nurture, and guide us, and to stand over against us when necessary to remind us who we are and what our purpose is in the world.

Ordaining her doesn’t put her above us, nor does it mean that we’ve finally found somebody we can pay to relieve us of our own ministerial responsibilities.

We ordain her on behalf of the whole church of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of our one ministry in God’s world. We ordain her so she can help us become more fully who we are baptized and called to be.



Where is Pakistan?

Pakistan is far away. A flight from New York to Islamabad takes over fourteen hours. Pakistan is on the other side of the world, it is one of the many “Whoknowsistans” we can barely locate on a map. Most of us don’t know much about the country and its people, only what we hear on the news and read in the paper.

Pakistan is far away – geographically and culturally – but it is also very close. Men and women there work hard to make a living, they have dreams for the future and for their children. They love stories, music, and movies, they have memories from when they were little, they have school loans and medical bills, they pray and they read and they are busy. In so many ways, they are just like us.

These days they are particularly close to us because the rivers of Pakistan rose after heavy rains and flooded the land, and we know a thing or two about having eight feet of water in the house. We also know how good it is, amid the shock of loss, to have neighbors who open their homes and friends who bring food and strangers who help pull out the wet sheetrock and the muddy carpet.

foto: UN Development ProrammeWhat is much harder for us to imagine is the scale of this flood: nine million acres of cropland are underwater; more than twenty-one million people have been affected. Numbers like that are crucial for planning disaster response and recovery efforts, but they don’t help us get any closer to the reality of loss they represent.

Smaller numbers might help. Our friends at Church World Service tell us that in the flood-devastated areas, 0.5 million women are pregnant, and every day, 1,700 of them go into labor.

I watched footage of U.S. Marine helicopters delivering food and other supplies to remote areas, and the reporter described the landscape as “a water world dotted with islands of misery, farmsteads, villages, entire towns stranded for weeks now, some entirely abandoned, from horizon to horizon, for mile after mile, a vast inland sea, accessible only by chopper.”

What is it like to give birth on an island of misery in a vast sea stretching from horizon to horizon? I wonder if the parents’ hope is strong enough to welcome the new life with joy and thanksgiving – I hope so. 1,700 babies, every day, born on little islands that used to be barely noticable hills amid the rice paddies. The number is still difficult to imagine, but the call for neighbors is clear and bright as a bell. Food and clean water are needed, a dry blanket, a tarp or a tent, a pot for cooking, a piece of candy for the big sister – gestures that remind the parents that they are not alone, gestures that welcome these little ones into a world where love of neighbor is not just a Sunday morning word but a daily reality.

I watched the helicopters flying over the flooded land and taking supplies to villages that had been marooned for up to three weeks, surrounded by water. In one village, the huge helicopter was hovering 20 feet off the ground, unable to touch down, because there wasn’t enough dry ground. The crew was throwing sacks of flour and boxes of nutrient-rich energy bars off the loading ramp, and people ran and grabbed them as they fell to the soggy ground. They had no idea when the next drop was going to come. This was their chance. “It’s the survival of the fastest. There are winners, and there are losers,” the reporter said as the camera zoomed in on an old woman with a cane, shuffling slowly towards the site of the airdrop.

‘What makes him think of her as a loser?’ I asked myself. What makes him think that those who caught a box of supplies will sit on it, making sure they have something until the waters recede or more supplies arrive? What makes him think that they will ignore the old woman or push her aside when they open their boxes?

And then I asked myself, ‘What makes me think that they won’t?’ What makes me think that life is not about the survival of the fastest, that it is not a race of winners and losers?

I don’t really know, but I suspect that it has to do with hope; it has to do with the anticipations that shape our thinking and doing, and even our perception of the world.

I see a world of winners and losers, every day, and some say, “C’est la vie, that’s life,” but that is not life. I see a world where the winners, dressed in purple and fine linen, feast sumptuously every day, and the losers lay at the gate, sick and hungry, but that is not life.

I see a world in which God is at work and love outlasts everything, and that is life. Life is love embodied in gestures of solidarity, friendship, and kindness. Life is love reaching across all that separates us.

In Jesus’ story, the poor man at the gate has a name, Lazarus. He has a name, he has a story, and at some point he had a family. The poor man at the gate is not just a poverty statistic.

Toward the end of the report from Pakistan, the camera stopped moving and showed a man in his thirties. He looked at the flooded land and said, “The destruction is on such a scale, it will be impossible to return to normality. These are poor people, and their crops are destroyed. All their savings were invested in their crops, and now they can’t harvest them. They are left with nothing.”

The man’s name is Mohammed Sardar. Pakistan is far away, but it is also very close. He says, “They are left with nothing,” but we are close enough to say to him, “You are not alone. How can we help you?”

Then the camera showed a middle-aged woman, sitting on the ground, surrounded by children.

“What will my life be like?” she said. “I am sitting here in sadness with my children. Nobody is giving me food. I have nothing. All my time is spent in shock, with my children around me. I have no medicine, no food, no water, no sanitation.”

Her name is Naseeba Khatoon. Pakistan is on the other side of the world, but close enough for us to see her face and know her name; close enough to say to her, “You are not alone. Your life is part of our life.”

In Jesus’ story, the world is divided between winners and losers: rich man in the house, poor man at the gate. Survival of the fastest, the smartest, the ones with the better ideas or the better connections. But death brings an unexpected reversal: now the rich man is in agony, and Lazarus finds comfort in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man cries out for help, and Abraham says,

“Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”

This little story is rather blunt in suggesting that we notice and look at others who depend on our mercy and compassion, and begin to see ourselves in their position. What if I were in his or her place? Would I suffer quietly, hoping to be noticed, or would I cry for help? What response would I expect, what response would surprise me? And now that I’ve noticed their suffering and begun to see myself in their place, how do I live? How do I reach across that which divides us and prepare the way for divine love to restore wholeness?

This little story is also rather blunt in pointing out that our time to reach out in such a manner is limited – we have a lifetime to practice mercy and compassion, but we only have a lifetime. We have a lifetime to build bridges across the great chasm, to pass from here to there and to cross from there to here. Lazarus, Naseeba, and Mohammed need to know that they are not alone, that they are not cut off from life. They have crossed from there to here, for the sake of life, and with us they yearn for a world that is no longer divided into winners and losers. With us they yearn for life that is shared.

Jesus’ story isn’t opium for the poor at the gate, teaching them to remain quiet in their suffering and await the comforts of having their souls rocked in the bosom of Abraham. Jesus tells this story to people who are tempted to confuse wealth – and the power and comforts that go with it – with life. I don’t dress in purple and fine linen, I don’t party every day, and I certainly don’t step over poor people on my way to work in the morning or when I go home at night. I can’t identify with the rich man in the story, but I can easily identify with one of his five siblings: I need every reminder I can get from Moses and the prophets and the one who rose from the dead that Lazarus, Naseeba, and Mohammed need me as much as I need them for life to be whole and fulfilled.

And Moses says, Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor (Deuteronomy 15:7).

And Isaiah says, Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house (Isaiah 58:7).

And Jesus says, You cannot serve God and wealth (Luke 16:13).

I need every reminder I can get.

Poverty, hunger, and homelessness are complex issues – but lying at the gate is not a bunch of issues. It is always a human being with a name; a person with dreams and needs.

Jesus doesn’t call us to solve the world’s problems. Jesus calls us to trust the promises of God rather than the possibilities of wealth. Jesus calls us to walk the path of compassion where we discover just how close Pakistan is.

For more information how you can support flood relief in Pakistan, visit Week of Compassion.

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A Fire in the World

You would think that 99% is a pretty amazing number as far as righteousness goes. Righteousness just shy of 100% is more than most of us can grasp or even imagine. And yet, steady and widespread righteousness doesn’t cause the kind of joy in heaven that repentance does. For when one repents, when one is found, the angels sing and the saints clap their hands. Jesus reminds us that God’s concern and vision are global, but in the vast stretches of time and space every single person matters, and 99 is still one shy of fullness. Life is not complete until all are at home, until the very last one has been found, and wholeness has been restored.

You know the angels were sitting on the edge of their seats these last few days, holding their breath. They were looking down from heaven on a little church in Gainesville, wondering what on earth had gotten into Terry Jones and his little flock.

This past week we have been praying for the victims and survivors of the San Bruno explosion, the devestating blazes that swept across Detroit, and the wildfires in the Colorado foothills. But you don’t need a leaky gas line to cause an explosion, or lightning to start a blaze. Some of the most destructive fires don’t begin when the match is lit. They begin with words. “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire,” we read in James 3:5-6, and we know it is true. The tongue is a fire. It begins with inflammatory words coming across the radio or tv, and you won’t have to wait long until some fool thinks it’s OK to pour gasoline over construction equipment and set it on fire, just because it is being used for building a house of prayer for Muslims.

Yesterday we remembered those who died in the attacks of September 11. We know the fires in the Pentagon and the World Trade Center weren’t started when the jets hit the buildings. Incendiary speech lit a fire of angry, violent rectitude in the hearts of men who became mass murderers. The tongue is a fire.

Who would have thought that one preacher whom barely anybody knew just weeks ago, would set the agenda for the international media for days? Who would have thought that one man with fear and anger in his heart would keep everybody on high alert, from the White House to the Department of Defense, and from the Vatican to the most remote village in Afghanistan? What was he thinking? What kind of justice did he imagine in his heart when, back in July, he sent a message declaring September 11, 2010 International Burn a Koran Day? The tongue is a fire.

I get nervous when I hear inflammatory speech. I get very nervous. In Germany, on May 10, 1933, only weeks after the Nazis had come to power, large piles of wood were erected in town squares and other prominent places across the nation. And when night fell, they were turned into pyres. In what was called an “action against the un-German spirit,” books that did not meet Nazi standards of purity and truth, were thrown into the fire. And it wasn’t just small groups of uneducated, misguided individuals who participated; professors, students, and even librarians cheered as they tossed into the flames the works of Kurt Tucholsky and Bert Brecht, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, and scores of other authors who didn’t fit the Nazi vision of culture.

It didn’t take long, and the book burners turned to Torah scrolls.

And, Lord have mercy, soon the book burners fired up the ovens in Auschwitz.

I cannot act surprised when inflammatory speech starts fires. It has happened in Germany and all over Europe, it has happened in Rwanda and Darfur, it has happened in Kosovo, it has happened too many times. The tongue is a fire, and for the sake of life and justice and all that is holy and sacred, whether we are Christians, or Jews, or Muslims, or Atheists, we must learn to bridle our tongues and listen with great care. We must learn to heed the call to cease fire.

You know the angels have been holding their breath these last few days, but there is no greater joy in heaven than what erupted yesterday, when Terry Jones said, “We have decided to cancel the burning.” Thanks be to God.

I’ve been reading Psalm 14 these last few days.

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds.

I’ve been reading Psalm 14, and I’ve been saying to myself, “There are plenty of fools who say in their hearts, ‘There is a God’ and do abominable deeds.” There’s no lack of foolishness dressed in religious garb. Religious conviction doesn’t necessarily translate into wisdom and goodness; we know how easily it can turn into hatred and terrible violence.

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds.

These lines weren’t written for talk radio to give some fool license to make fun of people who don’t believe that God exists. This psalm was spoken, written down, and passed on from generation to generation, to give voice to our fear, to give voice to our hope. Over the centuries, the words have soaked up tears and questions and daring faith.

It begins with the voice of one who has looked around and seen little light, only corruption and abuse. It is the voice of one who struggles to understand the injustice and brutality among human beings. What are they thinking?

Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread?

Their violence denies the reality of the Lord, the God who freed the Hebrew slaves. Their corruption and oppression denies the reality of the God who established covenants so that life would flourish, and who sent prophets so that justice might roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream (Amos 5:24). Clearly, they no longer recognize God as God. Clearly, they assume that they will not be held accountable for their actions. The wicked do abominable deeds, and not only do they get away with it, they do quite well and prosper. Listen to the same voice from another psalm:

Their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not plagued like other people. Pride is their necklace and violence their dress, and their eyes swell out with fatness. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression (Psalm 73:4-8).

Clearly they imagine that there is no one who notices or cares. Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God” and they speak and act as they please, laughing all the way.

The voice of one who suffers in such a world of almost complete unrighteousness, where there is no one who does good, no, not one – the voice of the psalm now leads us into a long silence.

What if God is indeed far away?

What if God is not interested, or distracted, or unavailable or powerless in the face of the wicked and their defiance?

What if they get away with it and that’s the end of the story?

What if they do terrible things and the world just turns?

This long silence is where each of us has to find the courage to continue to lament and pray and hope with the voice we encounter in the psalm. This long silence is the moment when the angels in heaven are holding their breath, because every single person matters. There is no one who does good, no, not one, the voice cries, but unrighteousness is not complete unless we turn to it or succumb to it. And every time one of us turns to the righteousness of God, the angels sing.

The voice in the psalm dares to claim that God is not absent; that God is with the company of the righteous, and that the Lord is a refuge for the poor. God is not far away but present with the abused and the oppressed. That is the testimony of a voice that for centuries has soaked up tears and questions and daring faith in dark times. There is no proof that faith is legitimate in the darkness we see around us and within. There is no proof that trust in the promises of God and the life that is shaped by it can prevail over against the powers that sow hatred and death. There is no proof, only the testimony of those who have gone before us, proclaiming God’s faithfulness while yearning for the day of fulfillment. There is no proof, only witnesses.

We trust and proclaim that in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

He embraced our life’s deep brokenness, and we trust that his embrace is God’s embrace.

He welcomed sinners and ate with them, and his hospitality is God’s hospitality.

He himself was devoured like bread and he said, “Forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And his forgiveness is God’s forgiveness.

The life of Jesus, the life of this witness, his death on the cross, and his resurrection speak to us of God’s faithfulness to the end. Because of Jesus we find the courage to believe and pray and hope, as well as the courage to serve and work. Jesus has lit a fire in the world, a fire of love and mercy, and God helping us, we will do what we can to fan its flames.

Growth Strategy

Labor Day weekend. This is the time when we cultivate once again our tribal roots. We are Dores and Volunteers. Titans and Saints. Royals and Burros. Forgive me if I didn’t mention your particular tribe. And our allegiances aren’t limited to sports. We are Sam Adams and Bud Light. Chevy and Ford. Mac and PC. Blackberry and iPhone. Explorer and Firefox. Coke and Pepsi. Hershey and Godiva. Again, please forgive me if I didn’t mention your particular tribe.

We wear carefully chosen team colors and logos, and everything from our footwear to our hair product and the color of our wrist bands projects who we are or how we want to be seen. We drive cars that say, “I am successful” and carry water bottles that say, “I am cool.” Every purchase we make is an identity statement, and who we are, it seems, is a carefully created composite of our consumer choices.

Historically speaking, this is a rather recent development. For hundreds of generations of human life, a person’s identity was defined solely by their birth into a particular family and ethnic group. You were a Capulet or a Montague, a Hatfield or a McCoy. The best you could do with your life was to bring honor rather than shame to your family name.

Speaking in today’s terms of consumer choice, we could say that Jesus had the potential to become a very successful brand. He had more followers on Twitter than Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. People wanted to be close to him, see and hear him in person, touch him. Healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and telling kingdom stories was a phenomenal combination that attracted large crowds and met real needs.

But apparently Jesus hadn’t talked to a single marketing expert or social media consultant. He turned to the crowd, and with less than 160 characters, he sent the most disturbing message of the day, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Not exactly what you would call an invitation to discipleship, is it? Who wants to hear that? What kind of growth strategy is that?

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

The branding experts were scratching their heads. “This movement was such a promising start-up. What is he trying to do? Is he intentionally pushing people away?” Hate your family, carry the cross, and give up your stuff. If this is what it takes to be a disciple – who would ever want to be one?

To the people who are curious about his words and deeds, curious enough to consider following him, Jesus says, “Are you sure you want to do this? Have you considered the costs? Why don’t you go home and think it over?”

He says, “Hate father and mother” – and you wonder if that makes the teenager who storms upstairs shouting, “I hate you, Mom!” the ideal candidate for discipleship. He says, “Hate wife and children” – and you wonder if he is seriously looking for irresponsible dads to embody and proclaim his message of repentance and reconciliation. He says, “Hate brothers and sisters” – well, yes, sometimes, but really? This goes against everything you know about Jesus, doesn’t it? Can the same Jesus who challenges his followers to love even our enemies make hating one’s family a condition of discipleship?

Biblical scholars tell us that the word translated hate is not the emotionally charged expression it is in English. Its meaning, they say, is closer to turning away from, or detaching oneself from. To follow Jesus means to turn away from what has shaped my identity and what has been my primary source of security and purpose, and to find my new identity and purpose through Jesus.

The question for us, then, is, “What is shaping my sense of identity? What makes me who I am? What are the things that give me purpose and meaning?” Of course, our identity is shaped by our families, by our ethnic heritage and the culture in which we grew up. But when we follow Jesus, who we are begins to be determined by his relationship with us. We continue to be our mother’s son or daughter and our father’s pride and joy, we continue to be loving spouses and parents, but we grow into our new identity as brothers and sisters of Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we don’t cut the bonds of love and commitment that connect us with those closest to us, but we turn away from their exclusive hold on how we know and understand ourselves. The relationship with God we are offered through Jesus Christ becomes the primary source of our identity. We learn to say, “I am a child of God, Jesus is my brother, and I am learning to love all whom Jesus loves.”

And in learning to say and live that, much turning away from and detaching oneself from is needed, and just as much turning toward and attaching oneself to. Following Jesus is not about learning to hate, though, not ever. On the contrary, when you follow Jesus you have your life completely reoriented by divine love and toward divine love – and there simply is no room for hate.

What is required of anyone wanting to follow Jesus is a readiness to be changed deeply, a willingness to be remade in the image of Christ. What is required of you and me and anyone else wanting to be a disciple of Jesus is to be attentive to Jesus’ call above all other concerns and commitments. If you can’t turn away from being a Capulet or a Montague for Jesus’ sake, you cannot be his disciple. If you can’t imagine yourself leaving behind your identity as a Hatfield or a McCoy for Jesus’ sake, you cannot be his disciple.

The point seems to be that we are always following somebody or something, whether by choice or by chance. We grow up with ideas of who we are supposed to be, and we follow. We are surrounded by messages and images of who we could or should be, and we follow – the only question is, follow whom or what? To follow Jesus means to make all other options, all other allegiances secondary – and Jesus wants any potential follower to know that. Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ becomes the primary source of our identity.

Our culture teaches us to see ourselves as the carefully created composites of our consumer choices. In contrast, Jesus calls us to carry the cross. He calls us to a life whose moments and seasons, actions and decisions come together like a fabric, a woven cloth revealing the shape of a cross – the shape of God’s unsentimental and passionate love for the world. Jesus calls us to follow the path that weaves our lives into his and his life into ours.

To carry the cross is not about looking for some heavy burden. Carrying the cross is all about seeking the pattern and finding the rhythm of a life that has Christ at the center. We tend to think that when Jesus talks about carrying the cross he is referring to some major spiritual travail or at least significant suffering or sacrifice. But mostly it is much less dramatic.

Alan Culpepper comments,

The language of cross bearing has been corrupted by overuse. Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships. It is instead what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ.

To carry the cross is to have our daily life shaped by our commitment to the Crucified One – wherever we are and whatever we do. Husbands and wifes, parents and children, attorneys and auto workers, software engineers and song writers, brick layers and professors – we are given countless opportunities to let our daily work reflect the love of God we know because of Jesus Christ. Labor Day weekend is a perfect reminder that discipleship is not something we do in addition to everything else we do, but the relationship that defines how we do what we do.

Now to the third of Jesus’ very challenging sayings. This one is particularly important for us to remember.

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

We live in a culture where what we have defines who we are. The things we own allow us to project who we are or how we would like to be seen. Possessions give us security, comfort, and status, and Jesus asks, “Who would you be without all those things? Who would you be if your security, comfort, and status depended on nothing but God’s love for you?”

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

I hear these words not as a condition, but as an invitation. Giving away everything I own doesn’t make me more of a child of God than I already am. But seeking peace and fulfillment in God alone will help me put all things in perspective: which things last and which don’t, what is important and what is not, what is worth my time and energy and what is not.

Jesus invites you and me to be attentive to his call and to let go of all things that keep us from living with God at the center of our life. And the decision to respond to his call is more than a one-time act. It is the decision to open every layer and dimension of our life to God’s presence. It is the decision to live each day as if we had been wakened by Jesus’ call. Who would you be if you lived that way?

What Do Muslims Say?

When Gallup Polls asked Americans in 2005 what they most admire about Muslim societies, the most frequent response was “nothing.” The second most frequent response was, “I don’t know.” Combined, these two answers represented 57% of Americans.

Many of us tend to conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of extremist minorities who tend to get most of the media attention. Nevertheless, we are curious about many things:

  • Why is the Muslim world so anti-American?
  • Who are the extremists?
  • Is democracy something Muslims really want?
  • What do Muslim women say?
  • What do Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism?

Over the course of six years, the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations – urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate.

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think is a book based on those interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims – more than 90% of the world's Muslim community, making this poll the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.

What the data reveal and the authors illuminate may surprise you:

  • Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.
  • Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution and they say religious leaders should have no direct role in drafting that constitution.
  • Muslims around the world say that what they least admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values – the same answers that Americans themselves give when asked this question.

Vine Street Christian Church invites members, friends, and neighbors to a five-week study group based on the book, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think.

We will meet on Wednesday evenings, 7pm – 8pm, starting on September 29 (October 6, 13, 20, and 27). We will read about 30 pages per week and get together to talk about what we discovered and what questions remain for us.

If this is something you would like to do, get a copy of the book from your favorite book merchant and complete the form below to let usknow you are coming. I will serve as convener of the group, and I will be glad to answer any additional questions you might have about this study opportunity.

In 2008, Charlie Rose did an interview with the authors of the study, John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed; watching it may help you decide if you want to read their book with us. Esposito is Professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and a prolific scholar and author. Mogahed is the Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Resurrection

I finally read Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson, Yale 2008. The authors teach at Harvard; Madigan is Professor of the History of Christianity, and Levenson is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies. I had learned a lot from Levenson's The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son and Creation and the Persistence of Evil, and I was curious about this cooperative project.

The resurrection of the body is a great theme to explore the development of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism from Second Temple Judaism. The book is very readable, and it would make a great resource for a church study group, or, better yet, a study group of Christians and Jews.

Boundless Hospitality

One of the most unpleasant characters I have ever met is fictional. The fact that I met him in a book doesn’t make him any less real or unpleasant. This person is notable for his cloying humility and obsequiousness, thin covers for his twisted ambition and greed. Words drip from his lips not like honey, but like high-fructose corn syrup. His name is Uriah Heep. Charles Dickens, in David Copperfield introduces us to this despicable man who never tires of pointing out his own ‘umbleness.

Whenever I think about what it means to be humble, Uriah Heep shows up to remind me what humility is not. But what is it?

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,” we read in the letter to the Colossians (Colossians 3:12). How do I clothe myself with humility and not just cover my arrogance with a thin layer of flimsy humility fabric?

In the book of Micah, the prophet asks (Micah 6:8), “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  How does one walk humbly? What’s the right pace? What’s the right face? Do I lower my eyes or look ahead with humble confidence, whatever that is? Humility is tricky and elusive.

Jesus has been invited to the house of a leader of the Pharisees for dinner. The other guests are watching him closely, but he is paying close attention as well to what they are doing. He notices how some guests choose the best seats, and he offers some words of wisdom:

When you’re invited to a wedding banquet, don’t walk in and sit in the place of honor. Somebody more distinguished than you may have been invited and you may be asked to move to the lower end of the table. Imagine the embarrassment. Rather choose a lowly seat, you know, one behind a column or near the kitchen entrance, and when the host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher!” You will be honored in the presence of all. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus sounds a little bit like Ann Landers, doesn’t he, giving advice on how to avoid being embarrassed at a wedding reception? Before you know it, he’ll be talking about napkins and the difference between the salad fork and the dessert fork. I am reminded of conversations I have overheard this summer at our house; young boys talking, with dread in their voices, about cotillion, about Mr. and Mrs. Manners teaching girls and boys how to be ladies and gentlemen.

So is humility about saying, “Thank you, Sir” and holding the door, saying, “After you, Ma’am”? Is it about being courteous and knowing the rules of social etiquette?

We could be tempted to think of Jesus as the ultimate teacher of how to be nice, if this were the only table conversation of his we knew. But he didn’t get called a glutton and drunkard for being nice at receptions, and nobody would have called him the fellow who welcomes sinners and eats with them if humility were about social etiquette. Jesus didn’t come to offer advice, and he didn’t get crucified for teaching people how to be nice.

Is he talking about politics, then? Is he teaching strategy – how to lay low and hold back until the moment is right? His words sound very similar to the wisdom of king Solomon recorded in Proverbs, “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told ‘Come up here’ than to be put lower in the presence of the prince” (Proverbs 25:6-7). Is he telling us to curb our ambitions and to linger outside the lime light, waiting to be noticed, and when the moment has arrived, to step into the light, the envy of all the other contestants? I don’t know, that sounds a lot like Uriah Heep’s calculated self-effacement; humility as the ultimate technique of self-promotion.

What, then, does it mean to humble oneself? I suspect humility disappears the moment we make it our goal; it can only turn into false humility when we make it part of our ambition for greatness.

Let’s look at it from a different angle. Why do the guests desire the places of honor? Why are they so eager to identify and occupy the good seats? We know why: they have an image to cultivate, a position to maintain, a status to preserve. They can’t even relax once they have arrived in the places of honor, because they never stop wondering, “Am I projecting the kind of gravitas that comes with my social position? Am I being shown the kind of respect I deserve? Am I getting noticed by the people who matter?” It is as if they are cursed to live outside of themselves, constantly monitoring their performance and their place on the ladder.

Jesus isn’t talking about seating arrangements. He is talking about how we see ourselves. We want to know where we stand, how we are doing, how we measure up – always in comparison to others. We find our place in the world by competing for a better place in the pecking order. There are, after all, only so many seats at the head table, only so many seats in the front row, only so many positions at the top, and so we learn to live with constant comparison and unending competition, anxiously wondering about our place in the community.

In the ancient world, a dinner party was not just an occasion to hang out with family and friends. A dinner party gave wealthy, influential families and individuals an opportunity to stage and maintain their elite status. Getting one’s name on the guest list meant that one ‘had made it’ and had been accepted into the circle of those who mattered. Every dining room was a hall of fame, and those who didn’t have to worry daily about survival, worried about fame.

You invite me, and I invite you. You honor me, and I honor you. You introduce me to the people who can help me with my projects, and I introduce you to the people who can help you with yours. You invite my friends, and I invite yours.

That’s how it works, isn’t it? Jesus challenges the rules of the game. He grabs the dinner table and flips it over.

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, don’t invite your friends and your rich neighbors. Invite those who can’t do anything for you. Invite those who never know where their next meal will come from. Lift up the lowly. Surprise the poor, the lame, and the blind. Open the door and invite Lazarus to sit at the head of the table.

Why would anybody do that? The biggest dinner party of all is the one where God is the host. And no one gets to sit at God’s table by out-competing the others. Anyone who gets to sit at God’s table does so solely because God delights in shouting, “Friend, come on in.” When Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, he performs the great banquet of heaven. There’s nothing we can do to get our names on the guest list, because the invitation goes out to all. Honor is neither taken nor achieved; honor is given by the host. The particular glory of life as God’s own is a gift. “Friend, come on in!”

We lift up the lowly because God has lifted us up. We surprise the poor, the lame, and the blind because God has surprised us. We open the door and invite Lazarus to sit at the head of the table because God has opened the door for us. We change our dinner rules, because Jesus has opened our eyes to see that we all have a seat of honor: we belong to the household of God.

The word invite rings out repeatedly in Jesus story of the great banquet and his words about our dinners and luncheons. The word invite rings out unceasingly in Jesus’ life because he embodies God’s invitation, “Friend, come on in.”

Your dignity, your honor, your worth are not the result of anxious striving and self-monitoring and comparing and competing. Who you are is rooted in God’s hospitality. And humility is everything that happens when you live out of that rootedness: You no longer worry about your status. You no longer live outside of yourself, worried about nothing but yourself, constantly monitoring your performance and your place on the ladder. Rooted in God’s hospitality, your attention is no longer drained by your need for recognition and affirmation; instead you become available to deliver invitations to the great banquet. And the invitations you deliver are no longer thinly veiled copies of your own agenda, but God’s word of friendship.

Isn’t that why we’re here? To be reminded of God’s mercy? To hear that voice saying, “Friend, come on in!” and realize, “You are talking to me, aren’t you?”

Isn’t that why we’re here? To forget the ladder and remember the table? To forget ourselves for a while and to remember that we are God’s own – chosen, invited, and honored? All of us rooted in God’s boundless hospitality?



Set Free from Bondage

How long does it take for a girl to bend under the weight of her life?

How long does it take for a child, a woman, or a man to become "quite unable to stand up straight"?

What are the names of the spirits that bend us out of our fully human shape?

We know that rules and customs have the power both to weigh down or to lift up. Human touch has the power to bend and bruise or to comfort and heal. Words have the power to destroy or build up.

I once sat in a circle with a group of colleagues, and in the middle of the circle, a young woman sat on a chair. One by one, we named the things that rob human beings of their dignity every day, things that shroud our identity as creatures made in the image of God.

There were baskets with shawls, and every time someone named a reality that diminishes our humanity, they placed a shawl over the young woman’s head.

The shawls were sheer and light as gossamer, but layer upon layer covered her head and shoulders, and soon she began to bend under the weight, unable to see and breathe, her own voice muffled by a pile of fabric. She disappeared, quite literally. She was no longer present as a person, but only as an invisible body, weighed down and bent by crippling spirits.

The woman who entered the synagogue that day had been crippled for eighteen years, and we don’t know how old she was. Did it begin when she was a little child or after she had turned twelve? Or when she got married or didn’t get married?

It doesn’t really matter, does it? For eighteen years she was bent over and quite unable to unbend herself. Eighteen years, bent toward the dust, virtually faceless.

Had she gotten used to looking at people out of the corner of her eye?

Could she even remember any other way of seeing the world?

Had the people around her gotten used to her being bent?

Did they take notice of her or did she always stay below their line of sight?

How long since she last soaked her face in the first sunrays of spring?

How long since she last shared a hug, feeling the warmth of another body against hers?

With her breath trapped in her bent body, how long since she last sang for joy?

Whatever the burden she had born for eighteen long years with its layers of emotional, physical, social and spiritual oppression– she was unable to unbend herself.

Jesus saw her and he called her over.

How big was the room they were in?

How many people were there?

How long did it take her to make her way through the congregation, shuffling all the way from where she was to where Jesus was sitting?

How many times did she say, “Excuse me – I’m sorry – May I?”

Or did the crowd part before her, creating a path to the one who had called her?

And Jesus, did he get up from his chair or did he get down on his knees, turning his head to see her face?

I can’t imagine him standing there and declaring above her bent body, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Everything I know about Jesus tells me that he looked into her face when he spoke to her. He also laid his hands on her. I imagine him tenderly putting her hands in his, looking into her eyes, saying, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” I see him slowly rising, and her rising with him effortlessly until she stood up straight and laughed and sang, praising God, her face shining like the sun.

Whatever names we give to crippling spirits, to the fears that oppress us, the traditions that imprison us, and the suffocating layers that keep our lives from flourishing – Jesus’ mission is to set us free and to restore life in fullness for all.

You would think that the only thing left to do for the congregation that day in the synagogue was to sing songs of praise with the woman and offer a prayer of thanksgiving. But she alone was praising God; the leader of the synagogue was indignant. His issue was with Jesus, but he addressed the crowd,

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

In the world of the story, the Sabbath wasn’t just part of the weekend. The seventh day was set aside by God for rest, and work was prohibited; it was a day of rest for men, women, and children, including servants and resident aliens, a day of rest even for farm animals. For one day every week, God’s people were to live not by the work of their hands, but solely by the gifts of God. For one day every week, God’s people were to experience the freedom of complete dependence on God.

That leader took seriously the commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.” It was fine for Jesus to study and teach, but healing was a different matter.

With regard to medical assistance, the common understanding of the sabbath commandment was that emergencies could be attended, but chronic illnesses should not be. If it’s not an emergency, wait one more day. In the leader’s mind, Jesus could have said, “Woman, come and see me tomorrow.” What’s one day after eighteen years?

But Jesus didn’t wait. That doesn’t mean he became an advocate for a more relaxed attitude toward the sabbath and for opening the day of rest for business. He wasn’t in favor of watering down sabbath observance; on the contrary: he broadened it.

Who wouldn’t untie their ox and donkey on the Sabbath in order to lead them away to give them water? Untying farm animals and leading them to the water on the Sabbath was common practice, and it was considered not only permissible but necessary for the animals’ well-being.

Jesus argued from the lesser to the greater: if we can see the need to untie a thirsty animal, how can we not see the need for a human being to be unbound and released? Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?

At the beginning of his ministry, in his hometown synagogue, Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. [The Lord] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21).

Today, he said. His coming marked the beginning of the today of fulfillment. It was time for every child of Abraham to taste the sweetness of sabbath. It was time for every daughter and son of Abraham to be set free from bondage: the loosing of chains doesn’t taint the holiness of the sabbath day – no, it finally brings the sabbath peace to the bound and the bent.

The Sabbath is a day of rest, but also of promise. The Sabbath is a foretaste of that seventh day when humanity is fully at home in God’s creation and at peace. The Sabbath is day of rest for weary bodies, but also a day to immerse ourselves in God’s promise of peace and freedom for all of creation. The Sabbath is a day to stand up and raise our heads and lift up our eyes and lift every voice and sing like those from whose shoulders the yoke of oppression has been lifted – just like the woman did.

And we sing with her, even though our own lives are still weighed down with worries, cares, and fears, and the world we live in still is bent by injustice, lovelessness, and death-serving powers. We sing with her, because Jesus tenderly put her hands in his and rising, raised her to her full stature and dignity as a daughter of Abraham. We sing, because he has put our hands in his, and we trust that he will lift up all who are bent by unbending ways. With her we sing of the One who bends toward us with great tenderness and the power to make whole.

In recent weeks, the difficult conversation about the place of Muslims in the United States has produced more heat than light – there is much fear, but also ignorance, ugly prejudice, and hatred. The fact that this is an election year has only made things worse.

We must remember that words are not just words. Words have the power to tear down or to build up, to ostracize the other or to make honest encounter possible, to oppress or to set free. Words have the power to add layers to what is weighing people down, but they also have the power to remove at least some of those layers.

As followers of Jesus, we must in all things remember the call, the touch, the freeing words of Jesus and learn from him. We do that, and the conversation will change.

Summer Reading

This summer I read and enjoyed books old and new:

Great fun, if you like knowing how ideas develop and change over centuries.

A quick read that'll help you understand what philosophical background has shaped your ideas and images of eternity.

I enjoyed this one very much. Well written, broad, and with just enough depth.

Nice, but too much paper.

I got to know Garry Wills through Head and Heart: American Christianities, a book that helped me understand the religious landscape of the US and US politics. This little book on Paul is very good, and I think it would be a good one for a church book group to tackle.

Same here. Quick read, solid stuff. Great conversation starters.

I do read fiction in the summer! I can't say it was fun, but once I started it, I didn't put it down.

Even the universe is mortal. That's old news for theologians, but it still gives rise to good thinking and writing. Physicists are underrepresented, though.

So careful to the type she [nature] seems,
So careless of the single life;
...
"So careful of the type?" but no.
From scarped cliffs and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go." Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, verses LV and LVI

Southgate's book is a deep reflection on the beauty and violence of life, and what that means for our thinking about redeemed creation.

She's a good girl

Mary serves as pastor in Chicago, but she grew up in the South. A few years ago she shared her thoughts on southern hospitality. Southern women, she wrote, are Marthas and proud of it, and supper in a southern kitchen is a wonder to behold. Those who have traditional southern hospitality refined to an art never sit—they hover. At Martha’s table, plates are never allowed to go empty, and the serving dishes are passed around at least three times.

You know how it goes, “Some more iced tea? Have another yeast roll? Do try the jello salad, dear, it’s my aunt Rosie’s recipe, and the squash casserole is a favorite at every church potluck supper. It’s my grandmother’s recipe, and I never use the cheap crackers.”

The hostess keeps circling the table and shuttling between the kitchen and the dining room; she gives herself completely to serving her guests and misses all dinner conversation.

“When does the hostess eat?” Mary wonders. This remains one of the South’s eternal mysteries.[1]

Then there’s the other Martha, you know, the queen of home and garden. She has a staff of nine in the kitchen behind the scenes, a small army of very talented, invisible minions.

This Martha greets the guests at the door as they arrive; her dress is unwrinkled, her make-up perfect, and the table is already set with the fine china, spotless crystal, and immaculate, starched napkins. Everyone admires the center piece she made herself, a creative arrangement of fruits and flowers from her own garden, in a basket she wove in an art class at the Appalachian Center for Craft last fall.

Martha smiles graciously at her guests’ compliments, she sits and enjoys the appetizers with them, sips the perfectly chilled chardonnay, and with her witty remarks she keeps the table conversation going. Then wonder woman excuses herself, disappears briefly in the kitchen, and returns with delicious food, beautifully presented. Everything is effortless. Martha is the embodiment of home-making perfection and hospitality – and she haunts many of her sisters in their dreams.

Luke’s Martha doesn’t have a staff. She has a house full of guests who didn’t call to let her know they were coming. She opened the door to her home and welcomed them in. She offered them basins, filled with fresh water, and towels, so they could wash their dusty feet. And she made sure they had plenty to drink before she disappeared in the kitchen.

Jesus sat with the disciples, telling stories about the kingdom and talking about his journey to Jerusalem. It was quiet in the room, except for the sound of his voice. No one noticed that the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen was growing steadily louder, but finally Martha, who had been making all the noise to get a little attention, could no longer contain her frustration. She stood in the door, wiping her hands on her apron, and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

Martha had a sister, Mary, and Mary sat with the other disciples, also showing hospitality to Jesus, but in a way that didn’t find her sister’s approval.

In a sonnett by Gioacchino Belli, the poet imagines Martha saying a few more choice words:

“I’m tied up day and night. I’ve never complained,
but I’m getting tired – I’m always on my feet;
you can’t find this painted doll of a saint
except, of course, when there’s something to eat.”

It’s easy to sit and listen, when somebody else is doing the cooking and the laundry and the cleaning, isn’t it?

I know the feeling and you do, too, don’t you? You do something just because it needs doing, and you don’t mind doing it, parts of it you even enjoy; but then you grow resentful when you realize that nobody seems to notice, that your work is just being taken for granted.

“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

And the Lord answered, saying, “Martha, Martha,” scolding her like she was some little girl, “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

And with that, the story in Luke just ends, like a good sister/bad sister story: You, Martha, are worried and distracted. Mary is the good girl, she has chosen the better part.

In Belli’s poem, Martha doesn’t just swallow it; she snaps back,

“So says you, but I know better.
Listen, if I sat around on my salvation
the way she does, who’d keep this house together?”[2]

She has a point there, doesn’t she? Jesus taught that one does not live by bread alone (Luke 4:4), but he gratefully depended on the hospitality of many a Martha and their bread while teaching the word of God in the villages of Galilee and all the way to the city of Jerusalem.

And after Pentecost, believers gathered in homes for meals and worship, depending on the hospitality and leadership of those who opened their homes to the first congregations and to itinerant missionaries.

And today Martha is woman with a career, a wife and mother, and an Elder in the church, and everybody gladly depends on her to keep things together at home, at work, and at church.

Every time I sit with this story, sooner or later I write the same line in my notebook: Jesus needs to get into that kitchen. I like the image of all of them together, listening to Jesus and talking about the kingdom and the journey of discipleship, while peeling potatoes and chopping onions for dinner, blending flour, water, yeast and salt for the bread, setting the table, sharing the meal, attentive to each other’s needs and the needs of those not present, and eventually doing the dishes together.

Didn’t Jesus wash his disciples feet during a meal? A dish towel in his hands would make a great discipleship lesson, too.

I like the image of the church doing the things that need doing together while listening to the teachings of Jesus together. I don’t read this story as a story of sibling rivalry where Jesus takes the side of one against the other.

We know about being worried and distracted by many things, and Jesus reminds us that there is need of only one thing.What’s the one thing?

We know about working hard and giving ourselves to serving and resenting those who don’t. We know about endless expectations, and the voices that demand perfection, and schedules that make us sick. We know about being worried and distracted and way too busy, and Jesus reminds us that Mary has chosen the better part – the better part, but still only a part of the one thing necessary. What is the one thing?

Last Sunday we heard the story of the lawyer who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He already knew the one thing necessary: Loving God with your whole being and loving your neighbor as yourself. Jesus helped him to see that life doesn’t depend on knowing but on loving, and he told us the story of the Samaritan, the story of an outsider who became a neighbor to the victim lying by the side of the road. And then Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

It’s no coincidence that the story of Martha and Mary follows the story of the lawyer and the Samaritan. The two belong together and neither is complete without the other.

The lawyer was skilled in scripture, but he had trouble hearing the word of God as a claim on his life and seeing the need for active neighborliness and self-less, generous service.

Martha knew self-less service like no other, but she was so busy doing that she had trouble listening for the word of God.

In the first story Jesus says to us, “Go and do likewise.” And in the other he says, “Stop and sit likewise.” The two together are the one thing necessary.

As love of God and love of neighbor are two and one, so are listening and doing. Doing without listening turns into empty routine or breathless busyness. Listening without doing becomes lifeless knowledge, well-informed laziness. The one thing necessary is the integration of the two, the integration of our lives in welcoming the living Christ.

Jesus doesn’t envision a community of Marys and Marthas, a church where some listen and others work, some study and others serve, or some stand around the kitchen table and work while others sit around the dining room table and chat, or some grow frustrated and resentful and others continue to pretend that somebody else will clean up the kitchen. The faithful community is one where the privilege of listening to Jesus and the privilege of serving with Jesus go hand in hand, where listening and doing do not describe a division of labor but rather a balance of being.

I still like the picture of  Mary and Martha, Jesus and the other disciples together in the kitchen, then in the dining room, then back in the kitchen, moving effortlessly from one table to the other, talking about what it means to live as God’s people in the world. It doesn’t look like anything Martha Stewart would present on her show, but it looks real. It looks like something I want to be part of, and I hope you too.

 

[1] See Mary W. Anderson, “Hospitality Theology (Living by the Word),” The Christian Century, July 1-8, 1998, p. 643

[2] From a sonnett by Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli (1791-1863), translated by Miller Williams, in: Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry, ed. by Robert Atwan, George Dardress, and Peggy Rosenthal (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 209; my emphasis



The Circle of Compassion

Our Jewish friends have a treasure of stories and legends about the great rabbinic sages of the past. Among the stories that have been passed down, Rabbi Hillel, who lived in the first century, is the one most remembered as a wise and patient teacher.

One story is about a young man at King Herod’s court who made a wager with his friends that he could make Rabbi Hillel angry. He had heard of Hillel and he wanted to see if he was really as wise and patient as everyone said. And so he went to the study house one day where Hillel was teaching a portion of the Torah.

“Rabbi, Rabbi!” he cried, interrupting the lesson, “Why do the Babylonians have round heads?”

Hillel turned to him and calmly said, “That is because their midwives are not properly trained,” and the young man left.

But the next day, he came back again and cried out in the middle of an intricate discussion of law, “Rabbi, Rabbi, why do the Egyptians have flat feet?”

And Hillel responded, “That is because they walk for miles along the marshlands of the Nile.” And with that, he returned to the discussion at hand.

But the young wasn’t ready to give up yet. He had wagered a lot of money with his friends that he could make Hillel angry, and he didn’t want to lose his bet. All night he stayed up, and finally he came up with a plan. The next day, he burst through the door of the study house, stood in front of Hillel, and started hopping up and down, saying, “Rabbi, Rabbi, can you teach me the whole of Torah while I stand on one foot?”

All of Hillel’s students looked up from the text they were reading and stared at the young man. Hopping up and down and repeating the question over and over, he looked like a stork flapping his wings and squawking. They whispered to one another, “We study the teachings of the Torah day in and day out! How can the rabbi give him an answer in just a few words?”

Rabbi Hillel remained perfectly composed. He looked straight into the young man’s eyes and said, “That which is hateful unto yourself, do it not unto your neighbor. That is the whole of Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and learn.” [See While Standing on One Foot, p. 92-93]

People have questions and they turn to teachers for answers, and not every question is an honest request. Some questions are intended to anger or embarrass the questioned.

The lawyer in Luke’s story stands up to test Jesus. Has he also made a wager with his lawyer friends? Is he trying to shame the rabbi from Galilee by exposing a weakness in his teaching? Or does he simply want to see for himself if Jesus really has the kind of wisdom and insight people say he has?

“Rabbi,” the lawyer says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It’s a serious question; nothing silly like round heads and flat feet. To many people it is the question, the one worth asking, and we ask it in a variety of ways:

What must I do to walk through the door to heaven?

What must I do to hear my name being called when the book of life is opened?

What must I do to live a good, fulfilling life?

How do I know that the life I’m living is the one I’m supposed to live?

It’s a serious question, not a silly one designed to embarrass the teacher.

Jesus doesn’t give the man a tract with the four steps necessary for salvation—actually, he doesn’t seem interested in giving him any answer at all. He responds with two questions. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” Jesus points the man to the things he has studied, to the things he knows, and asks, “What is written there? What do you read there?” And the funny thing is, now it’s the lawyer who is being tested, and everybody wonders if he knows his stuff.

He does; he answers well, quoting the two great commandments from the Torah, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

“You have given the right answer,” says Jesus, and he adds, “do this, and you will live.” The good teacher knows that giving the right answer may be enough to pass the test at the end of the year, but that life depends on doing. Love of God and neighbor is the right answer, but life depends on loving, not on right answers. The lawyer knows the answer, but the distance from a well-trained mind to an eloquent tongue is so much shorter than from knowing to doing with heart and soul and strength, with hand and feet.

Love God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself, and you will live. The lawyer knows the answer, all that’s left to do for him is live it—but we all know that giving right answers is so much easier than living them.

The lawyer apparently can’t just go and do what he knows, do the best he can, succeed and fail and try to keep the course of love; he wants to stand there and debate how complex and complicated things really are, and that loving obedience is probably too simple an answer. “Who is my neighbor?” he asks.

Again Jesus doesn’t give him an answer; he tells him a story, a story we have heard so many times, it doesn’t really do much for us anymore, does it? O yeah, The Good Samaritan we say with a yawn. But the lawyer hears for the first time about the poor fellow on the road to Jericho who fell into the hand of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and left him half dead.

The lawyer can relate to the priest and Levite, religious experts who know the law and its application to specific cases. He knows how their minds work at the sight of a bloodied body lying by the road.

O my, that’s a naked man over there. Is he dead? What am I to do now? The law demands that I help those in need and show love to my  neighbor. If he had clothes on I’d be able to tell where he’s from. How am I supposed to know if he’s a fellow Jew? If he were conscious and calling for help, I could tell from his accent where he belongs. What if he’s dead? I can’t be expected to touch a corpse; I’d have to go through all these lengthy cleansing rituals afterward, and that is such an inconvenience. What if the thugs are still around?

The lawyer is right, the desire to obey God’s commandments can make life complicated and inconvenient. And not just that. Scripture can be used not only to challenge our attitudes and actions, but also to justify them. Scripture was quoted to justify slavery, bloody crusades, and the persecution of minorities, and in current debates around sexuality and ordination or marriage scripture is being quoted by all sides all the time.

“What is written?” sounds like a simple question, but the second question probes deeper, “What do you read there?”

How do I interpret what is written? What lenses do I wear when I read the ancient scriptures? Am I searching for proof texts to bolster my position and confirm what I already know? Am I fine-tuning my interpretive skills in order to boil it all down to the minimum requirements? Am I looking for ways to get away with what I’m doing?

Knowledge of the law is power, and even the law of God has loop holes that allow the well-informed to justify all sorts of dubious actions. You need reasons for seeing a naked man bleeding by the side of the road and passing by on the other side, reasons that will not crumble under rabbinical scrutiny? No problem, you couldn’t tell if he was a fellow Jew, if he really qualified as a neighbor.

So far the lawyer has been enjoying the story; this highway robbery is an interesting case. He also knows the laws of story-telling; he knows that there will be a third character who will bring the resolution. Who will be the hero?

The priest and the Levite passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

A Samaritan? The lawyer is shocked; repulsed may not be too strong a word.

Samaritans don’t know the law! They have bad bloodlines, their holy texts are insufficient, they have the wrong theology and the wrong temple. Samaritans are a bunch of dimwitted half-breeds!

But Jesus finishes his story. He describes in great detail the righteous actions of the despised and hated alien, how he was moved with compassion and went to the man, bandaged his wounds, put him on his animal, took him to an inn, and even paid the inn keeper to take care of the man.

Again the lawyer doesn’t get an answer from Jesus, but another question, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

“The one who showed him mercy.”

And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Learn from the despised and hated foreigner the meaning of love of neighbor. Don’t look for answers that will help you build a wall around yourself within which your religious obligation for loving applies. You say, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ and you are asking, ‘What are the limits of my responsibility?’ You ask, ‘Who is my neighbor?’and your question implies that there is a line beyond which the commandment no longer applies, that the law puts you in the middle of a circle and that somehow you can determine how far to push the boundaries of your obligation beyond yourself: is it your family, your friends, your tribe, your nation, your faith community, your generation?

Jesus teaches me that, yes, there is a circle, but it is not defined by me and my interpretation of who is neighbor. It is defined by the other whose need calls forth a neighbor’s loving response.

The Samaritan’s compassionate response is the answer to a question that doesn’t get asked nearly enough, "What must I do to be a neighbor to the person whose need I see?"

The General's Slave Girl

The story of Naaman is great dramatic material just waiting to be put on stage; it has colorful characters, vivid contrasts, and a surprise ending.

There’s Naaman, the great warrior, commander of the Aramean army; a man who has made a name for himself in many victorious battles.

There are two kings, one with a great deal of power thanks to his fine general, the other with very little power thanks to that same general.

The list of characters continues with Elisha, the man of God, a bit of a wild man like his mentor Elijah.

There’s Naaman’s wife; her role is crucial for the plot development but she doesn’t have a speaking part. We don’t know her by name, only as Naaman’s wife, always ready to play in a supporting role.

There are several slaves and servants who remain nameless as well, but without them, there would be no story. Without the anonymous slave girl who has compassion on her master, there would be no cure, no happy ending. Whoever writes the score for the movie, Naaman of Aram, needs to make sure that the theme, the melody line that ties everything together is introduced when her face first appears. She is the one whose compassion opens a window in a hopeless situation, and while we may never know her name, we will always remember the melody of grace she embodies.

The first scene opens with Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, a great man in high favor with his master. This is an important man, a four-star general, highly decorated, somebody who knows the battlefield as well as the high art of talking to the press without stepping out of bounds. We are looking at a man of great accomplishments and considerable power, when the story takes an unexpected turn: this hero of many battles, this officer of superior strategic skill, used to being in charge, this man has a secret. No, he didn’t take bribes or tell his staff he was hiking the Appalachian trail. Hidden under layers of shiny armor and fine, expensive clothes is a terrible truth: the general has been rendered helpless by a disease that is blind to power, wealth and status. Underneath the surface of his public persona he’s just a suffering human being.

Now the second character enters the stage. She is a slave, a young foreign girl he brought home from one of their raids into Israel. She is as small as Naaman is big. She is an outsider as much as Naaman is an insider. Everything he is, she is not. She is not at home, nor is she free to go home. Her life is in his hands. She is property.

But she knows the one thing that the general on his many raids into Israel didn’t learn: she knows where hope and wholeness can be found. “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria,” she tells her mistress, “he would cure him of his leprosy.” Who knows why she cares about the man who carried her far away from her home, her family and her people? Who knows why she doesn’t act strategically and propose a deal to secure her freedom in exchange for the information? Who knows how she is able to see only a suffering human being and show compassion?

Naaman is desperate enough to listen to a slave girl. He goes to his lord to tell him what she said, and the king of Aram assumes that if there is any healing power in Israel it has to be at the king’s disposal. He gives his general a letter for the king of Israel, and Naaman departs with chests of gold and silver and bundles of priceless garments.

The king of Israel reads the memo from his powerful neighbor, and tearing his clothes he cries out, “Am I God, to give life or death that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” It is always good for a king to remember that he is not God, but what can he do when his well-armed neighbor tells him, “This is what I want, you make it happen,” asking for the impossible? Now the king of Israel is about as desperate as the general from Aram.

Enter Elisha, the man of God. He sends word to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” With that, the king drops out of the picture, and Naaman and his chariots and horses and gifts of gold and silver head to Elisha’s house.

In the next scene, the contrast is again stark. On one side, Elisha’s little house, made from mud bricks, a hole in the wall for a window, and on the other side there is Naaman with his entourage and his caravan of camels and horses carrying everything a superpower has to offer. For a moment the action just stops; the general is waiting, and you can tell he’s not used to waiting.

And Elisha doesn’t even come out of his house. He sends somebody with a message for the general, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”

Well, Naaman isn’t used to this. He is somebody. He is accustomed to speaking with the king’s inner circle, not the receptionist. Who does this prophet think he is?

“I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy.” Doesn’t the esteemed general of the king of Aram deserve a personal audience with the prophet rather than some secondhand, servant-delivered prescription? And what kind of prescription is this, “wash in the Jordan seven times”? Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? I didn’t come all this way to wash in some river.

In a rage, the commander turns and goes away, angry enough to start another raid.

Now his servants approach him. They know how to speak to their master; years of experience have taught them how to reintroduce some reason into situations where arrogance and wounded pride have ratcheted up tensions. “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean?’”

He listens to their counsel. He gets off his horse, goes down to the river, and he steps into the water, not just knee-deep, he goes all the way down, immersing himself seven times according to the word of the man of God. And when he emerges from the water that seventh time, his skin is smooth and flawless like the skin of a young boy, and all is well for Naaman.

He was so sure he knew what he needed, he almost refused God’s gift of healing and wholeness. Almost, but God has servants who help move the story forward to its joyful conclusion. The word of hope comes from a complete outsider, a slave girl who dares to believe that the God of Israel desires life in fullness not just for her people, but for all. The wise counsel comes from servants who find a way around their master’s wounded pride and help him come down to the level of our shared humanity and trust in God’s word. It is the servants that move the story forward, not kings and armies.

Naaman made a name for himself in the kingdom of Aram, but in the kingdom of God he is remembered together with the slave girl whose faith and compassion opened a window for the power of God to be revealed. The path to wholeness crosses borders and makes unexpected turns, and it takes us all to the place where we listen for and dare to trust the word of God, not just knee-deep.

When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath. He read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and preached about good news to the poor and release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and all were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. But then he talked about the days of Elijah, when there was a severe famine over all the land. There were many widows in Israel, yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow who lived across the border, in Sidon.

They didn’t like where that proclamation was going. Then he talked about how many lepers there were in Israel in the time of Elisha, and how non of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

He talked about the path of wholeness crossing borders and including the ones we habitually exclude, and they were ready to hurl him off the cliff.

The path to wholeness crosses borders and makes unexpected turns, and it takes us all to the place where we listen for and dare to trust the word of God, not just knee-deep. How long will it take to heal our prejudices and jealousies, our broken hopes and promises? About as long as it takes for a Syrian general to listen to an Israeli slave girl. About as long as it takes for a mighty man to get off of his horse and into the water of a river he’s never heard of. About as long as it takes you and me to realize that the path to wholeness is not ours but God’s.

Today we celebrate Independence Day and we hum the tunes of John Philip Sousa with pride and gratitude for the vision of freedom and justice, and the rule of law.

Today is also Sunday, and on Sunday we learn to hum the melody line we hear in the compassion of a slave girl and in the faithfulness of Jesus. I pray that we hum it until we know it by heart and sing all our songs to its simple, beautiful tune.



Right Obedience

The old prophet had been told that among the final tasks of his career as a prophet of the Lord God was to find and train his replacement. He was to look for a man named Elisha son of Shaphat and anoint him prophet in his place. When he found the young man, he didn’t anoint him right away. He passed by him and threw his mantle over him; it was like a test to see if this young fellow was the right man for the job. Sure enough, he came running after the old prophet, leaving his oxen in the middle of the field. “Let me kiss my father and my mother,” he said, “and then I will follow you.”

That’s a reasonable request, wouldn’t you agree? Kiss your mom and dad good-bye before you leave for who knows where, not knowing how long it might take?

The old prophet, though, didn’t say, “Go ahead, no rush. I’ll be under that tree over there, waiting for you.”

No, he said, “Go, return. But understand what I have done to you.”

The young man returned to the field, killed the oxen, cut up the plow for firewood, and prepared a feast for the people. Then he set out and followed Elijah.

You have to wonder if he actually did kiss his mom and dad good-bye, and if killing and cooking the oxen was part of having a farewell picnic with the family. Or did he in fact not go back home? Did he cut up his plowing equipment and the animals solely to bring his former life to an end in order to be free to follow this urgent call? The story leaves room for us to decide for ourselves if it was OK for this prophet of the Lord to say good-bye to the family or not.

The other reading we heard this morning doesn’t leave that kind of room; it is disturbing in its clarity. Someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This call demands immediate and undivided attention.

Imagine you had to draw up a list of sacred duties that anyone, regardless of religious affiliation, had to observe – wouldn’t burying one’s parents be at or near the top of that list? We honor those who gave us life, and burying their bodies is one last honor we can bestow upon them. And yet, when Jesus said to someone, “Follow me,” and the person responded, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father,” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

I’m not sure I want to proclaim a kingdom that doesn’t allow me to honor my father and mother, thus honoring the commandment to honor them, and the Giver of that commandment. This saying is so appalling I want to find a way to make it mean something different, and I suspect some of you are hoping that I find a way to dismiss these statements as out of character with the Jesus we know or think we know.

I sat with this verse for a long time, and at some point Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, came to mind. In the struggle for the throne of Thebes, her brothers killed one another on the battlefield. Creon, her uncle and the interim king, decreed that the body of one brother, Eteocles, considered the defender of the city, be buried with every honor, but that the body of the other, Polynices the traitor be left mutilated in the field, as a feast for the dogs and the birds. Whoever honored the body of Polynices would be stoned to death. Nevertheless, Antigone defied the king’s decree. She went outside the city gates under the cover of night and sprinkled a handful of dust on her brother’s body, three times, enough to fulfill the sacred duty. The king, she said, can only make laws about the city he rules, but not about the dead. In a way she said, I must obey the gods rather than any human authority, and she died for her obedience.

I first learned about Antigone as a teenager in highschool, and I remember how much I admired her courage.

I believe Jesus is talking about courage. He had set his face to go to Jerusalem. He had experienced rejection in Nazareth, but that didn’t stop him. He experienced rejection in Samaria, but he didn’t let that stop him either, or make him turn from his way to angry violence. He had set his face to go to Jerusalem, and he knew where he was going.

He knew that his single-minded obedience to God’s will wouldn’t be well-received there. He knew that his proclamation of God’s reign would lead to ultimate rejection. He was on a way that made any other commitments secondary; this path, his path made even the most sacred duties relative. Jesus himself had put his hand to the plow and he wasn’t going to look back.

And his disciples? They were stumbling along. They were arguing with each other as to which one of them was the greatest.

They were unable to cast out a demon that tormented a man’s only child, but when they saw someone else casting out demons in Jesus’ name, they tried to stop him, because – I’m quoting – “he does not follow with us.” Like they were following?

When the Samaritan village didn’t show them proper hospitality, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” It didn’t occur to them that this kind of violence was not part of Jesus’ program. It didn’t occur to them that Jesus was on the way of the cross and that they were following him. And so, as they were going along the way, Jesus talked about the implications of that way.

“I have nowhere to lay my head, because I am rejected everywhere I go. Will you follow me? Proclaiming the kingdom of God is my life, and there is nothing, not even the most sacred duty you can imagine, that will keep me from going up to Jerusalem. Will you follow me? Home is not a place I can go back to, I have nowhere to lay my head. Home is where God is calling me; home is where God’s faithfulness, the world’s brokenness and my obedience meet. I will stay on this path for the sake of my brothers and sisters and for the sake of God’s reign on earth – will you follow with me?”

I don’t believe that Jesus was making appalling demands, but he spoke with great clarity about the path he was on. He knew that he would not die surrounded by his followers, but alone, rejected, forsaken by his friends. He also knew that he didn’t need to identify a group of followers over whom he could throw his mantle before being taken up, so they would continue his work. He didn’t need to pass on the mantle because he was the one to complete the work: he died on the cross, bearing the full weight of the world’s sin and bringing to an end the world of sin.

And God raised him from the dead, marking the first day of the new creation, making all things new and affirming the way of Jesus, the way of the cross as the way of life.

So now the Risen One continues to call us to follow him. He calls us to live as witnesses to the resurrection, as those who know that the work of our redemption has been accomplished. We are free to love without fear, because sin and death have been overcome once and for all. We are free to study and live our way into Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness, about the right use of wealth, about service and prayer and mercy, about who is neighbor and who is kin, about who deserves our obedience and who does not.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in the 1930s, the churches failed almost completely at recognizing the threat they presented; the churches neither openly rejected nor secretly resisted the Nazi reign of lies and terror. There were only very few who had the courage to obey God rather than the Führer’s perverted authority. The majority were silent, hoping for the nightmare to just go away, and trying to focus all their attention on their families or their work. The few Christians who did resist were the ones who heard the call of the Risen One to follow him and who responded with single-minded obedience.

As a teenager I admired Antigone for her courage to do what she knew to be right. I know I admired her because I wanted to be as faithful to Jesus’ call as she was to the laws of the gods of Greece. Today I wonder if we can be attentive to Jesus’ call not just as individuals but as communities, if we can practice that particular attentiveness together and find faithful responses together, or if we are so atomized and distracted that there will only be a handful who pay attention and follow the way of Jesus.

All I can say for now is that we must not dismiss too quickly the difficult sayings we deem out of character with the Jesus we think we know. The day may come for all of us when the call to follow the way of the kingdom will be so urgent that all other commitments we have made will have to become secondary. May God grant us grace to become open to the call of Christ and to understand what he has done to us.

Fathers and demons

In his autobiography, With Head and Heart, the great American teacher and prophet, Howard Thurman, recalls a heartbreaking scene.

On one of our visits to Daytona Beach I was eager to show my daughters some of my early haunts. We sauntered down the long street from the church to the riverfront. This had been the path of the procession to the baptismal ceremony in the Halifax River, which I had often described to them. We stopped here and there and I noted the changes that had taken place since that far-off time. At length we passed the playground of one of the white public schools. As soon as Olive and Anne saw the swings, they jumped for joy. “Look, Daddy, let’s go over and swing!” This was the inescapable moment of truth that every black parent in America must face soon or late. What do you say to your child at the critical moment of primary encounter?

“You can’t swing in those swings.”

“Why?”

“When we get home and have some cold lemonade I will tell you.” When we were home again, and had had our lemonade, Anne pressed for the answer. “We are home now, Daddy. Tell us.”

I said, “It is against the law for us to use those swings, even though it is a public school. At present, only white children can play there. But it takes the state legislature, the courts, the sheriffs and policemen, the white churches, the mayors, the banks and businesses, and the majority of white people in the state of Florida – it takes all these to keep two little black girls from swinging on those swings. That is how important you are! Never forget, the estimate of your own importance and self-worth can be judged by how many weapons and how much power people are willing to use to control you and keep you in the place they have assigned to you. You are two very important little girls. Your presence can threaten the entire state of Florida.”

Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman (Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1979) p. 97

I wish I had half the wisdom and presence of mind this father showed in affirming his daughters’ worth and dignity in a society bent on robbing them of their full humanity.

He could have but he didn’t sneak them into the playground so they could pretend to be free for a few moments, swinging high with the tips of their shoes touching the clouds, and hoping that they wouldn’t get caught.

He could have but he didn’t make up a story that allowed him to avoid naming the ugly reality of racism. He didn’t tell them that they couldn’t swing on those swings because their mother was expecting them at home, or that he would build them a much better swing in the back yard.

He told them the truth, and he did it in a way that didn’t break their spirits or confine them to the role of victims in a demonic system of oppression. Olive and Anne learned how important they were by the amount of resources needed to keep them in the place those in control had assigned to them. Their dad didn’t tell them that they were his little princesses no matter what the rest of the world said; he told them the truth in a way that affirmed their humanity and allowed them to grow up strong in a world designed to keep them out and down. That design, of course, has nothing to do with the world God wants us to live in.

The story of Jesus we heard this morning is like a condensed version of the entire Gospel: God comes to free us from sin and restore life in fullness.

In this story, Jesus enters the land of the gentiles, the territory of those who are outside the land of promise. And there, on the far side of the lake, he meets a man of the city, and he meets him outside the city.

This man hasn’t worn clothes for a long time, and he hasn’t lived in a house but in the tombs—and to say that he was living naked in the tombs is to say that he was worse off than the dead, for the dead at least have their bodies wrapped in grave linens and they are at peace. This man doesn’t know peace.

To be human is to be part of a family, to be in community; to be human is to love and be loved, to know God and to know one’s name. And Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?” and he says, “Legion.”

That’s not a name, that’s a diagnosis. Legion means a few thousand. Legion means the man’s identity, his true self has disappeared amid the pull of thousands of demonic forces that possess him. His soul has been buried in desolation, under thousands of lies and oppressions, voices that slowly robbed him, saying,

You don’t count.

You don’t matter.

You’re not good enough.

You are ugly.

You are worthless.

You are nobody.

Jesus asks him, “What is your name?” And there is no name, only the thousandfold absence of what makes a human being a human being. There is no memory of knowing love and hope, no ability to imagine ever experiencing them again.

In the book of Psalms, a voice whispers in torment, The enemy pursues my soul, he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead, long forgotten. Therefore my spirit fails; my heart is numb within me (Psalm 143:3-4). But this man has no name, no memory or hope, not even a prayer.

This little story, however, this fragrant essence of the gospel boldly declares that all that keeps the man from living life as a human being created by God, that all the voices and powers cannot rule in the presence of Christ. They come out and enter a herd of swine and they finish their destructive work by destroying themselves in the depths of the sea. That is the end of all that keeps us from living life as God intended it from the beginning.

The people from the city find the man sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and his right mind. Perhaps you wonder where he found his new clothes so quickly, out among the graves. The Apostle Paul would suggest that the man had put on Christ, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ (Galatians 3:26-27).

In Christ we are given our true identity as children of God, we are given our true name, and with it our true purpose. The world will call us names, but only God knows us fully and gives us Christ that we may come to know ourselves and one another as beloved by God.

And in Christ, there is no longer Jew or Gentile, only one humanity of God’s people.

There is no longer slave or free, only one humanity of free people serving God and one another.

There is no longer black or white or brown, only one humanity of many shades of beautiful.

There is no longer male and female, only men and women who know their true identities as God’s sons and daughters.

And with that new sense of identity, with that new name we are sent to declare what God in Christ has done for us. The call to mission and witness may take us halfway around the world, but more than likely it takes us back to our homes and our places of work and to the places where we and our children face the demons of our time.

The better we know who we are, who we really are, the better we will be able to encourage in our children a sense of self that isn’t determined by a thousand demanding voices, but by their dignity and importance as sons and daughters of God.

I began with a story of a father who gave his daughters the strength to know and resist the forces that would rob them of their humanity. I want to end with another story, one that comes to us by way of the Brothers Grimm, and it also addresses the fragile nature of our humanity.

There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run out of his mouth.

His son and his son’s wife were disgusted at this, so the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough of it.

And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said nothing and only sighed. Then they bought him a wooden bowl for a few [pennies], out of which he had to eat.

They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground.

“What are you doing there?” asked the father.

“I am making a little trough,” answered the child, “for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.”

The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he did spill a little of anything.

The Old Man and his Grandson, by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Margaret Taylor (1884) 

Wherever we are in the long procession of generations, I wish us all a happy Father’s Day.

Vineyard or vegetable garden?

Naboth had a vineyard, and King Ahab had a palace in Samaria. The palace sat on a hill Ahab’s father had bought from a local for two talents of silver (1 Kings 16:24).

Naboth had a vineyard, and King Ahab had a dream of a vegetable garden near his palace. It all sounds innocent enough. The king made Naboth an offer, “I’ll give you a better vineyard for it, or money, whichever you prefer.” It was a reasonable offer, you might even say a generous one.

Wouldn’t you trade your vineyard on the Cumberland plateau for one in the Napa valley? You get better soil, better climate, better wine – and if the Napa valley is a little too far from home for you, name your price: it’s a seller’s market, the king really wants that piece of land! Why not make a deal? Strangely, Naboth didn’t even ask, “Let me sleep on it. I’ll get back with you tomorrow.”

Naboth said no, and he did so emphatically. “The Lord forbid...” he said, invoking God in what, for a moment, looked like a standard real estate proposal. “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.”

From Naboth’s point of view, the vineyard wasn’t a commodity to be bought and sold at will. That vineyard was land that had been in Naboth’s family for generations and would remain in his family for generations to come. Naboth remembered that the land wasn’t anybody’s personal property, but God’s. Naboth remembered that God’s people were tenants on God’s land, and that every clan in Israel had received a portion. According to God’s covenant, each family had a plot of land to farm and to enjoy the fruit of the earth. The intent was to allow every generation thrive and find peace in the shadow of their family’s vines and figtrees. The land was God’s, not a commodity.

“The Lord forbid that I should give you the land that has been in my family for generations and that will be a source of food and income for generations to come,” said Naboth. King Ahab didn’t like the answer. He went to one of his many rooms in the palace, lay on his bed, face to the wall, and pouted; he didn’t even come down for dinner. He really wanted that vineyard, and the queen was genuinely concerned—until she heard his story.

“Aren’t you the king around here?” she mocked him, “Do you want me to go and get that vineyard for you?” She was a Phoenician princess, she didn’t know how royalty in Israel were supposed to behave, or perhaps she did know and just didn’t care. “Get up, eat something, stop moping. I’ll give you the vineyard.”

She didn’t have the power to just take the land, but she had the power to play the system in her favor. She sent a couple of memos in the king’s name, and with bogus charges and the help of two scoundrels who were willing to testify anything for the right price, she had Naboth killed. Then she went to the king and said, “Go, take that vineyard, it’s yours. Naboth is dead.” And Ahab put on his straw hat, got a ball of twine and a few sticks, and went to lay out the beds in his vegetable garden.

I love this tale, and the only thing that bothers me is the tendency in biblical stories, starting with Adam and Eve, to put the blame on women when there’s plenty of blame to go around. Ahab got what he wanted, and he didn’t even bother to ask, “How did you do that, dear?”

How did the king get what he wanted?

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house or anything that belongs to your neighbor, the ten commandments declare, but the king really wanted that vineyard. And who wouldn’t agree that the king’s wish should be everybody’s command?

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, the ten commandments declare, but who says that kings and queens have neighbors – aren’t they all underlings?

You shall not steal, you shall not murder – but what are divine commandments when royal wishes have been made known?

In this tale, everything that keeps a society from drifting into chaos is corrupted by royal covetousness, and the king’s hankering after cucumbers, onions and leeks leads to death by judicial murder. It is ironic that the one person in the story who shows genuine reverence for God’s will is killed on a charge of blasphemy. And the king and queen get to wear the robes of righteousness in front of the public for putting down the blasphemers in Israel.

The systems of law, government, and religion not only fail to protect the innocent man’s life, they become tools in the hands of the powerful who manipulate them for their own purposes. But more is at stake here than the occasional abuse of the system by those in power to serve their own needs and desires.

In Israel’s imagination, the vineyard is a way of speaking of God’s people on God’s land; the vineyard is an image of the flourishing relationship between God and God’s people and the land. In contrast, Egypt, the land of Pharao, the land where the Hebrews served as slaves, is compared to a vegetable garden. The vineyard is planted on land watered by rain from the sky, land that God looks after, but the vegetable garden must be irrigated by foot, with hard labor ( Deuteronomy 11:8-12). The story suggests that if royal covetousness has its way, God’s people return to the house of slavery.

The story could end as it so often ends, with the vineyard gone and the king taking a walk in the royal vegetable garden. But is doesn’t.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth.

Just when Israel began to look like Egypt, the word of the Lord came to one like Moses. Just when the royals thought nobody was paying attention to what they were doing, the word of the Lord came to Elijah:

Go to the vineyard of Naboth and tell King Ahab, “Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.”

Elijah, the truth-teller, found the king and said, “You have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord.” He could have just said, “You have done what is evil in the sight of the Lord,” but he said, “You have sold yourself.” Naboth wouldn’t even sell a piece of land out of reverence for God’s covenants, but Ahab had sold himself. Sold himself to whom or what?

A few years ago, Bob Dylan sang an answer:

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance

You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed:

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.

That’s the kind of song Elijah sang to Ahab in the vineyard:

You may live in a palace or live on the street

You may own half of Samaria or just a vineyard

You may be the king or the king’s gardener

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

You sold yourself to idols that promise you your heart’s desire. You sold yourself to visions of power that promise you the world – as long as you give yourself to them. You have sold yourself. You imagine yourself to be free and sovereign in your refusal to serve the Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

You say you serve nobody but yourself? You are of all slaves most to be pitied, for you have sold yourself to serve the whims of your desires. You have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord.

What does that ancient story have to do with you and me, with our lives? We live in a culture that has gotten used to treating greed like a virtue, a culture that depends on covetousness for its flourishing. We surround ourselves with images that tell us we are kings and queens, when in truth we are selling ourselves to powers that promise us the world. We worship at the altars of the gods of consumerism, and we imagine we can grow our way out of every problem and crisis. We live as if the earth wasn’t the Lord’s but ours—and ours to do with as we please.

We look at the disaster in the gulf and we can see the failure of systems of law and government to protect the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable families and of future generations. We can look at the mess and demand better oversight, better laws, better risk analysis, better engineering – and we should – but we’re missing the opportunity this moment of crisis presents, if we don’t hear the voice of Elijah, the voice of Jesus calling us to renewed covenant faithfulness.

We imagine ourselves to be free, when in truth we act like addicts who have sold ourselves to promises that aren’t God’s but the products of our own unbridled desires.

We’re gonna have to serve somebody, and we’re all better off if that somebody isn’t our respective myself. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all point to the same alternative to royal covetousness and anxious selfishness: Life in covenant with the God who called Israel out of Egypt and who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Life as free men and women who serve no one but the Lord of heaven and earth, and one another in neighborly love.

The Invasion of Death's Dominion

The story begins with Elijah of Tishbe in Gilead and king Ahab, the worst king Israel had known. One day, Elijah came to Ahab and said, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”

The king was angry, very angry, and then the long drought began. God sent Elijah across the border, away from Ahab’s reach, to Zarephath, where a widow would take care of him. When he came to the gate of the town, he saw her. She was gathering sticks. Sticks for one last fire, as she told him, to cook her last handful of grain with a little oil, one last meal for her and her son. The drought on top of her already marginal existence as a widow meant that starvation was inevitable for her and her child. And Elijah, who had asked her for a little water to drink and a morsel of bread, said to her, “Go and do as you have said, but first…” First do this other thing, this rather odd thing to do on the verge of death, this radically generous and hospitable thing, first “make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.” That last handful of grain, divide it by three instead of two, and feed me before you feed your child and yourself.

And then Elijah, the stranger from across the border added, “For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”

And so it was. They didn’t die of starvation. They ate for many days, and the jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail.

If this were a Hallmark movie, you’d see smiling faces, perhaps rain clouds on the horizon, and the closing credits with the sound of thunder in the background. But in the Bible the story continues. In a tragic turn of events, the widow’s son becomes ill, and the illness is so severe that there is no breath left in him. Death comes again very close, but God listens to the prayers of Elijah, and the boy is miraculously revived and returned to his mother.

The names of king Ahab and queen Jezebel are written in the royal archives and the chronicles of Israel, but nobody wrote down the names of the widow and her son. Their story is not for the history books, but for people who live in dry times. In dry times, we tend to look at our own meager resources, that last handful of grain, that spoon of olive oil at the bottom of the jug, and we go and gather sticks for that last fire. This story blows up our assumptions and reminds us that God’s possibilities go beyond what we can imagine. The woman’s radical hospitality and the prophet’s prayer open the gates through which life returns.

The cover of the current New Yorker shows a familiar scene, a congressional hearing. In the foreground, we see a man in a grey suit, standing behind a table, his right hand raised as he is being sworn in to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He faces a panel of committee members; they are the ones who ask the questions that will bring the truth to light. It is an unusual group of investigators, among them a pelican, a dolphin, a large fish, and a penguin.

Obviously, this isn’t a banking committee hearing, and the gentleman in the grey suit isn’t a hedge fund manager from Wall Street. More likely he’s Tony Hayward, C.E.O. of BP—and while we also have a number of questions we would like him to answer for us, in this hearing we are lined up behind him, and we can’t just sit in the audience. Before this panel, Mr. Hayward is not only answering for his company, but for all of us and our part in the disaster that is unfolding in the gulf and along the gulf coast. We must answer, because we have created a culture that interferes constantly with natural systems, and too often with very limited knowledge of the risks involved for other living things or future generations.

Last week the Boston Globe published a portfolio of pictures by A.P. photographer Charlie Riedel, pictures of pelicans and other sea birds drenched in oil, taken on East Grand Terre Island, one of several barrier islands on the Louisiana coast. They are pictures of agony and death, and almost too much to look at and allow in. It is hard to see these pictures, knowing that I can’t just point at Mr. Hayward and the senior management at BP and blame them for the deadly mess, knowing that the way I live my life has a lot to do with the death and suffering in the water and on land. It is like living through a different kind of drought, where it’s not rain that is lacking, but wisdom and care.

The story continues in Nain, a small town in Galilee. Jesus approached the gate of the town just when a man who had died was being carried out. A large crowd, probably the whole town, followed the bier with the body on it. Apparently the man had not been married; there was no young widow, no children – only his mother. A woman who had already lost her husband, and now her son, her only son. She carried more than the weight of her grief. Without a husband or a son to take care of her, her future looked grim. Most widows had to depend on the compassion of their husband’s family to survive, and many ended up sitting in the gate or by the road side together with the blind and the crippled, begging neighbors and strangers for a little mercy.

Death is a biological reality, and all living things eventually die. But death is also a social reality. Life expectancy is significantly higher for the rich than for the poor. In many places, child mortality rates among girls are higher than among boys. And in many societies, after the death of a spouse, life offers more opportunities to men than to women. Death is the great equalizer that ends every life, but it also invades our lives and prevents them from flourishing with different rules for men and women, for people born in poverty and wealth, for people with access to education and without. Death doesn’t just mark the end of life, it is a present reality that keeps it from thriving.

In a good funeral procession, people cry in their grief, but they also strengthen the ties of friendship between them, they share stories that make them smile, memories of the one whose body they accompany to its final resting place. In a good funeral procession, people travel in gratitude, with tears and smiles, carrying seeds of hope and joy and new life. But when people make that journey without a promise for tomorrow, they follow a bier in a procession of death. It’s a different kind of drought, where it’s not rain that is lacking, but hope and imagination.

So we see an old widow on the way to the cemetery to bury her only son and with him her own life. Traveling with her, the many women from areas where it hasn’t rained in years, gathering sticks for that last meal for themselves and their children. Traveling with them, the children born in cities of blatant inequality, the men and women whose hope disappeared like smoke from a snuffed candle. Traveling with them, fishermen with empty nets and people carrying the bodies of pelicans drenched in oil, dolphins and turtles. A long procession of those who know all the ways in which death invades life and sucks it dry.

They pass through the gate, and there, outside of town, coming toward them, is another procession. The two columns meet, and the Lord of life touches the bier on which the body lies, and he says, “Rise!” And it begins to rain—it rains hope and imagination, wisdom and care, it rains life and joy. The young man sits up and Jesus gives him to his mother and the crowd shouts and sings, praising God.

The procession of death stops, and it does not just stop temporarily, it ends here where the Lord of life says, “Rise!” The procession of death stops, because with Jesus the reign of God has invaded death’s dominion, and life restored in fullness begins to shine forth in glorious beauty. The procession of death stops, because it can go no further than to the cross, and at the cross God said “No!” to all that keeps life from flourishing, and “Rise!” to a new creation where sin and death are no more.

The Psalm for this Sunday praises the Lord, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever (Psalm 146). And line after line unfolds how the Lord keeps faith,

executing justice for the oppressed

giving food to the hungry

setting the prisoners free

opening the eyes of the blind

lifting up those who are bowed down

loving the righteous and caring for the stranger

sustaining the poor but bringing to ruin the way of the wicked

The Lord keeps faith by paying close attention to those living on the margins. The Lord keeps faith through acts of judgment and redemption that bring to ruin the way of the wicked and stop the procession of death. The Lord keeps faith by calling us to follow Christ who leads the procession of life.

And we keep faith by doing the small things that never make the history books. Small things like sharing a meal with the stranger at the gate, because that is how we honor the Lord of life. Small things like paying attention to those living on the margins, even if they are seabirds and dolphins, or little wiggly things whose names we barely know – because that is how we honor the Lord of life. We keep faith by doing small things like not pointing the finger at one man, because we realize that three fingers are pointing back at us.

We are not the ones who stop the procession of death and say, “Rise!” But we follow the One who did just that, and he will always show us a way to continue the invasion of death’s dominion with hope and imagination, with wisdom, care, and new life.

Summertime

No more exams for a while. No more tests. No more papers overdue or homework turned in late. School’s out. Summertime. It’s Meet-you-at-the-pool season. It’s “Off to camp, to the mountains, to the beach, to Italy and France” season. Summertime.

I don’t know if you noticed, but this year, after the final half-day of school was over and after the commencement speeches were delivered, the cry of relief wasn’t quite as euphoric and loud as in the past. Some of that lack of enthusiasm can be explained as post-flood soberness: we’re still working, still cleaning up, still trying to figure out what’s next, and we’re just not quite ready yet to go party or do our usual lazy-summer-stuff. Then there is the economic uncertainty where too many are still looking for work and too many are still worried they might lose their job if the markets don’t start humming again soon. And there is the hole in the bottom of the gulf with millions of gallons of crude spewing into the water – and who knows what this means for life in the ocean and on the coast, and for our demand for energy or our standard of living? It’s summertime, and we wish we could sing, ‘…and the living is easy,’ but we can’t because it isn’t.

My mom and my brother have been with us for a few precious days. Sometime last week, I took my mom to Green Hills Mall; she wanted to do some shopping. I dropped her off between Panera and Davis-Kidd, told her that Panera would be a good place for lunch, and off she went. She had a great morning; she loved Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma, and especially Coldwater Creek.

When she got hungry, she started looking for a place to eat. More specifically, she started looking for the food court. Now, you all probably know that there is no food court at Green Hills Mall, but she kept looking for a while, wondering if she was on the right level or at the wrong end of the building. Eventually she decided to ask a couple for directions.

She could have said, “Excuse me, where is the food court?” or “Pardon me, can you recommend a restaurant in this mall?” Instead she began by telling them the reason for her quest. She said, “I am hungry.”

She meant to add, “Where can I get a sandwich here?” but never got there, because the lady immediately took a step back. When my mom told us the story, I started laughing and said, “Did she offer you a couple of dollars or a cookie from her purse?” No, she didn’t. With both hands raised in a defensive gesture she sought protection behind her husband’s back. She was afraid.

She wasn’t afraid of my mom, a slender woman without any of the traits you expect to see in the large women in a Wagner opera – No, the lady was afraid that real human need had intruded what was for her a safe place, a place where she could look at pretty things and forget the world for a while.

It’s summertime, and we wish we could sing, ‘… and the living is easy,’ but we can’t because it isn’t. Whether we care to admit it or not, there’s uncertainty in the air, even fear.

Don’t you wish Jesus were here? Don’t you wish he simply appeared in all the places where fear threatens to overwhelm hope? Don’t you wish he had sneaked into a commencement celebration somewhere and given the speech the whole world needed to hear right now?

We have these fantasies of God having created the world just a little different or of intervening now with one decisive action from on high to set things right. We have dreams of God sending a strong leader who won’t get corrupted by power or crushed between the wheels of interest groups. We wish Jesus were here.

Beginning with chapter 13, John tells the story of Jesus’ last night with his friends. They didn’t know it would be there last hours together. They didn’t know that he would be arrested, convicted, and crucified the very next day. They didn’t know what was coming next, but Jesus did [for this view of the “farewell discourse,” I follow Eugene Peterson, The Story Behind the Story, Journal for Preachers Vol. 26, No. 4, Pentecost 2003, pp. 4-8].

And so he spent that last night with them preparing them for what they couldn’t even begin to imagine: how to follow him without seeing him; how to do his works without him there to teach and admonish them; how to hear his voice in the noise of the world.

During supper, Jesus got up from the table, got a towel, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet. And after he had washed their feet, he asked, “Do you know what I have done to you?”

And then he began to talk, and he talked for a long time – it’s more than three chapters, the longest conversation we know of between Jesus and his friends. It’s actually not much of a conversation, because the disciples listened the whole time, only occasionally did they throw in a comment or a question.

And after he had spoken, he prayed. He gathered up the life they had lived together and the life they would continue to live without him. He prayed his life and work and their life and work together into one – one life, one mission, one movement of God’s love to the world and in the world.

That is how he prepared them for the difficult transition. That is how he helped them move from seeing in his life who God is to letting others see in their own lives who God is.

He washed their feet, down on his knees before each of them, teaching them to do to each other what he had done to them, choosing the lowly task of a servant.

He prayed to the one he called Father that their mission and his would be one.

He worked and he prayed, and between those focal points of service and worship, he created a tapestry of images, promises, and commandments. Two things he said over and over again.

I am with you only a little longer (13:33).

Now I am going to him who sent me (16:5).

I am leaving the world and am going to the Father (16:28).

Fifteen times in this conversation, Jesus told his disciples, in one way or another, that he would be leaving them.

The second thing he said, and this also over and over again, was that he would send them the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).

Two things he said over and over again, “I am leaving…, I am sending…; I am leaving…, I am sending.” Jesus would leave, but he wouldn’t abandon them. He would no longer be with them, but the Holy Spirit would be in them and continue to connect their life and work with his.

The repetitions in these chapters may seem reduntant, but this speech isn’t just information about God, Jesus, the Spirit, and the church. The rhythms and patterns are themselves formative, and listening attentively and reading receptively become the very gates through which the Spirit comes and speaks.

We wish Jesus were here, but he isn’t. But in continuing to live the Jesus way, we are not left to our own strength and imagination. Jesus is sending the Spirit. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” Jesus said. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” Jesus’ words are not locked in the past, restricted to a particular period in history. The Spirit allows all generations to receive the word of Jesus in the changing circumstances of our lives, and not just to recall the life of Jesus but continue to live it.

There are words of Jesus that we need to hear to make sense of the church’s role in the current messes of the world, and it is the Spirit who helps us to remember faithfully what Jesus has said and receive obediently what Jesus is saying. We believe that the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh – men and women, young and old, poor and wealthy – and to me that means that we who long to hear the word of God for this day must be attentive to all flesh. Women and men, old and young, poor and rich, trust fund babies and undocumented immigrants. We must listen for the word of God not just in the reading of Scripture or the proclamation of the word, but in every word spoken, whispered, sung or censored among us. We must listen very carefully.

I keep thinking about the two women at the mall. One says, “I am hungry,” and the other is afraid. Of course it is just a simple misunderstanding. Of course it is one that can be easily resolved. And it is soo funny. But it is also true. There is much hunger among God’s children; hunger for bread, for justice, for meaning, hunger for community. And there is much fear; fear of strangers, of the unknown, of losing control, fear of moving down the ladder. I can hear the Spirit speaking: There is hunger and fear, and God wants to make us partners in addressing both, in the name of Jesus.

It's Sunday morning

The Worship Task Group continued our conversation with a discussion of Vine Street’s Sunday morning schedule. The current schedule is

  • 8:30am worship in chapel
  • 9:30am Christian education for children and adults
  • 10:45am worship in sanctuary
  • Coffee & fellowship in the columbarium/reception area before and after the 10:45am service

We recommend that we continue to follow the basic order of events, but start earlier in order to allow an earlier start time for the current 10:45am service. A new schedule could look something like this

  • 8:00am worship in chapel (45 minutes)
  • 9:00am Christian education for children and adults (45 minutes)
  • 10:00am worship in sanctuary (55-75 minutes)

We consider it crucial that we move ahead with plans for transforming the fellowship hall into a welcome area (see Journey story) where guests can be greeted, information can be shared in a variety of ways, friends can hang out, and good coffee is available from 7:45 till noon (we pay a barista and help offset the cost by charging for the coffee). The current entrance to the fellowship hall from the parking lot would become the main point of entry on Sunday morning.

We highly recommend hiring teachers for the children’s Sunday School to allow parents to participate in groups on Sunday morning. This may be a good opportunity for students in general, and students of early childhood development/education in particular.

We urge members and leadership to continue to greet guests on Sunday morning and help them find their way around our complicated campus.

We suggest roping off sections of the sanctuary, both to enhance the sense of being part of a community on the part of the congregants, and to make serving communion with trays less awkward.

We are very aware that changes in schedule are difficult to make; we suggest that we use the summer to introduce the changes and invite feedback from congregants, guests, and staff.

4101 Harding PIKE, Nashville, TN 37205 | (615) 269-5614

Sundays: Traditional Worship at 10:00 a.m. in person & ONLINE