12-13-09 “The Shepherd’s Way Home”

Imagine one listening in that crowd around John the Baptist.

His is one of the oldest professions in the world,

a shepherd.

Like Abel, Adam and Eve’s second born,

the first slaughtered,

by his firstborn farming brother.

His father trusts him,

that’s why he’s put in charge of the valuable flocks,

flocks that provide wool for homes and trade, clothing, milk, meat,

dung for fuel, hides for scrolls.

Little economic engines bleating all over the hills of Galilee.

Was he lured in by the urgency of John’s words,

the intensity of the crowd’s listening,

Had he ever been part of a group of people so transfixed in listening?

At first, perhaps the people appeared almost smug,

people in the know,

hearing what they expected.

“Children of Abraham,” calling out

“tell us a story, John, tell us what God will do for us.”

But the story John told came with a twist,

a love story, yes,

but barked back with a bite.

“Who do you think you are?

You think that because your ancestors followed the Good Shepherd

you can wander anywhere you want and call for room service?”

(My imaging works in Twenty first century vocabulary).

God doesn’t deliver on demand.

Why, If you disappeared,

God could raise a new flock right out of those rocks under your feet.” You tie your lives in knots

and yell at God for not untying them,

WHO –DO- YOU- THINK- YOU- ARE?”

John seemed to reach into their lives, to know their thoughts, their past,

to grab their every need in his fists.

His words reaching an impassioned edge,

straining against the limits of civil discourse,

but held in check by a rein of love.

“What then should we do?” murmured through the crowd,

“what should we do?”

John’s prophetic words tumbled over and through them,

Prophetic words, harvested from his people’s history,

The shepherd might have remembered that long age,

Moses,

who spent his exile as a shepherd,

used those skills to lead his people like a flock through the wilderness, traveling at the pace demanding by real sheep.

They couldn’t leave them behind.

they’d need them in a new home, in the new land.

He might have remembered

David,

The shepherd boy turned king

who forgot the needs of his flock

and had to be called back to accountability by God’s prophet, Nathan.

A shepherd’s responsibility is to protect the sheep,

not become a wolf among them.

David fell and fell hard

And yet, when he heard the word of the LORD,

What should I do LORD, what should I do,

remembered who he was, whose he was, and found his way home.

This shepherd, listening to John,

was taking quite a chance,

leaving his flock on their own while he followed the mesmerized crowd,

gripped by the hold John’s words had on his audience.

Those words carried an urgency

on which seemed to hang the balance of the world.

“What should we do? What then should we do?”

Looking at each other in confusion, looking at John for guidance,

This shepherd heard the people on all sides ask, “What should we do? “

John’s answer, “You know what to do. Take care of each other.

If one of you needs a coat and one of you has two coats, you know what to do. If one of you has food and others are hungry, you know what to do. Do everything in your power to take care of each other.

“Take care of each other as well as, or better than,

you steward your flocks, your business, your households.”

John’s eyes met each person in the crowd, one by one by one, each man, each woman. When he looked into the young shepherd’s eyes, it was as though his own brother was looking at him.

Did John say it out loud, or did his own mind supply the words,

When was the last time he talked, really talked to his brother,

in the way that lets each other know what your life is about,

what you really need?

And why had he hidden that extra loaf of bread last week

when the scroungey looking fellow ambled down the road,

looking hopefully his way?

The shepherd knew what it felt like to be hungry,

but he also knew he’d never starve. He was part of a family.

All he had to do, whether it was near or far, was go home.

He heard others begging John,

each voice more desperate for relief than the last.

He heard the tax collectors ask, “what should we do?”

Johns’ answer, “You know what you should do. Collect just what those folks really owe, their fair share, no more.”

He heard soldiers, soldiers (!) ask like little children, “What do we do? What should we do?”

John’s answer, “You know what to do. Don’t misuse your power on those you are to protect. Don’t coerce them.

Don’t extort money from them, for God’s sake!

Don’t accuse them of things you know they didn’t do,

just to make your job easier or entertaining.”

He watched the soldiers,

Roman soldiers,

Israeli Soldiers,

temple guards,

shake their heads as if coming out of a deep sleep,

look around at the everyday people all around them,

see the people’s faces as if for the first time.

Sheep go astray. They wander. They follow false trails.

When they realize they are lost, they call for their keeper.

When they hear his voice, then they know they are home.

“What should we do, what should we do?”

Should we follow you, John?

Their voices turned to expectation, to hope.

“No, not me, watch for the one who is coming after me.”

He seemed on the verge of adding, “idiots,”

but something, someone (?), who he stopped and listened to,

gentled him, like a sheep being coaxed into the fold.

Might this shepherd who we are imagining

have heard strange rumors when he was a child in Bethlehem,

the shepherds’ town, the little city of David.?

Strange rumors of shepherds, who’d seen angels,

and heard songs in the heavens, a cosmic symphony of praise.

Sheep go astray.

He was startled to remember his own flock, those in his own keeping.

What is a man?

So much of what we are is determined by the responsibilities we accept, the responsibilities put in our keeping.

We are given the power to lead and care for,

and we are given the power to choose who to follow,

who to be cared for by.

The Good Shepherd led him home to who he was, a keeper of flocks.

…led him home to who he was, kept in the heart of the Good Shepherd.

This is how we prepare, this is the Good News, John said,

and the shepherd heard that there is a way home.

With the multitudes that day, he went down to the river

and was baptized by John, turned around, washed clean, dunked down, and came up with a gasp of recognition. “God, you are my God,

I make my home in you,

I look for your redeemer’s coming to be my Shepherd”

And he went back to his flock, patting them and calling them, each of them, one by one, and went back into the hills. As he passed others in the human flock around him he saw others of the same household of God, going back to the work God gave them, but expecting that nothing would be the same.

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New Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary, “Sheep,” “Shepherd”

Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume 5, “Sheep, Shepherd,” Jack W. Vancil.

Two Parents Talk

Oh, it is so wonderful to be able to speak again. So much has happened that needs to be be told.
Where to begin?
I'm Zechariah, of the house of Abi-jah. My name means, "Yahweh remembers."
I have worked hard to keep the commandments and ordinances of the LORD and am recognized as a priest in our small town, though I sometimes forget myself. I'm not needed at the temple in Jerusalem very often.
My fine wife, Elizabeth, and I have been blessed with a comfortable life and many friends.
I had become content in my life...
but not fulfilled.
One thing was missing.
ELizabeth and I had no children.
Noone to continue my family name.
We had wished for a child, perhaps even a son, for so long without success. I had given up.
Now we were old with no chance for a child.
It should have been enough to be contented without being fulfilled.

I'd given up, tried to be content with supporting my husband, Zechariah, and helping our friends and neighbors with their children. I love children and there are lots of them in our little hill country village. I would offer to help any way I could.

I was everybody's favorite "aunt,"

and later, surrogate grandmother.

There were always plenty of children around.

But it was hard to shake off the longing for my own.

Nothing quite filled that empty spot.

I knew it was no longer possible to have a child.

I was too old.

But hope is a hard thing to give up.

My husband didn't blame me. I didn't blame him.

We have both tried our very best to follow the LORD's ways.

Our people call us "righteous," "blameless," and see no reason why the LORD should punish us with this barrenness. The LORD's ways are indeed mysterious.

Oh, it is SO wonderful to be able to speak again!

All things are possible in the LORD.

Almost a year ago, when I made one of my bi-annual trips to the temple in Jerusalem, I was honored to tend the incense and give the blessing to the congregation. This is no small honor! There are many priests and everyone wants to serve. But I was chosen, by lot, as is the custom. When I entered the inner sanctuary to offer prayers and tend the incense, an angel appeared.

I was afraid.

You would have been too. When's the last time YOU met with an angel?

But the angel said, "fear not. our prayers have been answered. Elizabeth will bear you a son and you will call him, John."

That WAS my prayer, but I still said, "how can this be? We are too old to have a child."

The angel replied, "I am Gabriel, sent by the LORD with this good news. Because you doubt my words, and as proof of what I say, you will be unable to speak until what I have foretold has come to pass."

And that was that!

When I left the inner sanctuary, I was unable to give the blessing.

Everyone knew that something very unusual had happened.

When Zechariah went to Jerusalem for his regular service in the temple, I stayed behind. I'd been there before. I'd stopped seeking miracles, or offering sacrifices in hopes that the LORD might hear my need and send a child.

I didn't hear, or see, the messenger.

My husband did.

He came back from the temple utterly unable to speak.

Had he had a stroke?

He wrote down what had happened and I tried to make sense of it.

It seemed he'd lost his mind.

Perhaps the child I'd finally care for would be my old husband.

It wasn't until I felt the stirring in my belly that I began to understand what was going on.

"Fear not."

Easy for you to say.

I had no chance to ask the LORD's messenger the questions tumbling in my mind.

How is this possible?

Why now, after so many years?

What is this child to become?

Will I have the energy, even live long enough, to raise him?

Have I said how wonderful it is to be able to speak again?

It happened just as Gabriel said.

Shortly after I returned home from the temple, Elizabeth became pregnant.

Wonder of wonders! How we had longer for this.

But I could not speak my joy.

For the next nine months I went about my business silently.

Finally, the day arrived. Elizabeth gave birth to our son.

What a wonderful time!

For eight days and nights our family and many friends rejoiced with us at this blessing from God. One the eight day, when our son was to be circumcised, named and officially welcomed into our community, they all asked Elizabeth, "and will he be named Zechariah as is our custom?"

But she answered, "no."

So they brought me a writing tablet and asked me to confirm his name.

I wrote, "His name is John."

Immediately my speech was restored.

Now I could explain what had happened in the temple.

All our family and friends wondered at these events. What could it mean for our son's future?

People were worried when I withdrew for those five months.

I can't even say why I did.

I was in such a strange surreal place. Time stopped for me.

With Zechariah's silence, the world seemed hushed.

My people don't hide pregnancy. Some said I was afraid I'd lose the baby and wanted to keep it secret. But I wasn't afraid. Some said I didn't believe it was real. Others said I was afraid people would make fun of me, pregnant at my age. But I have a pretty good sense of humor.

It WAS ridiculous!

I think that maybe God wanted Mary to be the first woman I shared the experience with.

The Holy Spirit that filled the baby in my womb overflowed and filled me as well. My own unborn child swept me up in his recognition of who stood before me. Womb to womb, we met, swollen with the new thing God was doing, leaking tears of joy.

God's mercy is tender indeed.

When the baby was born those other young women, the ones I'd helped through childbirth, helped me. It was as though my own daughters were taking care of me as I finally gave birth. So topsey-turvey, the young leading the old! Their strong hands and gentle words of encouragement made it so much easier. All night long they rubbed my back, sang, and shared their wisdom.

So, what is the future for our son?

The name "John" means "God shows favor."

He certainly did for Elizabeth and me!

But I worry about being able to provide a proper upbringing for John. Elizabeth and I are old.

Will we have the energy and wisdom to raise him well? Gabriel said,

"...for he will be great before the LORD,

and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink,

and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit,

even from his mother's womb.

And he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the LORD their God,

and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Eli-jah,

to turn the hearts of the fathers to the chidren,

and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,

to make ready for the LORD, a people prepared."

With God's favor, it shall be so. YAHWEH remembers.

It was the eight day after the baby's birth.

He was healthy, he was vigorous,

and it was time for him to take his place in our community.

Everyone was beside themselves with joy.

I have never felt so loved.

We were bathed in our neighbor's good wishes as they came to perform the circumcision

and name the child.

We'll give him his father's name, Zachariah, they said.

From the corner of my eye I saw Zechariah gesturing, no, no.

Then one of the strangest things in this whole extraordinary experience happened.

I'd never known anything so clearly in my life, without knowing why I knew it!

I said loud and clear, his name is John."

I do't think anyone had ever heard me speak so forcefully before!

Zechariah leaned back and smiled.

I wonder about the future, his, but also all the other children.

Will this passion for justice, and independence to worship,

this urge to be a nation,

carry them closer to the LORD's ways

or sweep them up in the old human ways of manipulation and violence?

My ancestor, Aaron, was his brother Moses' right hand man. Now it seems my son will serve his cousin as they go about God's work. Me son will be remembered as part of his cousin's story, not as "the one" but as he who prepares the way.

I hope he will do it well.

How will I prepare him for this?

The messenger said that his mind must remain clear.

Luke 3: 1-6

Dialogue by Doug Riley (Zechariah) and Karen Munson (Elizabeth)

You never quite know what's going to happen when you plant something. Several years ago I rescued two sad sprigs of Christmas cactus from the Christmas fair remnants. This morning it bloomed in bushy glory by the altar. Advent is about expecting, but now being sure what you'll get!

Above the pink blossoms hang brand new banners lovingly crafted by two talented quilters, Brenda Davenport and Gail Kromer, to make something of the too small centers I created in 2006.

This bright tree patch nods to our common ancestress, "Eve." What did God expect when planting that fateful fruit tree in the garden? All we know about Eve is that she took and shared what wasn't given to her, then went on to be a hardworking farmer's wife with at least three sons (but that's another story for another time). If the story was just about her and her husband, "Adam," there wouldn't be much else to tell.

Its the main character who makes the story worth remembering. Not ready to give up on the contrarians God had breathed into life, the Creator made sure the creatures had what they needed to survive and thrive. transplanted sprigs bearing human life out into the world.

Today, while we work, we watch and wait to see what God will do next. Jeremiah says, "When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree. He will run this country honestly and fairly, He will set things right. (Jeremiah 33: 15, translated by Eugene Peterson in "The Message).

Jeremiah points to the truth borne out in Jesus the Christ, God doesn't just send us into the world, God goes with us. The new banners point us toward stories of women who experienced God's powerful presence in their lives: Mother Eve, Sister Miriam, Deborah the Judge, Esther the Queen, Sarah and Elizabeth-late in life mothers, Loyal Ruth, Mary of Nazareth, Martha and Mary who befriended Jesus, Generous Dorcas, Gifted Lydia.

Advent invites us to get ready for what God wants to do in our lives. How will Christ come to us? What sprigs wait to spring into surprising abundance?

Our thanks to Suzanne Schaffhausen and Judy Rehmel for the quilts blocks published in "Women of the Bible," Augsburg Press, 1991.

Birth Pangs

We women sometimes think that we have the corner on birth pangs. I remember the last time I was at a "Jack & Jill" baby shower. The women ended up in one room. “Why I can tell you stories…” (often the one the new Mom wants least to hear!). The guys were in the next room trying to share fatherly wisdom but veering off course toward football scores and demands at work. Even these days when men are invited into the birth experience (appropriate considering their involvement before and after), most of the books and movies make a "girl thing."

The distinctively American music called “Blues” bear witness that, actually, many men "get it." Birth pangs creating life come in many forms.

If you’ve ever heard the real deal,

a raw voice growling and moaning out its misery,

offering it up,

emptying it out,

you’ve heard birth pangs coming from men and women breaking open under the pregnant weight of life.

I think the Psalms are Israel’s blues lyrics.

In the bible, Samuel's story starts out with the good news according to his mother, Hannah. Her birth pangs come long before the actual birth as she sinks under the weight barrenness meant in that time and place. Before Samuel there is emptiness, ridicule and despair. After Samuel's birth, Hannah herself comes to life as she offers back to God the son she struggled to bring into this world.
Before Samuel's birth, Hannah mourned privately to her husband and to Eli who caught caught her pouring out prayer so incoherently he thought she was drunk out of her mind. . Overhearing them feels like invasion of privacy.
But after Samuel's birth, she sings a song that is startlingly public, a song of righteousness turning her inner heartfelt blues into prophetically powerful witness. It's not just the boy who's birthed. Hannah's purpose, her voice, her very life stream from the opened womb as though it were an opened tomb.

"Birth pangs" is the image Jesus choose when he tries to prepare his followers for the scale of change in their future. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. (Mark 13) Biblical scholars remind us that when Mark was writing this gospel it was against a background of public crisis, either the Jewish revolt against Rome in 70 C.E. or Caligula’s earlier demand that the Jews set up a statue of him in the Temple area in the years (35-41 CE depending on how you date the work).

Have you ever stopped to wonder what might be birthed out of a public crisis? What new life might be born?

Something precious will break open, maybe even beyond repair, in Mark’s case a sacred institution, the temple. Something new will emerge, in Mark's case siblings Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.

Have you ever wondered what might be birthed out of the private crisis that invade our lives?

In his new Memoir, “Living and Loving Outloud,” Cornel West writes, “For Christians, serious faith begins when we experience the sweet shipwreck of the mind and the bittersweet cracking open of the heart…..to be human is to call for help. We saw birth as a catastrophe: you’re thrown in space and time to die. The flesh fails. Then the question becomes simple-how ya gonna cope?"

Birth and death are not so far apart, after all. Natives of our desert South west believed that death is waking up from life’s sleep.

The Christian faith and the modern Jewish movement are siblings birthed out of a nation's temple tragically breaking open. Out of that loss, living faith emerges and spreads out to renew and redeem.

Hannah's pregnancy also births her oracle of judgment against those who hoard and refuse to release the good things in our lives.

Jesus is re-birthed out of a tomb.

On mornings when we just don't know how we'll face another day, God promises that if we will emerge from under the covers stand up, and walk out, the Holy Spirit will breathe with us, set us on fire with passion for what is possible, and blow friends for the journey our way.

Birthing involves emptying, sending out. Marcia McFee shares a radical advent plan in her current worship newsletter: it "... comes from the folks at Metropolitan Community Church in Austin, TX. Their theme for Advent is “Simple Gifts” and they will begin Advent with all the usual sanctuary splendor of the Advent/Christmas season. But then each Sunday they will recess out parts of that abundance, poinsettias, greenery, gifts of clothing or toys for those who need them, decorations, goods for food banks, etc. until by Christmas Eve, the sanctuary is pretty much bare except for the light of Christ as evidenced by Advent wreath and Christ candle. In this way they celebrate the true spirit of giving and sharing of love and resources and will be left with the symbol of the most important and ever-present gift of all–the gift of God’s presence, Emmanuel. Terrific! (www.marciamcfee.com)

What if we thought of church more as pregnant with possibility to be birthed and less as problems to be contained?

10-25-09 Seeing

blind090209_1_560.jpg

The Gospel According to Mark 10: 46-52

Tracy Kidder’s latest book, Strength in What Remains, tells the story of a Vermont doctor who is like and unlike his neighbors.[1] Deogratias is an immigrant who fled Burundi’s epic violence.

The new ground he stood on in the strange land of New York became holy, when a woman saw him, learned his name, and persisted in finding him a home. The ground he walked became sanctified when that home, the apartment of a retired professor and his artist wife, opened up and received him, when they saw him, listened to him, incorporated him into their lives.

Deo’s story makes me wonder whether he was the “blind man” trying to make his way in a city that could not see him, or whether the city itself was blind.

If everyone is blind, lack of sight is unlikely to be identified as a problem. Only when a new perspective enters the picture, an ability to see, does a new way forward come to light. The couple that “adopted” an adult, Deogratias, found their childless lives illuminated.

All of us have blind spots. None of us have God’s fullness of sight. All of us are capable of seeing more with God’s help and each other’s loving attention.

In his online blog, http://willimon.blogspot.com/ Willimon shares the recent story of one of the camps in the North Alabama United Methodist conference. It seems that during their spring annual conference this year, a man stood up and helped the blind see. Their beloved camp, Sumatanga, was bent to breaking under the wait of hard realities. Willimon shares: Lessons Learned in Saving Sumatanga

A frequent response to Bob’s speech at Conference was, “I had no idea Sumatanga was in so much trouble.” For too long the Trustees tried to struggle alone with Sumatanga’s problems. Transparency and facing hard realities are essential, especially in the church. Our people show that they are eager to respond when they know the truth.

Preserving the past is no substitute for adaptation to the future. We cannot save the old Sumatanga. Change or die. We can only see the present crisis as an invitation from a living God to serve the present age, to pray for creativity and fresh courage. …. Bob Murray spoke to us all in ordering us (in his speech to Annual Conference), “Get over it!”

People are the key. The arrival of Bob Murray, the innovations produced by Bart Styes, the new team they have assembled, the day that Mike Byrne became chair of the Board made everything possible. The best way to change an organization is to change the leadership. Furthermore, Sumatanga knows that their future is not in getting more money from the churches but in getting more Christians at the camp. As Bob says, Sumatanga is in the hospitality ministry. If Sumatanga keeps focused on servant ministry to people, its future is assured. It’s such a temptation for the church to forget that we serve.

Willimon called to memory the years God has used Sumatanga for “some extraordinary acts of vocation, revelation, and renewal.” And like Jesus restoring sight to blind Bartimaeus, he celebrated clarity of vision brought by new leadership.

Try this encounter with the story of once blind Bartimaeus.

Read Mark 10: 46-52. While you read, imagine yourself in the story and notice whose eyes you are seeing through: Jesus’? The crowds’? Bartimaeus? The disciples?

Become aware of what you experience from this perspective.

Read Mark 10: 46-52 again. Become aware of what God is opening up for you in this moment. What new insight or instruction is the Holy Spirit giving you?

Read Mark 10: 46-52 one more time. Ask yourself, “what do I have to thank God for in this experience?” What will I tell others?

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[1] Tracy Kidder, “Strength in What Remains,: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness,” New York: Random House, 2009.

10-11-09 Turnovers

Mark 10: 17-31

Only one thing stands between this young man and the kingdom of heaven. It's a simple, and devastating, question of what he loves most.

I've just finished working with an Lay Speaking class on another of these terrible texts, if anything maybe even worse, Luke 14: 25-35. There Jesus gives people in the crowd following him a reality check, choose me or them ("them" being family members).

Sometimes it comes down to just this stark a choice. When Luke's gospel was under construction, folks were having to choose their community, the one they'd grown up and been formed in, or this new Jesus movement that was re-forming everything they knew.

Some of us have had that same challenge throw in our faces. Choose who you will follow. ITs hard when the ones you love don't all go in the same direction.

Other places in the gospels, Jesus tells us that if we choose rightly, we may have it all. Friends, family, meaningful work, food, follow our faithful choices. But here he reminds us that he does not follow food, work, family, or friends. He is first and last.

What is your life built on?

What is able to serve as cornerstone?

Jesus has a lot of deeply ingrained upside down thinking to overturn, the sacred tables we set up in our temples. Do you remember that scene? He comes in to the temple and finds worship leaders putting money out front, the cart in front of the horse, and Jesus upends the whole situation, literally!

Texts like these are tempting to wave off:

Oh, the guy tossing the tables is off his rocker.

Or, he doesn’t really mean for that young man to sell off his assets, its obviously symbolic.

Not...so... fast!

We need to stick with the challenge, examine what we can’t bear to give up, whether its money, or all the food we want, or approval, or accomplishment…..

For s short time, many years ago, I knew and admired a man named, Mitch. He was a barrier breaking advocate for the homeless in Washington D. C. who helped set up a shelter in an abandoned building in the city. Year after year he poured his heart out for the people the rest of us tended to overlook. He fought for them with policy makers, he scrounged for food, for blankets, for medical care. He gave them everything until there wasn't anything left to give. One morning we opened the Washington Post and discovered that Mitch had committed suicide. He couldn't bear the burden that had displaced God at the center of his life. While I choose to believe that God regained the center when Christ met and reclaimed Mitch on the other side of that desperate decision, it remains a great loss in the lives of those who knew and loved him in this life.

Scripture calls it idolatry when anything, anything at all, takes God's place.

These days we do it to our children as a matter of course. We become insatiably greedy for their happiness and success, giving it our all. base decisions of how we'll spend our family time, money, energy trying to make them happy. We measure our success by theirs.

But we weigh down children’s lives when we try to make them our cornerstones. We put the burden of our lives, whether they're "worth it" on the next generation as though these still maturing little ones were able to be the foundation rather than the future. Is that really the way God intended us to love them?

And then we act like children ourselves, filling our goody bags with one pretty or yummy or entertaining thing after another.

Luke 12:15 …and he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

Jesus gears us up for faithful personal resistance, withstanding a system that will gobble us up, and offers us the choice of living in an alternative kin-dom.

Julie Clawson reminds us just how tough it is to turn these tables over.

So I’ve been having a few interesting conversations about my book Everyday Justice recently. I was being interviewed for a very conservative Christian talk radio show, and when I mentioned that a simple way to define biblical justice was “the practical outworking of loving God and loving others” I was told that I need to be careful about encouraging people to love their neighbor because that could lead to socialism.

In the sound-bite world of talk radio, there wasn’t a chance to challenge that assertion, so I changed tactics and tried to talk about the need for Christians to embrace the spiritual discipline of simplicity and not be overcome by consumerism. Once again I was contradicted by the host who told me that I shouldn’t suggest that people stop or lower their consumption because it is our duty to support the economy by buying stuff. At that point I realized that we were on totally different planets. I civilly made my way through the rest of the interview trying to speak a language he might understand, and then choose not to listen for the next hour as he proceeded to tear apart everything I said.

I’m fine with people disagreeing with me or not liking the book. I get that. But his mindset reminded me of the economic idolatry that has crept into our faith. More and more I find Christians who, instead of letting their faith influence their economics, interpret their faith through their preferred economic system.

So, what’s the antidote to greed? In the classic “Seven Deadly Sins” list, Generosity is greed’s opposite. At the heart of real generosity is mercy, a mercy that makes us hungry for God’s presence, love and care, in each person’s life and every corner of our world. When we can’t get enough of God’s goodness, we experience an insatiable desire for mercy, become hungry for justice. And even those efforts to make the world a better place become idolatrous if God is not the centering point, the one we need more than anything else.

Its a hard thing Jesus asks, from the "before" perspective. And yet after, after one chooses to be utterly centered on and by our loving, generous, merciful, and just God, somehow the rest falls into place.

Busy is As Busy Does

9-27-09 Sloth: Busy is As Busy Does

We’re up to “sin of the week” #4 with Sloth. Do you have a favorite yet? (Pride, Anger, Gluttony, Sloth….)

It seems as though whenever “sloth” comes up, conversation turns to those much-maligned South and Central American tree-hangers whose incredibly efficient systems make them appear lazy.

If you can get past the critters, sloth talk tends to turn next to the worst possible thing you can accuse a protestant work ethic trained American of: laziness.

If the conversation is sensitive, it will acknowledge that there is a difference between laziness and depression, a treatable medical condition. But let’s leave those boxes behind and steer toward another, causal, alternative this morning.

I really appreciate the way sloth follows gluttony in this fall’s series. Because I am increasingly convinced that sloth is the direct result of being too full.

John Wesley knew this. In fact it’s likely that Wesley would have ranked sloth at the top of his hit sins list. "And when sloth and luxury are joined together, will they not provide an abundant offspring?" (See “The Late Work of God in North America.”)

You see, Wesley’s England was in a period of economic stratification: as industrialization told hold, a new class of mill and mine owners expanded the pool of wealth enjoyed by royals while urban slums developed to house working families who lost the “unfunded” benefits of a farm economy.

Wesley’s sermon addresses those who have plenty, who are “full.”

Proverbs 24: I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. (NIV)

Having too much “good” decreases room for “essential,” squeezes it out. The article I referred to a few weeks ago asked why disasters can feel strangely like paradise. In the wake of a disaster we become utterly focused on what is truly life giving.

You don’t hear people lamenting lost bread machines, you see people offering one another bread.

Those early Christian monk’s whose “8 bad thoughts” developed into the modern seven deadly sins considered sloth to be one of the worst, right up there with pride.

In her new book, “Acedia”, Kathleen Norris points out that sloth is not just a “personal problem.” It is a cumulative public problem. [It is] my suspicion that much of the restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia, and enervating despair that plague us today are the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress. When we look at acedias’ root meaning-not caring-we can see it as a social problem and perceive that the sloth it engenders is anything but an insignificant physical laziness. It may even manifest as hyperactivity, but it is more like the activity of a hamster on a treadmill than the action what will enhance the common good.”

The Rev. Jorge Acevedo will receive the 2009 Distinguished Evangelist of the United Methodist Church award later this month from the Foundation for Evangelism. [Acevedo is] lead pastor at Grace Church, a multi-site United Methodist congregation in Cape Coral, Fla. (UM Portal 9-25-09):

When I came here in 1996, the church was averaging about 400 in attendance on Sundays, and had been in a five-year decline. My first Sunday here, they told me we had $29.16 in our checking account and owed $1.2 million on a building. The church was filled with wonderful people who had just kind of lost their way; they were good people who had just been lulled to sleep. Yet there were 30 people who had been on the Walk to Emmaus who were praying for renewal. They are the unsung heroes of this story: that group of people prayed that God would do a new thing in their church. [Church attendance has grown to more than 2,600 in weekly worship.]

God has given me a passion for reaching the un-churched, the once-churched and the over-churched.

The “over-churched” person is the second son in the prodigal son story, who never left home. The over-churched have lived a good life. … The intimacy of their relationship with Jesus is but a faint memory. There are a lot of over-churched people who are United Methodist in name, but not Christian by their own testimony.

Converting the convinced is really hard! They are convinced that everything is OK, and yet they don’t bear the fruit of a faithful follower of Christ. … The best way is for them to see these un-churched people who come into our church and see the vitality of a fresh new relationship with Jesus. It’s pretty contagious.

In other words, the over churched person is so full, stuffed with good things, that we need to intentionally make room for the fresh and new, but are unlikely to go looking for it..

(Acevedo continues) God has given the local church the primary responsibility of doling out the grace of God a broken and hurting world. But we’ve forgotten that.

We have also forgotten our historical tradition as Wesleyans. We were a movement begun among the working class; we’ve become a movement primarily among the white collar. We’ve forgotten our roots of personal piety and social holiness. We have part of our church that is passionately committed to saving souls and another part that’s passionately committed to meeting human need. The genius of the Wesleyan movement, to quote [Good to Great author] Jim Collins, was the “genius of the and, not the tyranny of the or.” Churches that God seems to be working in and through are those that seek to live out the Wesleyan vision of the spiritual life. Churches that forget that, die; churches that live into that, live.

(He remembers) One of my dearest friends, Jim, was a fifth-of-vodka-a-day drinker, two six packs of beer and a handful-of-Vicodin taker, a womanizer, who, when his wife came to see me and I told her to “Run, don’t walk, get in recovery.” Her husband got into treatment, came back to our church and got busy walking the walk as a disciple of Jesus. Today he and his wife, Kim, lead our marriage ministry. …. There are thousands of Jims out there with stories like that.

Our job is to set the table. God’s job is to serve the meal. What we try to do every day is set the table so God can come and serve the meal. And when He serves the meal, people don’t leave hungry. They leave transformed.

It takes courage for someone who needs recovery to say so out loud, to reach out for help, to witness to their healing.

In the traditional list of seven deadly sins and their counteracting virtues, courage is the antidote to sloth.

Courage grounded in her faith and supported by Christian fellowship is what helped Leymah Gbowee, one of the subjects in the film (Pray the Devil Back to Hell) and a Profile in Courage winner, stand up with other Christian and Muslim women of Liberia to combat the violent warlords and the corrupt Charles Taylor regime.

Armed with white t-shirts, the power of prayer, and their Bibles and Qurans, these women won a long-awaited peace that led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state and Liberia’s first elected female president. In one scene that had the audience cheering, these women barricaded the site of the stalled peace talks in Ghana. The men could not leave the room even to eat until they drafted a workable peace plan. When the guards tried to arrest these women, they evoked the most powerful nonviolent weapon in their arsenal by threatening to remove their clothes. This strategy worked, as the guards chose not to bring shame upon themselves by forcing the women to expose their naked bodies. The women kept their clothes on but they also kept their promise that if need be, “they’ll be back.” (How Women of Faith Fought a Dictator with Nonviolence by Becky Garrison 09-23-2009, sojo.net)

The question underlying sloth is, “what does it matter,” “why bother?” If Gbowee, who we’d expect to be full of fear instead of faith, can find courage in the vacuum of power, how can we, whose lives are full with so much good, fail to realize how much it matters that we act courageously, with faith as our foundation? With God’ help, let us live as though it matters.

Can’t Get Enough

9-20-09 Can’t Get Enough

Last weekend, ahead of the blight and dropping temperatures, I brought in a last beautiful basket of garden produce: 5 deep red lipstick peppers and a couple of green ones. A dozen and a half perfect plum tomatoes and a couple still green around the edges.

I ran down to the post office to grab the mail before it closed, came back and into the kitchen and did a double take. It was all gone-all but two semi ripe tomatoes sitting forlornly on the counter. I looked, scratched my head, questioned my reality, and came to the realization that our dog, Ben, is a glutton.

I didn’t see the evidence until several days later, a light pink stain scattered with a few seeds in the dining room corner.

Gluttony in the church house is not a new problem. There are references scattered all through the New Testament to the gluttony undercutting the infant Christian churches.

Each week, the day after Sabbath (which for Jewish communities is Saturday), Jesus followers would gather in homes large enough to hold them and share a love feast. They brought food (pot luck) and enjoyed that provided by the host, broke and blessed bread in Jesus’ name, passed the cup of forgiveness, and told each other what they had remembered, what they had learned, encouraged each other in the difficult journey of following the resurrected Jesus.

But some of them were wealthier than others, less driven by the clock and demands of bosses. Some of them got there first and dug right in to the fresh fragrant food. Others, who got done with work later and took longer to clean up from grubby work, got there later and got leftovers.

The first group was comfortable with the way things were. It didn’t really bother them. Oh, some might feel badly for those who didn’t get enough, but not enough to challenge their friends and families to wait. It fell to those who had most closely experienced Jesus to rebuke the “family,” to remind them that this was indeed a new community, a community of utter mutual caring and sharing.

Can we have too much of a good thing? When it blinds us to reality, to other’s need, to God’s presence and purpose, yes.

Yesterday in Boston’s Filene’s basement, I overheard a woman complaining to her friend that health care reform might drive her taxes up. With the next breathe she marveled at the good deal she was paying for, an Armani jacket at half price-just $2,500.

So many things can fill us up, give us indigestion, stretch our bellies and dull our abilities.

We can even ingest so many words that there isn’t room for thought. The Ping Pong battle played out in the news has our heads going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth instead of thinking with the mind of Christ about our actual life and the lives of those around us.

A few weeks ago Dr. Scott Morris spoke with New United Methodist District Superintendents and Conference Staff people at their training event.

[Morris is a family Practie Physician and a UM Elder, who founded]….. The Church Health Center provides quality, affordable health care for working, uninsured people and their families. It is the largest faith-based clinic of its type in the country, caring for 50,000 patients of record without relying on government funding.

He told them that People go to the doctor today for things they once would have taken to their pastor….Morris said so often in his practice, a patient came to him with a complaint about their back hurting or some other problem, but what was really wrong was they had a broken heart.

“You can’t MRI somebody’s spirit,” he said. … “We need to explore what it means to have a healing ministry in our congregations and in our lives,” he said. - UM News Service

Our youngest daughter is studying food. This means studying the role food plays in our lives. As Solomon Schimmel, author of the current standard study on gluttony writes, “we are a society inundated with food and drink.” Food plays a social role. It shapes our sharing.

What’s the first thing you think about when you find out someone’s coming to visit? We feed our guests. Food is usually the first way we reach out to neighbors in pain, in poverty.

The way we behave with food both reveals and reforms the way we relate to the other human beings on our planet. Food practices reveal status (where did YOU go out to eat?) The first human murder, Cain against Abel, was over the way God received their gifts of food differently.

Gluttony got listed as a deadly sin because it overfills us to bursting and illness, because it rivets our attention to what we can’t get enough of, whether we are over privileged or deprived, and because when we take more than we need, it means that someone else doesn’t get enough. There’s no good side to gluttony, no silver lining.

One of the most powerful images of God I’ve ever encountered describes God as ever renewing and overflowing.

When we become the body of Christ, we become that open fluid flow of God’s life.

(This Holy Mystery, p. 25) “all who are baptized into the body of Christ Jesus become servants and ministers within that body, which is the church. …the one Body, drawn together by the Spirit, is fully realized when all its many parts eat together in love and offer their lives in service at the Table of the Lord.

We can be too full to care, or full enough to share. What is it you can’t get enough of?