Monday, August 18. 2008Isaiah and the StumpWhat do you do with the stump? Once the tree is gone, what do you do with the stump? Sometimes the stump just stays there. A reminder of where the tree used to be. Perhaps it turns into a chair. A seat. Utilitarian no doubt, but dead. Perhaps it is ground or removed, just leaving a hole where life used to be. Sometimes the stump just decays and the wood becomes soft and moldy. Sometimes it is so rotten it falls apart on it’s own. Cut off. The stump is cut off. Sadly enough, in the book of Isaiah, that is the description of God’s people. A stump. I hope God never looks at me and says “stump.” And that is the very reason that God came to the prophet Isaiah. Because the people were lifeless. The eleventh chapter tells us that the father of King David, Jesse, lived in a generation of stumps. And the words of the prophet tell us what will happen in the future… A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit. That God’s spirit will come upon that stump and change it so that it can grow and blossom and become what God intended it to be. Isaiah brings us news of life. That even out of what seems to be dead, God can and does bring life. And the shoot from that stump that everyone thought would amount to nothing will be the banner around which people rally. I never really noticed the stump part before. For some reason, every time I’ve heard this passage, I always focused on the lion and the lamb or the wolf and the lamb – different translations vary. But I’ve always been caught on that image – of two factions that seem as though they could never hang out together are promised by God to be buddies. It just seems beyond my comprehension that an infant would play at the hole of the cobra or the young child would put their hand on the viper’s nest. The prophet Isaiah challenges us in many ways that should feel somewhat like the cold shower of awakening. His ideas, his words from God are beyond the realm of what we are willing to try with our lives. One pastor argued that Isaiah never really meant the things he wrote in the way that we understand them. He claims that Isaiah said that these things would happen only when a ruler would come to Israel who was just and upright. And because Isaiah didn’t see that happening any time soon he felt that the whole lion and lamb bit was another way of saying, I’ll join you when pigs fly. But little did he know that the very words that God had put in his mouth were the words that we read each December to foretell the birth of Christ. Little did Isaiah the prophet know that a young boy really would lead the people and that he would not shy away from powers that could kill him. God uses our every word, even our hesitant cynicism. The most interesting thing for me in this whole study has been feeling like I am really getting to know these people. I mean I have certainly read all of these stories before and studied them in courses and in languages, but somehow as we try to learn about the people God has placed in the Old Testament, I feel like I am looking at the people in my life and that I am looking at myself. When I hear Isaiah’s call that we all just ought to get along, I look to the parents and grandparents who desperately try to guide their children in right ways, encouraging them to share and to think of others first and to not treat people differently. We are Isaiah in our attempts to guide relationships in our lives that are ordered around what is purely good and kind. What is trusting and loving. But if I think about Isaiah as the cynical prophet that one pastor suggests, I am lead to look at our lives in a different way. I look instead to the very adult manner in which we live out our lives. The one that says, “you’ll get killed by walking down that street” or the one that says “I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could spit” or the one that places creeds and races in categories that just won’t ever get along. For forty four years, Isaiah spoke out against kings and rulers who were brutal and oppressive. For his entire lifetime he worked ceaselessly to end the tyranny in his land and cynical or not, he believed that God would one day bring a ruler who would change everything. His name literally means: Jahweh saves: The translation in Hebrew comes out as “Yeshu-Yahu” which sounds like God is fun or something upbeat and perhaps even silly. As Isaiah’s words now read as a beacon pointing to the coming of the Christ, his name points to the salvation that God will provide in Christ. On the Protestant Hour in 1963, Theodore A. Gill shared a skillfully crafted sermon “A Second Look at Jesus Saves.” The phrase "Jesus Saves" beams out at us from road signs and bumper stickers, but "what does it mean?", asks Gill. "And if Jesus does save, then from what?", he wonders. Many contend that Jesus saves us from the devil or the world. The speaker thought that Jesus might save him from an even greater danger "one Theodore A. Gill." The hope he has in Jesus saves him from his own fears and anxieties that would limit and maybe even paralyze him. Countering despairing claims that "life is but a walking shadow" and that life is but a "tale told by an idiot," Gill declared "God certified to me in the life of Jesus a God with a will and a way...who refused to throw the world and me onto the trashpile of his contempt." From this experience, Gill took comfort that "God cherishes me and the world that I live in...it all matters." In closing, Gill declared that "no day would be long enough to complete the list of the ways Jesus saves." Is the stump just a stump? Does it have to remain dead and cut off? Is there hope for the stump? Can the stump be saved? I kept forefront in my mind this week: Do I believe that the lion and the lamb can lie down together peacefully? Woody Allen said that the lion and the lamb might lie down together but the lamb won’t get any sleep. Does it all just seem like some far off Utopian and unattainable vision? The way it ought to be but clearly is not? I know that we believe that Christ has the power to make it so, but we are left asking, why are our relationships not in right order now? Why do we fear the lion and devour the lamb? Why do we remain cut off from new growth and new life? Why do we settle for unresolved disputes and dead end relationships when Isaiah promises us that God will plant a new seed, a new branch that will grow and live? Even when we affirm that this image of the kingdom where animals and humans live in peace was embodied in the life and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus—even then—we have to admit that this global community of justice and harmony is nowhere near completion. But that, of course, is the point of hope. Hope is living in between vision and reality. It is living "as if"—in the "not yetness" of God’s promise. Hope is trusting that what was inaugurated in Bethlehem will be completed in God’s good time. Hope is claiming our small part in this holy vision—realizing that we don’t create the vision or complete the vision, but we are privileged to participate within it. Near the end of the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, the character named Andy Dufrenes tells the character named Red these words, "Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever dies". Andy is truly innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned. On the surface it seems as if he has learned to adapt to prison life with all its cruelty and corruption. But there is a part of him that never adapts, and a part of him that never gives up the hope for his freedom. Red is much more cynical, but by the movie’s end, he too is touched by Andy’s promise of hope, and he undergoes a powerful transformation of the spirit. To people with no reason and no right to hope, Andy says, ‘Remember hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing". Hope is a powerful word. Hope is a word that pulls us into the future with assurance and conviction. Hope gives us a reason to wait for tomorrow. Hope directs and affirms our lives. For forty four years Isaiah preached boldly that God would send a leader to rule his land. Isaiah never gave up hope. I believe that God gave us the words of Isaiah so that we might look at our lives and find the stumps. Perhaps we have covered them with other things to make them look better. But we need to find the areas that are cut off and pray to God to ask his spirit to blow over them and plant a new seed. I believe that God gave us the words of Isaiah so that we might look at our lives and challenge us to approach those who we fear most and lie down right next to them for the sake of the gospel, believing that the promise of the prophet is true and worth the risk. In this very moment, on this beautiful God given morning, I believe that we are called to commit what is full of decay to God and to beg God to start over with us. In this very moment, I believe that we are called to hand over every relationship that is not in right order and beg God to set things on the right path again. We must never stop believing that Isaiah’s vision must be our mandate and that Christ makes it possible, even now. In Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, a story is told of Dutch and Polish Jews in Bergen Belsen. A stone was thrown across the barbed wire separating the Dutch from the Polish. A note was wrapped around the stone. Wolf Fischelberg and his 12-year old son were walking among the barracks and saw the stone. Wolf picked it up, and when he was at a safe distance from the others, he read the note. It was written in Hebrew by a Dutch Jew named Hayyim Borack who had Argentinean papers. Hayyim wrote that he had shofar in his possession, (a shofar is a jewish horn) and that if the Hasidic Jews in the Polish sector wanted to use the shofar for Rosh Hashanah services, Borack could smuggle the shofar in the one of the coffee cauldrons in the morning distribution. The Polish Jews voted to give up their morning coffee ration on the first day of Rosh Hashanah so they could receive the horn. Although the biblical law required a clear blowing of the shofar so that all could hear, for safety reasons the Polish Jews agreed to blow the shofar quietly, deciding that God would surely accept the muffled sounds of the shofar and the prayers of his sons and daughters. Wolf’s daughter, Miriam, listened to the shofar and hoped that the barbed wire fences of Bergen Belsen would come tumbling down, like the walls of Jericho did in earlier times. But as the story concludes, "nothing changed. The barbed wires remained fixed in their places. Only in what they heard did something stir — knowledge and hope; knowledge that the muffled voice of a shofar had made a dent in the Nazi wall of humiliation and slavery, and hope that someday freedom would bring down the barbed-wire fences of Bergen Belsen and of humanity". "The barbed wires remained fixed in their places. Only in the heart did something stir….knowledge and hope". The stirring of hope in the human heart. A shofar passed from one side of the barbed wire to another, from the Dutch prisoner to the Polish, from people who would ever know each other but who shared a common faith. A community of faith daring to hope despite all evidence to the contrary. The word from God to Israel is a surprising, unexpected and undeserved word of hope: "A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him…." (Isaiah 11: 1-2a). The stump is not dead. The future is not cut off. The spirit of the Lord is stronger than all evidence to the contrary. Dead trees. Destroyed cities. Despairing people. Ruined lives. Broken relationships. Shattered dreams. Whatever the evidence, the spirit of the Lord blows like a fresh wind, breathing new life into dead wood, creating new possibilities for restoring the worn out, and rejuvenating the tired and the weary. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if God called me stump after all. Sunday, August 10. 2008Job
Anne sextion’s poem “the awful rowing toward god”
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender Into this world… But I grew, I grew And god was there like an island I had not rowed to… I am rowing, I am rowing Though the oarlocks stick and are rusty And the sea blinks and rolls Like a worried eyeball But I am rowing, I am rowing Though the wind pushes me back And I know that that island will not be perfect It will have the flaws of life The absurdities of the dinner table But there will be a door And I will open it And I will get rid of the rat inside me The gnawing pestilential rat God will take it with his two hands And embrace it In October of 2006 each and every one of us heard the report that a gunman had entered an Amish school in Nickel Mines, PA and opened fire upon the students who were innocently learning there. I remember wondering what the connection was. Did someone Amish do something to the man, did he know someone? I remember trying to understand why anyone would hurt the Amish and waited for the logic behind the ordeal. But as the reports unfolded, there was no logic. No one suspected this from him. He had no connection to the Amish or the school or the children. It was a random and senseless act that left five young children and the gunman dead. Unfortunately school shootings are nothing new to us. Last there were 25 different school shootings in the U.S. But what was new to us was the response from the Amish community. There was no rage, no cries of injustice, no demand for legislation or penalty. I looked back at some news reports that quoted an Amish grandfather saying to the press “we must not think evil of this man.” Other quotes from the community pointed to God’s unknowable plan and to their strong conviction citing "A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children who died are better off than their survivors." I tried to imagine what it would be like. To be on the outside of any of these school shootings and know my child was on the inside. I tried to let my mind wander to what sorts of things I might be thinking. I know I would pray to God for the safety of my child and for the safety of the other children. I would pray that somehow God could heal the hurts that were causing the shooter to act in such a violent way. I’m sure my mind would be racing, but the story of job presents me with a question I have never entertained before. Would I try to strike a deal with God? In the moment of crisis would I somehow try to bargain with god with pleas like… if you spare my child, I will worship every day. You can take me instead of him. If you let him walk out of that door alive, he will be yours and I will give him up to you. Unfortunately, I know that this is a common form of prayer, or bribery, depending how you look at it. I’ve heard it quite commonly in the midst of dating break ups and even in the midst of illness. Where somehow we try to leverage God with a trade in… always offering God a good deal in the time of trial, but rarely following through whether or not things go our way. You see, Job was just doing his thing. Making a living, mowing the lawn, enjoying his ten beautiful children, his lovely wife, and his three buddies. He was an upright man in the sight of God.. perhaps even a model for others in his community. Until one day God and Satan are chatting and they place bets on whether Job will remain true to god if all of the earthly benefits of his life are gone. Satan puts God up to a challenge, claiming that Job is only faithful because God has made him prosperous and without his prosperity he would quickly curse God. God allows Satan to remove some of the things from Job’s life to see how he responds. Within no time, Job’s children are killed, his herds are gone and he is left in a pile of ash. But he does not blame or doubt god. He even picks up a piece of broken pottery to scratch the itch from the ashes without a single complaint. And while he is sitting in the ashes, round two happens. God allows Satan to plague Job with an illness that causes boils from head to toe and still Job does not condemn or doubt his God. Job tends to be one of the most well known stories in the Old Testament. While the stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses and David are well known because of their story telling capacity and their moral solutions, Job is well known because we are continuously asking the question – why do bad things happen to me? We identify in some ways with a man who has lost the things that are dear to him. But we marvel at his unwavering and unyielding faith and wonder if anyone can really withstand all of those odds without even one quick slip of condemnation to the person in charge. There are so many undercurrents in the story that we translate into assumptions in our own lives. We assume that items like family, children, career, and happiness are blessings that God gives. We assume that if we are well-behaved and relatively moral beings that God will continue to reward us with blessings. We also often assume that if one or more of those blessings are taken away through illness, tragedy, crime or by other means that we do not deem appropriate, that God is not holding up God’s end of the deal. We also assume that it is safe to tell people that God will bless them with these sorts of things if they live accordingly. And finally, we assume that those who are down and out in the worst straits of life have done something wrong, either intentionally or unintentionally to deserve the loss that they have suffered. These assumptions are the basis of satan’s cynical question to god in the opening of Job. Satan says to God – do you really think Job would love you and obey you so much if he didn’t have all of the wonderful things you have provided for him? The question still rings true for us. Do you really think in your life that you would love and obey God as much if you didn’t have the things that God has provided for you? Or worse yet, if they were suddenly taken away. There is for us, some sort of divine security system that we have constructed around our faith. We teach and preach that somehow we will be shielded as Christians from the worst of the worst. Many people did research studies after 9/11 to see if all the people in the building who died were non-christians. We simply cannot wrap our minds around the concept of why God would bring harm to those who have tried to follow his ways. Satan suggests that we do not love God for the sake of loving God, but instead for what we get out of the deal. But Job proves Satan wrong. And in the midst of loss and anguish and pain and isolation, Job does not blame or condemn God. Job recognizes God even in the most desolate of places and blesses God for God’s presence in his isolation. Job places no conditions on his loyalty to god and is therefore free to receive god’s grace with no strings attached--he does not feel forsaken by god even in the midst of his loss But you know, after 25 school shootings in one year, including the horror at Virginia Tech and the murder of a local school bus driver in Newark, I think it becomes harder and harder for many people to see God working at all. George Steiner says that “Our collective fatigue is enormous. We limp more than we run, we relinquish more than we fight for, we doubt more than we believe.” When we see Job sitting in the ashes of the shambles of his life we identify much more with the defeat than we do with the unyielding commitment of faith. But ancient sources reveal something I’ve never heard before. That the very dialogue we see in this book between God and Satan would have occurred during the time span between the end of one year and the beginning of another. Ancient peoples believed that there was a new set of hopes and dreams that God set aside for every year and then God would wait to see how humans played out for his visions for their lives for the year. The concept started way back in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were set in the perfect garden with all of the prosperity and blessing that existed. They failed the first test of faithfulness and their fate was a forced exile from the perfect creation and trouble with the land and childbearing. What we see in job is again a man who has all of the goodness that God can provide and when the temptation to turn away exists, the temptation to give up, Job doesn’t do it. Job becomes the hope that not every human soul desires self preservation and glory, but that there are indeed those who will never bargain away the grace that God has provided. I’ve been praying in various circles around the church for this little girl named Arden. Some of you here know her. She’s 3 and she was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer last October. I had the privilege of meeting her mom and her brother over the summer and I have been following her story ever since. She posts updates online every day about Arden’s condition and recently it has been deteriorating. She is in a medically induced coma and her mother hasn’t heard her voice in over two weeks. Almost every day the posts are positive and upbeat and hopeful, optimistic about the possibilities of survival and recovery. But this week there was a post entitled Temptation. She wrote first about the simple temptation of food all around the hospital. The only place open at the children’s hospital in the wee hours of the morning is McDonald’s. People always bring cookies and cake. She wrote about the temptation to dwell on the doctors and what they are doing wrong… to consider micromanaging the best oncologists in the nation and become critical and judgmental. And most importantly about how it is so easy to be tempted to believe that there is no possibility of a miracle. That the temptation is so strong to give up hope and stop believing in the midst of incredibly difficult circumstances. The temptation must have been there for job. To wonder about this God. This Jahweh. But 42 chapters later, after wrestling and conversation and countless encounters of faith Job prevails and is successful in his quest for a life of faith. And God restores his family and his livelihood. And so each one of us are left standing in the face of natural disasters, national disasters, family struggles, disease and personal crises, rowing against the current trying desperately to find the Island of God. But in between moments there is a chance to make this breath the last breath of a life without hope, the last breath of a life filled with anger and with a desire for revenge. We have the opportunity to claim God’s grace for our lives in the midst of tragedy and in the midst of joy. Let’s make the next breath of our lives full of the new life that we receive in Christ. We have been given morsels of God’s plan for a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth, but also God’s plan that in Christ we achieve this new creation, right here and now. I’m mooring my rowboat At the dock of the island called god It’s okay, I say to myself With blisters that broke and healed And broke and healed Saving themselves over and over I empty myself from my wooden boat And onto the flesh of the island William H. Willimon says "If you want to experience the resurrection of Jesus Christ in your life, where you live, just get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other and head down the road. Follow the way. But please, go with a bit of imagination. Walk with the expectation of the possibility of surprise." Sunday, August 3. 2008Elijah
In “A Farewell to Arms” Ernest Hemmingway says that "The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places."
I have a host of religious magnets on my refrigerator that I have picked up along the journey. One says “God loves you and an small asterisk says *some restrictions may apply.” The second says.. Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it is not the end.” The third is a woman with her leg outstretched as if she is about to take a step. Quotation marks are filled with the words “Faith is believing one of two things will happen --- That there will be something solid for you to stand on – or that you will be taught to fly.” One seminarian would always say “faith is the belief that if you step out of an airplane, God will catch you.” To which another student would reply “surely God has better things to do than catch folks stupid enough to step out of airplanes (Hunter).” A few weeks ago, Noah did that very thing. We were at a friend’s house, standing in her kitchen. A kiddie pool was set up outside and Noah was begging to go swimming. I was waiting to get his swim gear together but he was being impatient. From outside and down two stories another mother yelled my name and I looked over to see Noah had unlocked the French doors and opened them. He stood with one foot out of the door to the backyard. Except that there was no deck or railing between him and the 20 foot drop to the ground. Of course, I agonized over the “what-if’s” of the situation, clutching my little boy and thanking god over and over again that he didn’t jump out. But for every experience in his young life, there has been someone to catch him when he jumps, or at the very least run to his side to ensure his safety immediately after the fall. For him, there is no life without someone to watch for his every next step and to make sure he is taken care of in spite of bad decisions. It seems to me that as we get older, not only are we less likely to take the risk, but we are also less likely to believe that when things do fall apart that someone will be there to pick up the pieces again. A very dear friend of mine, a friend from childhood, Erin, lost her mother on the morning of my ordination in 2004. Her mother was our church organist and a beloved member of our community. Erin was unbelievably close to her mother and devastated by the loss. For the past four years she has wrestled with God and with the demon of cancer and has not come out with any clear answers. In the meantime, Erin’s boyfriend’s mother took her under her wing and nurtured Erin in her loss. Long after the romantic relationship between Erin and her ex-boyfriend dissolved, Erin was still at family gatherings because she needed the guidance of a mother. On Monday I received a phone call that Erin’s second mother passed away that morning from cancer at the young age of 58. As we speak, Erin is falling. There is nothing for her to stand on and all we can do is hope that in the midst of all of this pain that she will be taught to fly. That is how I imagine the heart of the widow of Zarapeth. She is weak and tired and gathering sticks to make the last meal for her son. There is only a little bit of flour and a little bit of oil and after dinner it will be gone and they will soon die of starvation. The widow’s heart must ache for the inevitable. Though she walks on her own two feet to gather the last firewood, she must feel as though the very ground she is walking on will cave beneath her because she cannot provide anything for her own flesh and blood. Out of nowhere walks in Elijah. To the widow he looks no different than anyone else, but he approaches her and asks her for some water and some bread. She tells him what she is doing… Sir, I’m making the last meal for my son and I before we go to die. And Elijah presses on. Make me some bread and your jars of flour and oil will not go dry. What should she do? Should she put her son first, make his food and conserve whatever flour and energy she might have? Should she entertain the stranger and wonder if his nonsensical talk could be true? With our Christian eyes we see Elijah the prophet – of course she should feed him! With our worldly eyes we see an intruder who could take away our last morsel. In our Christian pews and in our Christian bible studies we say – Serve the Lord. Give away everything that you have so that Christ may be glorified. With our worldly voice we hide our resources and claim self-preservation. With our Christian faith we say leap and God will catch you. With our secular and worldly sensibilities we say, buckle your seatbelt tighter. With our Christian faith we say death is not the end, our Christ has conquered death. With our secular and hurting hearts we cannot see through the tears to believe our own statements of faith. Elijah challenges everything. He is the first prophet in our series. The first one who hears a good word from the Lord and proclaims what the future will hold. He goes right up to the King and tells him – God is judging you and will bring a drought on this land. And the drought comes. God sends Elijah to a brook for water and sends ravens to bring him food. God says it and it happens. For weeks upon end, Elijah is fed by the brook and the raven and then one day, suddenly, the brook dries up. Even the prophet, held in God’s favor, is radically dependent on what God provides and when God provides it. William Sloane Coffin says that our sufficiency is God. Whatever we need, God provides and there is no way around it. Coffin points out that the brook represents all of the people in our lives from which we have drawn water. The people that we don’t want to imagine our life without.. our parents, our friends, our children. The brook even represents the things we have based our lives upon – our traditions, our community, our homes. But as the story tells us the brook dries up. These sources do not provide forever and when that which we depend on is gone, we must remember that the dry brook is the normal cycle of God’s provision. So that the beloved prophet was left with the poor widow and between the two of them, the only provision available was God. Together, the chosen one and the one left behind had to find out what God’s sufficiency, God’s providence looked like. And the jar of oil did not run out. And the jar of oil does not run out. You see, each and every one of us has a course to pass… and each and every one of us has a separate curriculum to follow, individual to our lives. But the goal for each of us is the same… to find salvation in Christ Jesus. And every time someone catches us along the way, every time we find another stepping stone, we are given one more piece of the puzzle that is our identity in Christ. Elijah and the widow teach us that we cannot fully understand what God provides by ourselves. No one human has in himself or herself all the wisdom, all the ability, or all the means to meet the needs of the hour. You were never made to be wholly and fully independent. Each one of you has a friend, teacher, church, ministry, or a pastor, or partner that has ministered to you. It would have been so easy for Elijah to stay by his brook and wait for more water. It was his personal proof that God was protecting him. It was a visible and tangible sign that in the midst of drought, God provided. But the brook was temporary and too often we place all our trust in what is good in this moment instead of in the God who gave us the moment. For Elijah to stay by the brook would have meant death. For the widow not to share her food would have meant death. They both needed to take the risk that God would provide the next step in the journey as scary or as painful as it might be. Romans 8:28 promises us that God works for the good of those who love him. God is working even now for good in your life. And I know that for so many of you that which is unexplainable is also very painful. I know that. As if our own personal trials are not enough, our nation and our world seem to be full of more disaster and despair than ever before. But yesterday, with grace and with pride, the two grown children of another human claimed by cancer, stood before 500 people and shared what they knew of love. They proclaimed that the mind cannot see true love, that only the heart can see true love. If Elijah had listened to his mind alone, he would have died alone by the brook. If the widow had listened to her mind she would have eaten her last meal in desolation. But both of them listened to what God was doing in them and in the company of one another and knew that God had more for them and that God was going to use them in a new and wonderful way. The story continues to tell us that after the widow made supper that night and for many nights to come, her son eventually fell ill and died. Her natural instinct was pure anger, that somehow Elijah had brought with him a curse that had killed her child. Elijah took the boy upstairs to his bed and prayed to God with all his soul and all his might to bring him back and God did just that. If the woman had listened to her mind Elijah would not have been in the house to save the child. Elijah is the reminder to allow our heart to look for the true love that we find in God. Elijah resists the “in thing”, speaks out against wickedness and in justice, condemns those around him who are worshipping the God Baal. Elijah follows God at all costs, to all places and listens intently for the next good word that god will provide. He is famous for hearing god not in the wind or in the fire or in the rain, but in the still small voice of silence. His death is not chronicled in the Bible and he is raised into the sky, to reappear with Jesus on the mount in the transfiguration. But for me, Elijah is the one who always knows that God is going to catch him, no matter how far he falls. God is the one who will make the brook swell, and who will raise a child from the dead. Elijah is always listening to God with his heart and not with his mind. He is the arrow that lives his life directly pointed to the life of Christ. One who speaks in the name of God to the authorities. One who lives simply. One who dines with the outcast. One who always knows that God has already prepared that place where everything will be okay. But in the meantime, you know what? God is still God in the bankruptcy, in the cancer, in the divorce, in the death, in the fire. God is still God when people walk away and when the addictions don’t break. God is still God when insurance doesn’t cover the damage or the loans aren’t granted. God is still God in our broken circumstances, just as He was God when He was on the cross to redeem the world. For it is when the brook is dry that we are forced to find the widow who will make our next meal. And at the table we will both be saved. Our Christian soul knows that even when pain is deep, that God is good. The psalmist cries "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Yes, but at least the psalmist knows he is not alone crying "My God, my God"; and the psalm only begins that way, it doesn't end that way. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall strengthen thee"; "Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning"; "Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong"; "For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling"; "In this world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world"; "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Ask yourself today, what place in your life, what piece of your puzzle feels unstable? That if you take one step forward, you just might fall? Ask yourself if your logical and worldly mind can submit to the providence of God, to listen with your heart and find true love in the one who will always, always, always catch you. God is Good. All the time. Monday, July 28. 2008Deborah: The one who sat
Judges 4:1-10, Judges 5:1-5
On my quick trip out of town last weekend I intentionally decided not to take my laptop with me. This was a huge step for me, to be separated from my source of all information for 4 days. I knew that I needed to disconnect and just be. I managed to cruise through two books, totaling over 700 pages of non-visual, non-electronic mental imagery. It was just what I needed. The first book was a fiction title about a circus and it was just fine, but the second was the new religious story called The Shack. I won’t go into the details of the book, but as I read, I tend to fold down the corner of the pages I want to remember. As I reread the scripture about Deborah for today, I quickly searched through the folded corners to find a concept that resonated with me so fully: Jesus asks a man named Mack: Do you think humans were designed to live in the past, the present, or the future? Mack answers: I think humans were designed to live in the present. Jesus responds: And where do you spend most of your time? Mack answers: I suppose I would have to say that I spend very little time in the present. For me, I spend a big piece of time in the past and the rest of the time I’m trying to figure out the future. Jesus responds: Mack, do you realize that when you picture the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of what could go wrong, you almost never picture me there with you? Mack stood silently for a moment. Of every picture he had of the future in his life, not one included where God might be in that moment. He looked at Jesus stunned and asked: Why do I do that? (Young 77) Let us pray. The story of Deborah is not as well known as Abraham, Moses, David or Samson. In fact, it is probably very likely unknown to many of you. But for some reason as I waded through the long list of Old Testament Characters her name stood out to me. When I tried not to choose it, God directed me back to it again and so I kept it on the list. In God’s perfect timing, I now understand why, and I hope that you somehow see yourself in the story of an Old Testament woman. Simply the existence of her name is remarkable. There at least 400 unnamed women in the Old Testament, usually wives or servants, but for some reason, in one of the most tumultuous times in the Biblical Story, God raises up a woman named Deborah to lead God’s people. She stands next to Samson as one of the Judges in the book with the same name as the title. The text tells us that she was married to a man named Lappidoth whose name means torch and together they were responsible for making the wicks for the menorah in the temple. But throughout the book of Judges we see a vicious, if not familiar cycle. The people sin greatly and begin to follow their own path (the text says, no one was on the main path), and find themselves in ruin, despair and chaos. They cry out to God who hears them. God lifts up a leader among them to restore order and faith to the land. For a little while the people live in this order and are grateful to God for the direction. But the desire for God quickly wears off when times are good and when the leader dies the people forget all that God has done. Once again they find themselves in ruin, despair and chaos. This happens 15 times in the book of judges alone. The familiar chain of events is known as the judges cycle and does not fall far from our own relationship with God. Times are tough, we pray diligently, God restores us and blesses us, we forget about God and when times are tough again we return. As Mack says to Jesus… Why do I do that? Deborah sings in Judges 5 – When the princes in Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves to God – Praise the Lord! Where does our willingness to offer ourselves to God go? I believe that the willingness and the desire to be God’s, wholly and truly God’s, is consumed in the chaos of our lives. That it exists in each one of us.. the yearning for God to be here and with us and beside us and among us is real and alive, but when the chaos sets in and all that is ordered swirls up into a ball of smoke like the dust that follows the Charlie brown character pig-pen, we are left searching for something, anything, to grab a hold of. I once led a group of teenagers on a ski trip to the poconos and I titled the weekend—Eveninthemidstofchaos – one word… eveninthemidstofchaos. The word was ironed on to the back of their t-shirts for the weekend. As we journeyed through our time together they listed endless stories from the Bible where there was chaos – the flood, the creation, the trials of Jesus, Daniel in the lion’s den, david and goliath, and in each story they were able to clearly grasp how God was working in the midst of the lives of the biblical characters. But when I asked them to think about the things in their own life that were chaotic, they could not see how God could possibly be working through all of that. To me, this is the story of Deborah. She sat in her chair beneath some very large palm branches and became the living expression of God’s will in a city where there was nothing but chaos. Where Samson would let his rage get the best of him and take down all enemy armies, Deborah sat while the people came to her to sort out the craziness and chaos of their lives. Perhaps that is the most radical thing she did as a leader. She used to sit. Most leaders are organizing, planning, executing, strategizing, moving forward, even at a chaotic pace and Deborah, by God’s grace, sat. Sitting is the last thing that everyone expects of a leader. Joan Forsberg was the dean of students at Yale Divinity school in the 70’s at a time when women were first finding their way in ministry. She was a mentor and a role model for all of her students, both male and female. Years later when it was time for a women’s reunion of the earliest female clergy who graduated from Yale, Joan was the natural pick to be the speaker. But when the event organizer sat down with her to let her know the details of the event, Joan politely turned down the request. "You can't preach if you don't have something to say," she said. "You have to have some word to offer. Right now, I don't have one." "I feel silenced," she explained. "Maybe it's simple weariness. Maybe it's feeling overwhelmed by all the demands. There have been too many changes--in my life, this world, everywhere. The old answers don't fit any longer, and I don't have the words for new ones. It almost feels like the words have been taken away. I need to sit in the silence. I'm sorry." After a long while, the yale rep said: "Maybe you could talk about that, about not having the answers or even a good word, not acting or preaching or leading, but just sitting." "Every woman of your generation would know what you were talking about," the rep said "and most of the men too. Joan did decide to preach at the reunion. She talked about being silenced by one's life and having to sit without words or answers. She urged us not to fight the silence nor to castigate ourselves for it, but to let it teach us what it would. Except for sighs and sniffles, there wasn't a sound in the chapel after she finished. (2) As Deborah sat on her chair under the palm trees, as chaos swarmed around her and the people’s lives twirled around in disarray, the military leader Barak came to her with more alarm… we must go to battle. We must defeat the leader who enslaves us. We must conquer Sisera. Deborah could have risen up as a mighty warrior princess and lead the army to victory, but in her self assured and God designed life, she knew her role and her calling. She did not reach out into the chaos of the land and try to be everything to everyone. Instead she calmly told the military leader – I will go with you, but you will lead your army. I am amazed at her sense of purpose. I am inspired by her stability and her wisdom. Even as I imagine her under the palm leaves, I feel my own urge to get up and fix things, to make things better to force the chaos to calm down, but Judge Deborah sits and the people come to her when they are ready for their disputes to be settled. Make a spot in your heart that is calm. A spot that cannot be shaken, so that when the chaos sets in your heart has an ear for God’s will and not your own. Make a spot for silence and for prayer. So that you might listen for God’s directions. We completely underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness, in our chaos. Prayer does not begin with those who are competent. It does not begin with those who have the answers. Prayer begins with those who willingly offer themselves to God. What would we do if we truly prayed as we ought? Sweat blood? Cry Abba? Sing psalms and spiritual songs? All of this, without ceasing? What would we do if we sat and waited for God’s next step instead of jumping into the middle of things without being sure of who we were trusting to lead? (3) Recently a new documentary was released entitled, Into Great Silence. It is a three hour long view of a monstary in the French Alps, not only from an outside point of view, but the film literally tries to become the life of a monk.. it is long and words are sparse, light is dim and you can feel the slowness and the stillness of monastery life. It goes completely against Hollywood definitions of good films and probably also completely against our notion of how life ought to be. Throughout the entire three hours it features only one “interview,” but it is a deeply moving interview with a blind, dying, elderly monk who beautifully captures why life in God is so utterly revelatory: He says: "In God there is no past. Solely the present prevails. And when God sees us He always sees our entire life. And because He is an infinitely good being, He eternally seeks our well-being. Therefore there is no cause for worry." Perhaps you won’t remember much about Deborah. Perhaps your brain will store away the name of the sole woman judge. Perhaps you will remember that after the leader who sat under the palm branches and listened for God’s will to give to the people there was peace in the land for 40 years. Perhaps the next time you dwell on the past or leap ahead into the future you will take a step back and stand beneath the branches of God’s tree, desiring to live in God’ will today. Above all I pray that you remember that in Christ there is a peace that passes all understanding. A peace that is stronger than all chaos. A peace that knows that no matter what battle lies ahead of you, that God always wins. May you sit and focus on the present and the Christ who is with you even know. Amen. Young, William P. The Shack. 2. Sit on It. Talita Arnold, Pastor of United Church of Santa Fe. New Mexico Pray as you can Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 3. by Rachel M. Srubas Alone one afternoon, I put my head in my hands and said to the nothingness, "I don't know how to do this. Teach me to pray." The Holy Spirit took it from there, interceding on my behalf with sighs too deep for words. 4. Monks. Time and the Great Silence. Brett McCracken. Alone one afternoon, I put my head in my hands and said to the nothingness, "I don't know how to do this. Teach me to pray." The Holy Spirit took it from there, interceding on my behalf with sighs too deep for words. The quakers have a saying “the way will open” Charlotte Napier (in The Love Letter) tries to explain the importance of our Deborah as a frame of reference: “Suppose you were sitting on a train standing still in a great railroad station. And supposing the train on the track next to yours began to move. It would seem to you that it was your train that was moving, and in the opposite direction. The only way you could tell about yourself, which way you were going, or even if you were going anywhere at all, would be to find a point of reference, something standing still, perhaps a person on the next platform; in relation to this person you could judge your own direction and motion. The person standing still on the platform wouldn’t be telling you where you were going or what was happening, but without him you wouldn’t know. You don’t need to yell out the train window and ask directions. All you need to do is see your point of reference.”(from Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet) one of only three to be prophet, judge, military leader. Monday, July 14. 2008Summer Series: Samson
A teenage boy who had just gotten his driving permit, asked his father if they could discuss his use of the family car. His father said, “I’ll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up, study the Bible a little, get your hair cut, and then we’ll talk about it.” After a month, the boy came back and again asked his father if they could discuss his use of the car. The father said, “Son, I’ve been very proud of you. You brought your grades up, you studied the Bible diligently, but you didn’t get your hair cut.” The boy replied, “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking about that. Samson had long hair, Moses had long hair, Noah had long hair, and even Jesus had long hair.” “Yes,” his father agreed, “and everywhere they went, they walked.” [Peg Beukema, Nyack, NY. PreachingToday.com, Father and Son Discuss a Haircut].
Let us Pray. Paul Harvey tells an incredible story describing how an Eskimo kills a wolf simply by coating several layers of frozen blood on a sharp knife sticking out of the frozen tundra. Apparently the wolf picks up the scent and after circling the knife warily begins licking the frozen blood. He begins to lick faster and faster as the desire for blood literally drives the wolf wild. So great becomes his craving that the wolf never notices the sting of the sharp blade on his tongue as the blood being consumed gradually becomes his own. Morning finds the wolf lying dead in the snow. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet The riddle that Samson proposes as his wedding Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet The in laws couldn’t figure out what it meant and it infuriated them. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet The text tells us that Samson had come across a lion – an eater, who he been killed, thus his flesh technically could have been eaten. He noticed that a group of bees had formed over the carcass and were producing honey right into the cavity of the dead lion. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet. Samson’s new wife begs him for the answer to the riddle and after much prodding he tells her. She immediately turns her back on him and tells her family the answer and they use it against Samson. Story after story, we find that Samson loved his women and often gave in to their requests, despite his better judgment. The person we associate most with Samson was a later woman – Delilah. The beloved childhood story of a strong man who was captivated by a beautiful woman. So much so that he told her his hair was the secret to his strength and she had it cut off. This terrible act robbed Samson of all of his superhuman strength and power and caused him to fall to his knees in humility after years of being the destroyer. Samson is placed into the category of a judge in the Bible. A series of people who were appointed, not just over legal matters, but over the entire land. Their role was similar to that of a king, but they were not appointed. There were four great judges – Samuel, Deborah, Samson and Gideon and many other minor judges. Their stories all fall into the book of judges, near the middle of our old testament, and they remain to be some of the least well-known literature in our Bible. But the story of Samson is one that, though I remember it as a child, when I come to think about it as an adult, it is a bit more challenging and even more confusing than I thought. It honestly took a recent Veggie Tales episode to set it all straight for me – it was called the Minnesota Cuke and the search for Samson’s hairbrush. The main character Larry believes that the hairbrush that was used for Samson’s hair still holds power now and it was in jeopardy of being found by a group of people who were going to use it for no good. Larry takes on an Indiana Jones style adventure to rescue the hairbrush from the forces of evil so that the power of Samson can be kept for good. In a typical cartoon twist, the hairbrush falls into the hands of the enemy and Larry is devastated. But his friend comes and sets him straight, saying: Samson’s power did not lie in his hair. God gave him his power and when Samson did not follow God, God took it away. I looked up from the couch this week and heard a talking tomato tell me the truth of the Bible. All of our power and all of our might comes from God. And we spend so much time chasing after things that have no power and no glory. Perhaps you already knew that, but it was a powerful moment for me. Somewhere along the line, I did associate Samson’s power with his hair. Perhaps because I never learned anymore about the story. Samson’s mother was childless and when God finally granted her a child, God made her promise to raise the child as a Nazarite. The promise included that he was set apart in three distinct ways – he was not to drink of any alcohol, he was not to touch a carcass, and he was not to cut his hair. We know from the text that Samson broke at least two of the three vows that had been part of the boundaries of his life. From what I can tell, most Nazarite vows were only for a specific period of time, much like we observe during lent, but Samson’s vow was for his entire life span. But he got so caught up in being set apart, that he forgot that his life belonged to God. He was a strongman, described as Herculean in nature, and was able to bring down any kingdom or army in his sight. And the rest of the world, women included, sought to take that power from him. And patiently and carefully God watched how Samson used his power and how faithful he was to his vow and when Samson pushed too far and gave his commitment to God over to a woman because of his great temptation and desire, God took it all away. Samson was handed over to his enemies. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet The keeper of the riddle walked cautiously around the knife in the frozen ground until he could no longer hold back. The way that I see it is that we are all the honeybees of the riddle. There is decay and rot and decomposition all around us. Things are dying, people are dying (both physically and spiritually), and that which is rotten so often becomes our focus in life. Our conversation is consumed with what is wrong. The text reads that when Samson finds the lion there is a swarm of bees hovering above it. But the actual Hebrew doesn’t use the word swarm, it uses the word community. There was a community of bees hovering over a dead carcass. And you know what they were doing? They were producing honey. They were pouring out something good and sweet and pure as a community, doing all of this in the face of death and rot and destruction. The same word for community is used throughout the old testament as the faith group of the Israelites. The language is intentional. But when I think of bees, I think of their sting, not their honey. And I realize that as the honeybees of the riddle, we have been given power, just like Samson has been given power, and we have taken vows, just as Samson has taken vows, and we have the choice to use the power that god has given us to sting (and God knows we injure those we love and even injure those we just pass by) or to use that power as a community to produce that which is filling and sweet and pure. The temptation to use our power in defense – to live constantly in judgment and lashing out in anger toward those around us – seems to me as a central problem in our daily lives. We circle around people wondering when the best time is to let out the long laundry list of things we have been holding inside and pounce and attack, but when we do, it is our own death that we find. We study Samson so that we can see ourselves. So that we can see our desires and our passions and know that they get the best of us. But we also study Samson so that we can compare him to the Christ. It is easy to say, Samson should have never told Delilah about his hair. He should have never broken the vows that he made to God and dishonored his covenant. We look at his story and know the easy answer. But we must also look to Christ, who held all the same power and then some. The power to destroy and the power to eliminate and the power to sting and certainly the power to be filled with desire. But we know that Christ, also set apart, is God’s way of showing us what our choices ought to look like. I’m doing a devotional journal right now on motherhood. It’s called Closer to my Children and I found it in the bargain room at a Christian Book Store. The first words in the book are from Psalm 17:7 – Show the wonder of your great love. It says: Do you have the kind of love that overflows to everyone around you? Sadly our answer is usually not really. It says “firefighters use a piece of equipment called a deluge nozzle” for really big fires. This nozzle puts out fifteen hundred gallons of water per minute. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone could invent a deluge nozzle for love? Then each time we felt the need to sting or to lash out, we could reach for that hose and wash out all of our anger and desire for rage.” It left me with the question – how do I show the wonder of Christ’s great love? For ages we have heard the idea that God will lead God’s people to the land flowing with milk and honey. And it occurred to me as I read Samson’s riddle that perhaps we are the ones to provide the honey, united as God’s people, sharing the wonder of God’s holy love, walking away from the knife in the ground toward that which is pure and sweet and good. Amen. Monday, June 30. 2008Job Opening
PIANIST (organist) WANTED
Rock Presbyterian Church, Elkton, MD, is seeking an experienced pianist to lead music for Sunday morning worship. The ability to play organ as well is desirable, but not necessary. Duties: provide music for weekly worship (hymns, postlude, prelude, offertory, accompaniment for choir anthem and/or soloists, "incidental music") Hours: Thursday choir rehearsals, 7:30 - (approx.) 8:30 PM Sunday morning worship, 10:45 AM - (approx.) 12:15 PM Salary: negotiable Contact: Jacob Schneider at 410-398-3470 Wednesday, June 18. 2008The door to the eternal: Abraham
In Milan, Italy, there is a large cathedral, as in most European cities. I remember visiting it and reading in the guidebook that it was dubbed the “birthday cake cathedral” because it was wider and not as tall as some of the famous cathedrals on the tourist route. I actually wasn’t impressed by the church at all. I wish I would have paid more attention when I was there, because I recently read that on the side entrance of the church that faces west, there is a carving in the stone of some thorns, and beneath the thorns it says: "That which pains is but for a moment." At the side door on the opposite side of the building, there are roses carved into the stone, and beneath the roses it says: "That which pleases is but for a moment." And then over the huge central doors to the church, there is carved a cross. And under the cross it says: "The only thing that is important is what is eternal."
Given our choice of those three symbols - of roses, thorns and a cross - most of us would probably choose the roses. After all, who would want the pain of a cross and some thorns if it could be avoided? And for the most part, that's our thinking when it comes to God. We like the roses. We like getting all those good things that God has in store for us. As I read the story of Abraham, I imagine that for quite some time he was just lingering in the doorway that pleases. God told Abraham – you will be the father of many nations. You will be blessed. I will protect you. God granted Sarah and Abraham a son in their old age and they named him Isaac. No doubt he was the apple of their eye, the child who would carry on the legacy. I imagine they were very protective and careful with him. And though the name Abraham itself is most likely very familiar to us as a biblical character, I imagine our knowledge about him is limited. I would say that my understanding of Abraham in my pre-clergy life didn’t spawn much farther than the childhood song – father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham. I was one of them and so are you, so let’s just praise the lord. Left Arm, Right Arm. And on and on. The song teaches us that Abraham had many children and in some remote way each one of us is related to him, end of story. What the song does not teach us is the countless trials he went through to be the man that God wanted him to be. I chose Abraham as the first of the biblical characters we would study this summer and I chose him to study on father’s day. I did this because I believe Abraham to be quite similar to many husbands and fathers I know today. His story begins in Genesis, quite a few chapters before what we read today. God comes to him one day and tells him it’s time to get up and leave his home and travel with his wife and nephew to a different land. And he does. God promises him that the land that he settles in will belong to his ancestors forever and that all of his offspring will be blessed. So far, it sounds pretty good to me. Once they’re settled in the new land, a famine strikes and they have to head out of town. Abraham thinks people might think his wife is overly attractive and so he lies and says she is sister. He thinks someone will kill him for his wife if he tells the truth. Not once, but twice. Now mind you, God has already told him that he will be the father of many nations with Sarah. In my opinion it sounds like he’s becoming more human and less bible hero to me. Abraham journeys through many more encounters and tough decisions, his wife becomes overly jealous, his nephew gets involved in major sin, and random angels show up outside his tent, all of this still without a child to carry on this promised legacy. The child is finally born when he is about 100 years old, long past his days of playing t-ball. And then, when his son Isaac is about 7 or 8, God asks Abraham to sacrifice him on a mountain. For all of you, especially fathers, who feel that the demands that are placed on you in life are overwhelming, Abraham is proof that through the most difficult doorways you will ever have to cross, all that matters that which is eternal. Walter Bruggehman, one of the most famous old testament scholars says that this passage where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his only son is the most difficult passage in the bible. We don’t get a lot of the details. Abraham hears god speaking to him, god asking him to take Isaac to Mt. Moriah and to build an altar and sacrifice his son. Abraham gets up the next day, gathers some wood and a knife and heads to the place that God has named. We don’t hear what is going on in his head as he looks at his young son who isn’t supposed to make the journey home. We don’t see if there is fear in his eyes or trembling in his hands. We don’t know if he is secretly angry at God or if he refuses to allow any thoughts to process because he is stunned with the fact that he is even headed to complete the task. All we know is that he dismounted his animal, headed up the hill and started to get ready for the sacrifice when his sweet little boy looked at him and said “daddy, where’s the lamb?” and with what seems to be a calm and sure heart, Abraham answers “god will provide.” I am stunned and inspired by Abraham. I am quick to let my emotions get the best of me. I am quick to let my mind wander and imagine every possible scenario. Can I run? Will God find me? Did I misunderstand God? What if I trip and fall and hurt my leg on the way up the mountain, then I won’t have to go through with it. I would be more likely to cry out and bargain with god – take me instead, please lord, anything but the son I have waited my whole life for. Perhaps you share in my emotional tirade against the text. Or perhaps you are more like the many men in my life who have had to remain stoic in order to keep it all together, trying desperately to balance bills, and family time, and children, and fixing the cars and changing the light bulbs, and mowing the lawn, let alone figure out what this identity of man is all about. I have watched so many men in my family work so hard that I imagine that a the end of the day there might not be an ounce of energy left to even pretend to be emotional. Abraham literally has the weight of all nations before him and all nations after him resting on his shoulders and it’s decision time. Listen to the God who has already proven he is in control or run like a bandit and never look back. Amazingly enough, the text portrays only a dedicated man who will do whatever God tells him to do. Follow God is Abraham’s only mantra. We are told that as he raises the knife to complete the task an angel of the lord appears to him and says “Wait! Don’t hurt the boy.” And Abraham puts down the weapon, undoubtedly with a huge sigh of relief. He did it. He was faithful. Abraham looks over into the bushes and sees a ram caught in the thicket and Abraham decides to offer this ram up to the Lord, an offering of praise and thanksgiving, no doubt. He names the altar he has built – The Lord Will Provide. In the midst of circumstances that feel completely out of control, we are assured that God did and God will provide. Many people fight the text with raging anger at a God who could even imagine such a request, but further studies show that child sacrifice was very common among Canaanites in the place where Abraham was sent to live. Some argue that God staged the incident so that Abraham could prove to his neighbors that his God was different. Other interpretations see Abraham and Isaac as foreshadowing to God and his only son Jesus who climbed a hill, carrying some sticks, again to prove that what this God stands for is different. What we do see quit evidently in the text is that at the beginning of the story, Abraham was following God’s will and God’s instructions to the best of his ability. And once God intervened in the sacrifice, and told Abraham to stop, he said to him … now I know that I can trust you because you withheld nothing from me. Abraham’s story tells us that there are certain things in life that we simply cannot understand, that we will perhaps never understand and the good news is not that we have the option to obey or not obey, the good news is that in the midst of the most difficult times in our lives, god will provide and god will provide more than what is good or bad, but that which is eternal. Throughout history ordinary and scholarly people have wrestled and wrestled with this story. Is there any point in time where Abraham’s intent to sacrifice his son can be considered a good thing? Is there an absolute duty to God above all moral, ethical and even spiritual guidelines? Was it okay for Abraham to hide all of this from Sarah, his wife and Isaac his son? I really think the reason that all of this is so hard for us to comprehend is because we spend so much time trying to hover in the doorway of that which pleases. We try our best to usher everything to that point in life so that we can all just be happy. And by focusing on temporary joy rather than eternal possibilities we have made ourselves the center of our world, inviting god in for a chat here and there. Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century philosopher, took an entirely different take on the Abraham and Isaac story which still rings true for our mindset today. Kierkegaard believed that Abraham understood that all he really had in life was God’s unimaginable goodness and love, God’s promise of protection, God’s promise that Isaac would provide him with many descendants. He understood that without God’s love and company, this life would be so empty and barbaric that it wouldn’t matter whether his son was alive or not. And since this side of the grave you could never know for sure if there was a God, you had to make a leap of faith, if you could, leaping across the abyss of doubt with fear and trembling. So Abraham walked to the mountaintop with his son. Abraham’s story begs us to ask whether we can look to God and know that God has given us everything. Abraham’s story begs us to look at the load we carry and the struggles that we live and to ask whether we believe that God is providing even now for what is going to happen. Abraham’s story begs us to look deeply and question whether we cherish what God has given us more than the God who has given it. A South African church leader was a visiting lecturer at Duke University. The man had been deeply involved in the struggle against apartheid. His story was harrowing and inspiring as he described the risks he had taken and the suffering and oppression and persecution and imprisonment and torture he had endured. After the lecture a Duke student asked what his children had thought about it all. How had they coped with the risks and suffering the family endured because of the parents’ commitment to justice? Jones said that it was a difficult moment. The South African minister told how painful it was because his children did suffer, received death threats and hateful phone calls. He described the pain of being away from them for long periods of time. The whole thing was so painful that he and his wife had spent much time talking about it and they had even asked their childrens’ forgiveness. But, he said, "all four of his children now recognize the family’s involvement in the struggle as a gift . . .even amidst the pain and suffering they endured growing up, they are grateful for the witness their family bore. They see that witness as a gift, for they recognize that their parents taught them the importance of having convictions on which you would stake your life." What children need, Jones proposes, and what we all need, I would add, is the gift of a cause, a faith, which calls to the very depths of our souls and is big enough and important enough and holy enough to demand our all. "We should protest," Jones says, "not only when children are abused and neglected, but when they are left with shallow and hollow lives because they have never been invited and required to live for something more significant than themselves." It feels so often to me that our struggle is between being happy and sad. That we believe that when we are happy and our lives are easy and filled with joy that God is on our side. But when the circumstances in our lives are difficult, even unbelievably overbearing, we somehow believe that God has forgotten us or turned against us. Thanks be to God for Father Abraham who shows us a way past the simple things of day and marks the path to the door of the eternal. Amen. Wednesday, June 18. 2008No One But Us
It is up to us to ask—up to each and every one of us; each and every wild and precious life. "There is no one but us," writes Annie Dillard in "Holy the Firm."
"There is no one to send, nor a clean hand nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead as if innocence had ever been and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is not one but us. There never has been."ıV And so let us seek that thread that we are in the tapestry of creation. There is no one to send but us. God is counting on us; calling to us to, to become the servants only we can be. May God grant us a taste of understanding and may we respond with all that we are. Sunday, June 8. 2008She really believes the gospel
Several weeks ago I shared a list of quotes about prayer with our Tuesday morning prayer group. One struck me as partially odd and so I spent some extra time with it. It is from Henry Ward Beecher and says "I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent."
I couldn’t imagine what prayer had to do with wine and fermentation. I read it again. “I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent." Something is happening in the bottle. Something uncontainable. It causes the cork to be knocked right out. Let us pray. The seminary journey is a long and enduring process full of many, many check-marks on an endless list of requirements. After each semester and each school year there were examinations, reviews, references, summaries and reflections. We spent countless hours analyzing whether or not we were ready for ministry. The purpose for all of the stepping stones is to make sure that people who enter the ministry are truly called by God, that the marks of the spiritual gifts of pastor are evident in the candidate and that all of the gathered committees and groups are confidant that this person can successfully live out God’s will in a local church setting. By the time I was ready for ordination I compiled a huge binder of all of the necessary documents to prove I had dotted all my “I’s” and dotted them well. I prided myself in good marks, excellent reviews, and I enjoyed a successful ministry career that began even before I graduated from seminary. But there is one mark of this entire booklet of papers that haunts me in ways both good and bad. It is a letter that was written as a final reference from my supervising pastor, with whom I was very close. I’ll read you parts of the letter: >>>>>>>>> If she has any weakness, it may be a desire to do too much. She is learning to be more selective with her efforts. In addition, some folks think she is naïve. I believe she is just not willing to compromise the gospel – yet. Too idealistic? Perhaps. However, it is somewhat refreshing to be reminded how things might be if people actually lived like they believed the gospel. I cannot recommend Stephanie Templin highly enough for ordination to ministry. In peace, Rev. Doug Shaffer. >>>>>>>>>> When I got the letter I was so eager to read what he had to say. I knew it would be good because we worked so well together. I was glowing throughout the first few pages, but when I got to the word naïve, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that one of the most important references to start my career ended with such a statement. I couldn’t decide whether to show people or to hide it. I did then share the words with some of my friends, reluctantly. They shared in my shock and then I showed it to my mentor, a middle aged female pastor who I trusted and she asked me to read the passage over a few times out loud to her. She helped me to see that in a backhanded way, it was all a compliment – that I actually believed the gospel. That I was gullible enough to think that everyone should believe it and not compromise it. 4 and a half years after the letter was written, I still cringe at that line. Would it be naïve to leave your lucrative and comfortable job to go and follow jesus? Would it be naïve to ask Jesus to bring back your daughter from the dead? Would it be naïve to touch Jesus as he walks by hoping he might heal you? Would it be naïve to think that in any moment in your life, regardless of age or circumstance, that Jesus, the Christ could make a place for an exciting and active and refreshing new wine to be poured into your soul? Would you be overly gullible or trusting if you believed me when I told you that at this very moment that place is being made ready for you to accept the word of God wholly and truly and to make dramatic changes in your life? For both the cynical and the naïve, the scripture tells us today: Come and follow. Come and be made new. Come and be healed. The text is so full… busy even. In just a few short versus we’ve got calling and filling and healing and resurrection. Each one of the people we meet is living life as best they know how, and suddenly, jesus enters in and turns it upside down. Certainly not a biblical concept that we are unfamiliar with – but certainly one that doesn’t seem to affect us so much. In a world where the elderly are attacked by telemarketers and children are lured from their parents by predators, who can afford risk being blindly faithful, even to Christ? I remember a bible study discussion on a mission trip about the story of the Samaritan man. In the text, a man who is a foreigner is hurt along side the road. The first two passersby look the other way. The Third stops to help the man. I asked the gathered group who they thought they identified with. Many people shared honestly that they wanted to the be the third person.. they wanted to be the one who would stop and help but they just didn’t feel safe. And then one of the men in the room piped up and said that there was no way that it would be responsible and wise for anyone to stop for a hurt stranger on the road. Under no circumstances. I asked him how he responded to the gospel’s mandate to reach out in faith and to trust in god’s promises and he refused to budge on his position. He argued that the story was only for teaching about compassion and he would be very angry if his daughter or his wife stopped to help a stranger along side the road. Perhaps he was one of the ones who thought I was naïve. But time and time again, Jesus beckons to those who are comfortable – come and follow me. He reaches out to those who are in need of healing and says – I will make you well. He comes to those who are dead and takes them by the hand, giving them new life. Is it that he is some sort of maverick? Some sort of Indiana jones who comes to save the day or robin hood to gives to the poor? Is it the face that he is so incredibly defiant to the religious establishment that makes everyone so upset? Sadly, the answer is no. What is so disturbing about Jesus to those in power is that he is actually faithful to the will of God, no matter what. What has never happened before in human history is evident here – God’s will is actualized. In Christ we see God’s plan and God’s will in all fullness and all purity. And we are challenged to take stock of the things that keep us from experiencing all fullness of life… What is it at this point in your life that keeps you from being as faithful as you want to be? What is it that holds you back from proclaiming jesus from the rooftops and evangelizing to your friends? What is it that keeps you from praying for and with your neighbors? Is it the everday that crowds out the holy? Is it the mundane that conquers the magnificent? The invitation, the healing, the new life is for everyone, including each and every one of us (Long 102). But, I think it’s really hard to deal with all of this talk of newness. I really do. I think that life itself is hard enough to keep up with, let alone adding something else. And Matthew tells us today that there is this old wineskin.. this old vessel that worked great in its time. It held perfectly good wine and it aged with the wine, but now it is time for another wineskin. One to be a companion to the first, not a replacement, but another vessel. Because what God has already done in your life is unbelievable. The people who have shaped you, the churches that have nurtured you and taught you have brought you to this moment and now, God is handing you another wineskin, another vessel, because God is ready to do something new through each and every one of you… This newness is terrifying. And though it feels overwhelming to think we might have to add another thing or even more terrifying to think that the old way of life might not be big enough to hold what God is doing right now, the simple fact that Right now Right now Right now Christ is saying, c’mon… come with me. Henry Ward Beecher says "I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent." The newness is born in us, just when we least believe in it. It appears in remote corners of our souls which we have neglected for a long time. It opens up deep levels of our personality which had been shut out by old decisions and old exclusions. It shows a way where there was no way before. It liberates us from the tragedy of having to decide and having to exclude, because it is given before any decision. Suddenly we notice it within us! The new which we sought and longed for comes to us in the moment in which we lose hope of ever finding it. God’s grace is ready to interrupt the everyday, ready to stir the wine so that the bottle can no longer hold it. As God’s people we need to be ready to serve with imagination and creativity. We need to conjure that alternative way to do things. It is why, I believe, God promised that we would dream dreams and see visions. It is why we believe that without a vision the people perish. Walter Brueggeman put it succinctly in his book Prophetic Imagination when he wrote, "The task of ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us." The prophets were indeed artists who imagined. Perhaps I was naïve. Perhaps I still am. Perhaps I want to stop alongside the road and help strangers. I don’t know the correct terms for the way I feel, but I believe the world looks at the tax collector who left his life to follow jesus as naïve. I believe that the world looks at the woman who believed that jesus could heal her as naïve. And I believe that what the world calls naievte is actually faith. Faith that stirs up so much energy and enthusiasm that it cannot be contained in the life that the world has to offer. When I hear God’s word about this new wineskin that will be ready to hold the energy of whatever god is doing, I am thrilled at the prospect of what God can do next. Will you pray with me? Sunday, June 1. 2008Do we know why the house falls?
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