“Dreams and Visions” -- Isaiah 7:10-16, Matthew 1:18-25 -- Dec. 22, 2013

Apparently there was always some question about Jesus’ parentage.  That was one of those “givens” that the Christian tradition had to deal with in telling the story of Jesus, and when they looked to the culture around them, one solution was to contend that he was born miraculously, specifically, born of a virgin.  That’s what was said about Alexander the Great–that he was born of a virgin, was the son of god, and, by the way, he died when he was 33.

When the writer of Matthew’s gospel began to tell the story of who Jesus was, he began, like many other ancient biographies, with a genealogy–“An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” this gospel begins.  We hardly ever read these first 17 verses of Matthew–name after difficult name, 14 generations from Abraham to David, [Matthew explains] and 14 generations from David to the deportation to Babylon, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations.  In that list of names are 5 women, 5 great-great, however-many-great-grandmothers of Jesus, and all of them women of, shall we say? questionable reputation–Tamar, the madame of a brothal; Rahab, a prostitute; Ruth, a foreigner who, frankly, seduced Boaz, a relative of her mother-in-law; Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, whom David had an affair with; and Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was found to be “with child” before she and Joseph were married.  Matthew says it was through Joseph that Jesus was of the lineage of David, for the Messiah would come from that line.

“Only Matthew speaks about Joseph,” Nancy Rockwell writes, “acknowledging his doubts about the marriage, about Mary’s unexpected pregnancy, how he struggles in his mind and is disturbed in his sleep.”  (The Bite in the Apple, 12/14/13) We often hear the phrase, “gentle Mary, meek and mild”–and remember, “meek” doesn’t mean milquetoast, it means totally open to be used by God. Gentle Mary, meek and mild.  But similar words could be used for Joseph–gentle Joseph, allowing himself to be used by God.  He was a “righteous man,” Matthew says, trying to be faithful to the law, but when he learned of Mary’s pregnancy, he knew that life didn’t always fit neatly into the law.  The law said that Mary should be stoned to death.  But, Matthew tells us, “unwilling to expose her to public disgrace [or death, we might add], [Joseph] planned to dismiss her quietly.”  One gets the sense that his heart was broken.

“It is easy to be smitten by the goodness of Joseph,” one commentator observes (Rockwell, op cit.).  We can see a reflection of Joseph in Jesus’ later refusal to condemn the woman caught in adultery.  Joseph was Jesus’ father in many real ways.  He also reverses the role of husband in that patriarchal culture, at least as tradition tells it, in that he was servant to his wife, taking care of her in all sorts of situations, taking her and her infant son away to Egypt to escape Herod’s rage, providing for her behind the scenes and disappearing from view.  We don’t know what happens to Joseph, though it appears that he is dead by the time Jesus begins his public ministry.

Yet here at the beginning, in Matthew’s version of the birth of Jesus, it is to Joseph that the angel comes, in a dream, to announce that the child in Mary’s womb is a holy child, a child from God, and he, Joseph, is to have an important part in this child’s life.  “You are to name him,” the angel tells Joseph-- an important role in a child’s life– “you are to name him Jesus,” which in Hebrew means “saves.”
“There were many babies in the Old Testament with the name Save,” Walter Brueggemann points out [Day 1, 12/19/04]– Joshua, Isaiah, Hosea.  “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins,” the angel says.  He will show his people that they don’t have to be separated from God, which is another way of thinking about sin.  And in fact, that’s the other name the angel gave Joseph for the child to be born–Emmanuel, God with us–just like that child the prophet Isaiah told King Ahaz about, back before the exile.

Ahaz, king of the southern kingdom Judah, is worried about the military alliance that the northern kingdom Israel has formed with Assyria, but Isaiah assures him that God has other plans for that alliance.  If the king of Israel thinks that Assyria will save him, he has put his trust in the wrong savior.  So, God says to Ahaz through Isaiah, “Ask a sign of the Lord your God: let it be deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” Ahaz goes all pious on Isaiah and says he won’t put God to the test, but Isaiah knows that the king has barely any relationship at all with God.

So he says, OK, since you won’t ask for a sign, here’s the sign that God will give anyway:  [and remember: this is not an intelligence report.  This is poetry, to get Ahaz to consider bigger possibilities, to open up his mind]  “Look, a young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.  He shall eat curds and honey[typical peasant diet], and by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, [maybe in 3years? 4?] “the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be destroyed.”  Who is Isaiah talking about?  Who knows?  Probably not Jesus.  But Isaiah is almost surely not worried about the circumstances of this birth, whether it is miraculous or not.  The Hebrew word here for young woman is ‘admah, which usually means young woman .  It can mean virgin, but Hebrew has another word for that – bethulah –which is usually used.  When the Hebrew got translated into Greek and then into Latin, the word virgine was used, so when Christian scholars looked into the ancient texts to understand who Jesus was, this is one of the texts they turned to.  But, a case could be made that what both Isaiah and Matthew were trying to say was that God is with us in the midst of the direst situations.

“All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’  When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.”

“The name, Jesus,...[one writer says] is [Joseph’s] gift to the Child.  Matthew says, the angel whispered it to him.”  (Rockwell, op cit.)  Joseph named Mary’s child Saves-- Jesus-- and knows him as God with us-- Emmanuel.  This husband of Mary, known more by his wife’s name than his own, chooses to be part of God’s story, part of God’s plan for “saving” us–from our sin or separation from God, from our fear of death, from our alienation from our true selves and each other, as well as from God.

It is up to us to decide what we will name this Child.  Do we see in him, in his way, in his life, death, and resurrection, do we see in him the way out of our darkness and despair? Or do we see in him another foolish dreamer, who gets mown down by the people who have the real power.  Do we see God with us in him? Or is he God-above/beyond-us, having very little to do with our lives here and now, but only after we die?  Do we see in him God’s only dabbling in incarnation, in becoming flesh, or do we see in him the fullness but also the beginning of God’s incarnation in all of us, what we all might become? Is God still speaking?   Is God’s Word still becoming flesh in us?   Are we saved by that one death, or/and are we saved at any moment when we choose to follow in that Way, when we open ourselves up to being filled with God, so that God is with us too?

Consider Joseph, the carpenter, the dreamer, gentle Joseph, meek and strong.

Sin fractures the Vision, not the Fact [wrote W.H. Auden in his Christmas oratorio, For the Time Being]; for
The Exceptional is always usual
And the usual Exceptional.
To choose what is difficult all one’s days
As if it were easy, that is faith.  Joseph, praise.”

The time is drawing near.  Now is the moment to choose to be part of the story.  Places,
everyone!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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For 12/14/13 “Speaking of Religion” page–

“The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said.  Pure statement of fact.  There will always be those who lack the physical, mental, social, or emotional resources to provide for themselves in any given economic system, so “deal with it,” Jesus says.  “Deal with it,” not by condemning them, or sending them away, or treating them as worthy of any less dignity and respect and kindness than you’d deal with me, he said.  In fact, whenever you feed or house or visit or bind up the wounds of any of these, my brothers and sisters, Jesus said, you’ve done it to me.  Deal with it.  The poor are part of every community that’s remotely open, i.e. not gated or walled in or protected by 24-7 security guards.
The ongoing community discussion about the Panhandling Ordinance passed by the Select Board is an opportunity for us to “deal with it.”  Some tourists have said that they’re made “uncomfortable” by the presence of “panhandlers” outside of local businesses.  While safety is a legitimate concern, “discomfort” can be a helpful thing.  We all should be “uncomfortable” with the fact that there are those in our community who do not have enough to eat or adequate housing or sufficient support for their physical or mental needs.  The ones who are out on Main St. are simply the obvious ones, but there are dozens– hundreds actually- of our neighbors who consistently hungry, lack decent housing, are numbing the pain of their depression, discouragement, hopelessness, illness with a variety of various substances.  We know that at least a quarter of the families in Bennington rely upon the Kitchen Cupboard for food each month.  The Free Clinic is full to overflowing.  Good Shepherd Shelter can house 6 people on any given night, leaving dozens without a place to sleep or even find shelter from the elements, with or without the ban on sleeping in cars.
There are many good and compassionate people working everyday to assist the poor and those down on their luck in our community.  Agencies from the Department of Human Services to Sunrise to BROC to the Homeless Coalition to PAVE to the Greater Bennington Interfaith Community Services to any number of faith communities work tirelessly–and even “tiredly”!–to be of assistance, to stand in solidarity, to work through systems with those who find themselves in need.  But too often it can feel like sticking fingers in the dike, holding back the flood of human need that any day might overwhelm us.
This is an issue that demands a wider discussion, greater creativity and imagination, more sectors of our community involved in coming to the table.  Pope Francis, in his recent Apostolic Exhortation, called on the people of faith to address the structures that keep people in poverty.
Those structures include tax codes, educational systems, distribution of resources, advertising that defines us as consumers only, social systems that separate people into permanent different economic classes, health care systems, economic systems that put profits over people.  Addressing the structures that keep people in poverty is neither simple nor easy.  But “deal with it” we must.
While many people’s experience of life is one of scarcity–scarcity of resources, of hope, of safety, of health, of joy–the underlying principle of the two religious holidays we celebrate in this season–Christmas and Hanukkah–is abundance.  Out of the fullness of God’s grace and love, Jesus came to live among us, to preach good news to the poor, to embody the truth that Love and Light are in fact all around and within each human being.  Hanukkah celebrates the abundance of oil which allowed the flame in the Temple to continue burning, symbolizing the abundance of God’s faithfulness and care for God’s people.
So may we acknowledge that abundance and together work toward making our community one in which all have enough, all are treated with dignity and respect, children and youth can grow up with hope, adults are empowered to contribute to the common good, and visitors will marvel at how we live together.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Pastor, Second Congregational Church, UCC

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"Something’s Not Right"-- Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12-- Dec. 8, 2013

Though we light the 2^nd Advent candle this week–the Candle of Peace–I like to think of this second Sunday in Advent, particularly when we’ve got today’s gospel reading from Matthews, as "Brood of Vipers Sunday." Good ol’ John the Baptist, cutting through all the pre-Christmas glitter and sweetness with a healthy dose of telling it like it is. "You brood of viper!" he yells at the Sadducees and Pharisees who had come out into the wilderness to see him, "Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?!" Wow, don’t hold back, John! Tell us what you really think!

"The people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to [John], and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." You could say John was the anti-celebrity, in his clothing of camel’s hair and leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and wild honey, and screaming at the top of his lungs–"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And yet people streamed out into the wilderness to hear him and be baptized by him. Maybe they were tired of living their lives the way they were. Maybe John’s call to change, or get back on the right path, was actually refreshing. "Perhaps," as one commentator suggests, to know that "there is a God who holds us accountable–that the world is not amoral" is actually "good news." It affirms that gnawing feeling that something’s not right here. "To be confronted by such a holy God [this commentator says]...is to discover who one really is, which though it may be painful, may also be a relief." (Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 17)

It was clear that something wasn’t right when Isaiah prophesied to Israel. This familiar passage about the shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse is set in the context of a whole lot of stumps. The Lord God will clear cut Israel, in fact, Isaiah says just before our text. "Look," he says, "the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. God will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall."

In the midst of this devastation, "a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse [David’s father], and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord...with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.." Is he talking about Jesus? we Christians assume. Or maybe talking about a leader like Nelson Mandela became.

But what’s wrong with Isaiah’s vision? The wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and lion and fatling together? The cow and bear grazing together, the lion eating straw like the ox–how long do you suppose the lion will be satisfied with that?! And throughout this portrait, images of the little child–"A little child shall lead them..." "The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den." What’s wrong with this picture? There was no more vulnerable or powerless figure in Isaiah’s–or Jesus’–time than a little child. So many died in childbirth or infancy, they were the last to get fed. This utterly vulnerable one shall lead the nation? Shall play in the midst of very real dangers and threats? Surely this is only the stuff of children’s paintings and fairytales. And yet....and yet...

This vision of the "peaceable kingdom," as Edward Hicks’ famous painting of the scene is entitled, this portrayal of shalom –of peace, of wholeness, of harmony– is a vision of creation time, as Walter Brueggemann puts it (cited by Kate Huey in Sermon Seeds, 12/9/13). "The big ones eating the little ones is not the wave of the future...The leader who upends the strong over the weak is himself vulnerable and humble." What is normal or abnormal? This is the promise of something better than what we’ve gotten used to as "normal."

In his book, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein talks about his nostalgia for the cultural myths of his childhood, when "everything worked"–

"a world in which there was nothing wrong with soda pop, in which the Super Bowl was important, in which America was bringing democracy to the world, in which the doctor could fix you, in which science was going to make life better and better, and they just put a man on the moon."

 

If you worked hard, you would succeed, he recalls.

[But] as my horizons widened [he says] I knew that millions were not supposed to be starving, that nuclear weapons were not supposed to be hanging over our heads, that the rainforests were not supposed to be shrinking, or the fish dying, or the condors and eagles disappearing. I could not accept the way the dominant narrative of my culture handled these things: as fragmentary problems to be solved, as unfortunate facts of life to be regretted, or as unmentionable taboo subjects to be simply ignored. On some level, we all know better.

We’re reluctant or afraid to give voice to that knowledge or feeling though.

Addiction, self-sabotage, procrastination, laziness, rage, chronic fatigue, and depression are all ways that we withhold our full participation in the program of life we are offered. When the conscious mind cannot find a reason to say no, the unconscious says no in its own way. More and more of us cannot bear to stay in the ‘old normal’ any longer.

(Excerpted from Dec. Kripalu Compass online)

"The wolf shall live with lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." Is that the "new normal"? And if Isaiah wrote this 2500 years ago, when is this "new normal" going to appear?

Isn’t it interesting that at the center of this vision of the "new normal" promised by God is the figure of vulnerability. Who of us wants to be vulnerable? How risky and naive is that? The world eats up the vulnerable, we say, we know.

And yet, in her research on shame and vulnerability, sociologist Brene Brown has found that the willingness to be vulnerable is an essential quality of what she calls "wholehearted living." Vulnerability, in fact, is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. (Brown, Daring Greatly, pp. 33-34)

You may have heard Krista Tippett’s interview with Brene Brown this morning on VPR’s

OnBeing. Krista asked Brene to explain a statement she had made: "Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience." So explain that sentence to me, Krista said to Brene.

Vulnerability, I think, you know, when I ask people what is vulnerability, the answers were things like sitting with my wife who has Stage III breast cancer and trying to make plans for our children, my first date after my divorce, saying I love you first, asking for a raise, sending my child to school being enthusiastic and supportive of him and knowing how excited he is about orchestra tryouts and how much he wants to make first chair and encouraging him and supporting him and knowing that's not going to happen. To me, vulnerability is courage. It's about the willingness to show up and be seen in our lives. And in those moments when we show up, I think those are the most powerful meaning-making moments of our lives even if they don't go well. I think they define who we are.

And further, Dr. Brown says:

And I can tell you as a researcher, 11,000 pieces of data, I cannot find a single example of courage, moral courage, spiritual courage, leadership courage, relational courage, I cannot find a single example of courage in my research that was not born completely of vulnerability. And so I think we buy into some mythology about vulnerability being weakness and being gullibility and being frailty because it gives us permission not to do it.

(Transcript, OnBeing.org)

If we define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, as Brown does, then think about love. Surely love involves uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. No vulnerability, no love. Are we willing to pay that price? And the products of vulnerability–

creativity, imagination, empathy, courage–can you think of any more essential qualities we need in our leadership, our common life, our family and individual lives right now?

"A little child shall lead them," Isaiah says of God’s vision for us. Vulnerability is at the heart of this vision. Love is at the center. The arms of the cross intersect in the middle of this vision. John the Baptist saw the ax at the root of the tree, Isaiah saw a shoot growing out of the stump. Jesus came as a little child.

"O tidings of comfort and joy!" the carol sings out. It’s what we all want. But to get to comfort and joy we must be willing to go through the discomfort and risk of vulnerability. We have to allow ourselves to feel, not to numb, all those feelings of discomfort and sorrow– our fears of being exposed or failing or being imperfect–we have to allow ourselves to feel those uncomfortable things if we are also to feel the things we want to feel–like joy and love and courage and belonging. There is no such thing as selectively numbing just the unwanted feelings. We end up numbing all feelings, even the good ones.

We can risk all this because the Love that came (down) at Christmas is also not selective. It is for all of us. Each one of us is worthy to be loved. Even those whom some would call a "brood of vipers." "The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, [Isaiah said], and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den." That’s where the vipers live! We are–all of us-- loved. That’s the old and the new normal for God. "O, tidings of comfort and joy!" Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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At any moment...."-- Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44 -- Dec. 1, 2013

 

There is a wisdom in learning how to meditate which teaches that when you notice your mind has wandered to your grocery list or what you might have said to your teenage son when he came in late last night, when you notice that your mind is no longer focused on your breath or the word you had chosen to repeat, then you are simply to "begin again"...to come back to your breath or your word without judgment; no need to beat yourself up, the mind is just doing what the mind does, just begin again.

Advent is the time for us to begin again; but the Scripture lessons for this first Sunday in Advent, let us know that this is not just a baby shower. This is not your typical New Year’s Day party. There is a decided "wake up and smell the coffee" tone about Advent. "Now is the moment to wake up," Paul says, "the night is far gone, the day is near." "Therefore you also must be ready," Jesus says, "for the Son of Humanity is coming at an unexpected hour." It’s a promise, but also a warning.

Surely there is no more challenging time for us than December to "begin again" on any sort of intention to get our act together, to pay attention to our lives, to be more mindful of the people and moments of our lives, to get our priorities right. This is the time, at least in the West, for the full press offense of the Powers That Be to convince us that the most important thing in our lives is Consuming. In fact, it’s our patriotic duty to support the economy, to provide jobs, to measure our worth by how much stuff is under our tree.

Maybe Paul’s advice to "put on the armor of light" isn’t such a bad idea. We can use all the help we can get.

When my husband Bruce was working in Syracuse with clients who were HIV-positive or had AIDS, he heard from many of them that knowing that your days are numbered has a way of clarifying things, a way of changing the way you live your life. That’s what Jesus and Paul were talking about. That’s the wisdom of these Advent texts. "The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably, then, as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ...."

How would you live if you knew your days were numbered, that the time left for you to live was short? How would you look at your loved one’s face? How would you regard the sunlight coming through your kitchen window?

One of the rare moments of grace during the Civil War came during the surrender negotiations at Appomatox. General Grant told General Lee to be sure that all the horses be sent home with his men because they would need them for plowing the fields, for it was April, and the time for planting crops was growing short. And each man was to be allowed one rifle to take home, for hunting, for feeding his family. "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares," Isaiah saw.

On the plaza in front of Marsh Chapel at Boston University is a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who got his doctorate at Boston University School of Theology. It’s a sculpture of 50 abstract doves, one for each state, whose wings are decidedly swordlike, taking flight. It’s entitled, "Free at last," giving shape to Dr.King’s vision of freedom, based in Isaiah’s vision of swords being turned into ploughshares, symbols of peace, where each one would live in freedom and dignity. Walter Brueggemann compares Isaiah’s vision where nation shall not rise up against nation and beating their swords into ploughshares to Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream" speech. It’s important to enter into Advent, to begin again, with these visions in our heads, rather than merely visions of sugarplums.

"The night is far gone, the day is near.... Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep." In his recent Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Francis urged his priests to preach the Gospel of joy–don’t be sourpusses, he said. He also proclaimed the necessity for embracing change and letting go of "we’ve always done it this way." And finally, Pope Francis urged the church to take seriously the poor and to get at the structures which keep people in poverty.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I find myself listening to Francis as a spokesperson for the Church which has even the remotest claim to being the Body of Christ. "The night is far gone, the day is near...Now is the moment to wake up from sleep." Joy. Change. Poverty. Now there are priorities worth setting. Wake up. Keep alert.

We may hear these scriptures as dire warnings and miss the promise they contain. "Therefore you also must be ready [Jesus said], for the Son of Humanity is coming at an unexpected hour." Though there are plenty of texts that see the Son of Man or the Son of Humanity as ushering in violent end times, that see him as what is called "an apocalyptic figure," we might also see the Son of Humanity or the Fully Human One as a different kind of "end" or purpose--as the intention and fulfilment of our creation. "Eschatology" talks about the end times less as a battle or explosion and more as the goal or fulfillment. "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Humanity is coming at an unexpected hour." At any moment, an opportunity to act like fully realized human beings might arise. At any moment, a decision might be made to do the right thing, to live out of our best selves, rather than our worst. At any moment, a flash mob could form that would bring beauty and music and meaning to an otherwise ordinary moment.

Would you be ready? Would you notice? Right now, how close are you to being the fully realized human being God created you to be?

Here at the beginning of Advent, as calendars are filling up, even as Snowball Bazaar Frenzy is beginning, what if you carved out 10 minutes every day–preferably at the same time every day–first thing in the morning, 4 o’clock in the afternoon, just before supper or just before bed–and simply paid attention...attention to your breath, to the sounds around you, "nowhere to go, nothing to do," is how the sages describe it. Talk about a radical idea, subversive even. Pay attention to your life. Wake up.

"The night is far gone, the day is near...Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep." "Therefore you also must be ready [Jesus said], for the Son of Humanity–the Fully Realized Human Being-- is coming at an unexpected hour." Maybe this one. You might begin by really tasting this bite of bread, this sip of juice; notice how it feels on your tongue and in your mouth. Picture it going down your throat, becoming part of your body and blood, you becoming more of the Body of Christ. Notice. Pay attention. You never know when you might just become who you are supposed to be. You never know when God will turn up as a word of kindness, an act of courage, a change in history, a moment of grace. Wake up. Get ready. Let us keep the feast.

Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"All Are Safely Gathered In" --Psalm 46, Colossians 1:11-20-- Nov. 24, 2013

It is the end of the church year–the omega point, if you will, the culmination of the alphabet from alpha to omega, a to z. "I am the alpha and omega," Christ says, the beginning and the end. The love of God which we know in Christ Jesus reigns over all creation, so we celebrate this Reign of Christ Sunday, what used to be called "Christ the King Sunday."

But if the image of a monarch or sovereign reigning over a kingdom doesn’t seem to resonate with anything in our lives here in Bennington, VT in the year 2013, if it all seems too abstract and heady, we might do well to turn to the ever-helpful Dr. Suess. Now, you might be thinking that we’re heading into the time of year where Dr. Suess’ classic "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" will soon be featured on tv’s and dvd’s, but I’m thinking of another Dr. Suess book, "On Beyond Zebra."

The narrator in "On Beyond Zebra" takes the reader through the alphabet, which we all know ends with Z, for Zebra. You can stop there if you want, he says to Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell, but then you’ll miss out on all the other great and useful letters, like Yuzz, which you use to spell Yuzz-z-ma-tuzz. And Wum, as in Wumbus. It’s the perfect Easter book, I think, and I did read it here one Easter. You may think that the crucifixion was the end of Jesus and the Jesus movement. That’s what Herod and the high priests and Pilate assumed. That’s what the world assumes about death. It’s The End. But God’s alphabet is not limited to 26 English letters. God is still speaking, and there are so many different ways for God to speak. God’s vocabulary fills up words and goes beyond them. God’s fullness isn’t even emptied by death.

In that one Word, which became flesh and dwelt among us, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, the letter to the Colossians says. "So spacious is he, [Peterson suggests] so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding." Just like that very first, primordial particle that exploded in the Big Bang, everything in the universe–and maybe in other universes–was contained. "In the beginning," God and God’s intention for everything. Wow. Mind-blowing.

But still maybe a little heady, a little too abstract. For whether we know on a certain level that endings are not endings for God, whether we get that God’s alphabet goes on beyond zebra, still the experience, the gut feeling, the tearing and sundering of our hearts knows that endings also involve pain. Grief is not to be trifled with. It will take its time to work through our bodies, surprising us sometimes by its power, by its almost cat-and-mouse game–one day you think you’re doing ok, and the next day the littlest thing will unleash a flood of tears. Grief is the gift of endings–is it possible to think of it as a gift?!–as it takes us through the tearing of familiar bonds and attachments and then slowly, eventually constructs new and even stronger threads that allow us to heal and move on to the previously unimaginable ways we remain connected.

That time

[writes poet Mary Oliver]

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hands in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -

books, bricks, grief -

it’s all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot and would not,

put it down."

(Mary Oliver, in Thirst)

"So spacious is [Christ], so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe–people and things, animals and atoms–get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross."

Why "because of his death"? Because in that act Jesus willingly emptied himself, gave himself over to be the channel through which our lives could freely flow through death into Life and Love itself, so that Death was no longer a barrier between us and God, between us and our loved ones who are now in God. In him–so utterly empty on the Cross–the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

All is safely gathered in, we sang of the harvest. All are safely gathered in. Our loved ones. The children of Newtown, Connecticut. President John F. Kennedy. All those whose deaths we remember and feel so deeply, especially today, at this time of year. All are safely gathered in, but not just swept up like so many grains of wheat. There is a "heartbreak at the heart of things," as one poet writes-- The heartbreak of the Cross at the heart of things, we might say–but it is heartbreak mixed with joy and hope and meaning and love–

In the quiet before cockcrow

[writes John Hall Wheelock] when the cricket’s

Mandolin falters, when the light of the past

Falling from the high stars yet haunts the earth

And the east quickens, I think of those I love–

Dear men and women no longer with us.

And not in grief or regret merely but rather

With a love that is almost joy I think of them,

Of whom I am part, as they of me, and through whom

I am made more wholly one with the pain and the glory,

The heartbreak at the heart of things.

I have learned it from them at last, who am now grown old

A happy man, that the nature of things is tragic

And meaningful beyond words, that to have lived

Even if once only, once and no more,

Will have been–oh, how truly–worth it..."

("Dear Men and Women [in memory of Van Wyck Brooks]" (abridged) by John Hall Wheelock, from An Almanac for the Soul, by Marv and Nancy Hiles, p. 222)

"So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe–people and things, animals and atoms–get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross."

"All are safely gathered in." Thanks be to God! Amen.

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 

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"Good News! Bad News!"-- Isaiah 65: 17-25, Luke 21:5-19-- Nov. 17, 2013

Scenes from the Philippines this week almost look tragically familiar–they look all too much like other pictures we’ve seen–from hurricanes in Haiti, from an earthquake and then tsunami in Japan, from the Christmas tsunami in southeast Asia, too much like bombed out areas in Kabul, Baghdad, Dresden, London, Hiroshima. Not one stone left standing on another, unless thrown on top of each other by earth’s upheaval or the ravage of wind or wave. Utter devastation.

Two weeks ago, the houses and buildings in Tacloban, Philippines simply made up the street scene of home for thousands of people; they were part of the landscape seen everyday, giving structure to their lives, sheltering them from rain, gathering their family and friends around tables and celebrations. Inside babies were born, illnesses were endured...or not, and people died. In other words, life as they’d come to know it. Until the storm came. Then, in a matter of hours, nothing was the same.

"Look at these beautiful stones and memorial gifts, Rabbi," they said to Jesus as they talked in the Temple courtyard. "All this you’re admiring so much--" Jesus replied, "the time is coming when every stone in that building will end up in a heap of rubble." It was unthinkable– this massive edifice and complex, the very symbol of power and authority, the seat of the Holy One. Unshakeable. Guarded with ruthless power.

And yet, Luke’s community knew that Jesus’ words had come true. Scattered far from Jerusalem, probably sometime around 80 or 85, after the Judean revolt against Rome from 66-70, Luke’s community knew that both the city of Jerusalem and the Temple itself were in ruins, "a heap of rubble," not unlike the rubble that the exiles had found upon their return from Babylon, 500 years earlier. Luke’s community also knew that many of their number were being arrested and brought before governors and magistrates. Family members had turned against them; many had been put to death.

So, in fact, these predictions on Jesus’ lips were actually good news, comforting even, for he knew what they were going through. He had gone through it himself, and even now was giving them words and wisdom to speak in court, assuring them that every hair on their heads was counted and known by God and more than that, that their very souls were held in the power and protection of God.

In the midst of every upheaval–of cities and temples and churches, through storm and wind and bomb and fire, even the upheaval of death–God remains, with intimate knowledge of each cell and bone and hair of our bodies, loving us, body and soul, and infinitely beyond us, with knowledge too deep and wide for us to ever fathom. John Riddle and all of us who grieve Cindy’s death are held in that infinite knowledge and love. And because it is infinite, that knowledge and love also embrace Cindy, and all our loved ones, all those swept away and buried by typhoon and tsunami, hurricane and fire and disease.

"For I am about to create–or, even now I am creating–new heavens and a new earth," God says through the Third Isaiah, speaking to a people who have lived in the midst of the rubble for a while and are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task of rebuilding and getting back to any sense of life as they’ve known it. "The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight....no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress..."

Naive words? Pie in the sky by and by? Is this just airy fairy theology, holding out hope for the next life because this life is so unbearable? 2500 years ago, and then 2000 years ago, just promises, promises? Look at the mess right now, not only in the Philippines and other storm- and war-ravaged places, but in our own country, our government, as some would say, in ruin, millions of people without adequate food, shelter, or employment; our own community wounded with poverty and hopelessness and substance abuse.

"I am about to create new heavens and a new earth." Any time now, God, any time. "Bad news is easy to believe," writes one commentator. "It’s the gospel that’s unimaginable to most [of us]." (Kyle Childress, Ekklesia Project blog, 11-13-13) Gospel–"good news." Is it just four little books in an ancient and dusty tome? Are there any images or sounds or tastes or smells associated with it? Is the gospel to be believed or trusted?

Jim Wallis tells the story from some years ago of volunteering in a church homeless shelter around Christmas time. The church basement was decorated with banners and Christmas decorations, "Good news! Christ is born!" "Glory to God in the Highest" and so on. One of the men who lived each day out on the streets looked around the room and asked, "What is the good news anyway?" Jim said there was a long pause; no one knew what to say. Finally someone spoke up from the back of the line, "The good news is that it doesn’t have to be like this."

(Childress, op cit.)

It doesn’t have to be like this. What the prophet Isaiah and Jesus were both doing was painting the picture of what an alternate reality might look like. If it doesn’t have to be like this, what might it be? "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind," God says through Isaiah. "Not one stone will be left upon another," Jesus says through Luke. But of course, he also painted so many other pictures of the new heavens and new earth–"the kingdom/reign of God," he called it....where no walls would keep people away from God and where, in fact, God couldn’t be contained in a building. The kingdom is in you, he said, in your midst, still coming. Leaders are servants in this kingdom. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female–all have equal standing. There’s a banquet table with enough delicious, healthy food for everyone. The choir’s made up of birds and angels and all God’s critters; sun and moon and stars even sing. All the variety of skin colors and dress and music and dance glorify God. Death does not end life–it transforms it into new life–and Love continues to hold us and connect us to loved ones.

This is not a shuffling of the pieces on the board. This is a whole new board and brand new pieces. From death shall come new life, not just the old life resuscitated. "Doxology [or praise] is the ultimate challenge to the language of managed reality," Walter Brueggemann writes (Prophetic Imagination), and it is only when we are open to the possibility of a truly new reality that we can be re-energized, given the strength and hope to even become part of God’s new creation. "By your endurance," Jesus said, "you will gain your souls."

And despite what the powers that be would have us believe, truly experiencing our grief– our grief over the loss of loved ones, our grief over the poisoning and poaching of our planet, our grief over the loss of the dream we may have had for our country–truly experiencing our grief can break through the numbness that would keep us powerless and merely reactive. Our discouragement, our despair, our "what difference could I possibly make?" only serve the status quo, not God. We must not be afraid of the upheaval, of our world’s being turned upside down. It just may be God’s Holy Spirit stirring things up, shaking things down so that we will finally empty our pockets of all the stuff that’s weighing us down, that we will let go our grip of all to which we so tightly cling as being essential for our lives, and finally let go into God, whose radical freedom and creativity are in fact our hope, here and now, as well as in the future.

Imagine! "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox...they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord." Might we begin by an act of imagining new heavens and a new earth? "Any church that stops leaning toward ‘new heavens and new earth," writes one sage, " any church which no longer keeps taut the tension between the world as it is and the world as God intends it to be, is a sadly compromised and accommodated church." (Childress, op cit.)

What if we were lean into joy? Into a whole new earth? What if we were to invest our money, our time, our imaginations into this new "thing" that God is bringing to birth, even now, in our midst, even through us? Imagine!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Praise, praise, praise!?"-- Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21-- Nov. 10, 2013

The Church has its own secret language. Walter Brueggeman calls it "odd." We use words that only make sense here–sacrament, salvation, atonement, confession, doxology, benediction, and my personal favorite – "hermeneutic" (which means, how we interpret the Bible). These words may sneak into outside useage occasionally, but they are at their most authentic in the context of the Church’s life and worship, which means they are increasingly becoming extinct, no longer many people’s native tongue.

One of the words that permeates the Bible and our worship is "praise"–"praise the Lord!" Our first hymn is almost always a "hymn of praise"–"Praise, My Soul, the God of Heaven." There are some psalms that use "PRAISE" in every line, like Psalm 150–"Praise the Lord! Praise God in the sanctuary; praise God in the mighty firmament! Praise God for his mighty deeds; praise God according to his surpassing greatness! Praise God with trumpet sound... with lute and harp! ...with tamborine and dance...with strings and pipe! ...with clanging cymbals; ...with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" "We just wanna praise you, Lord!" sing the evangelicals in Praise choruses. "I will extol you [there’s one of those "odd" words], my God and King," begins Psalm 145 which David read for us this morning, "and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever."

Yikes! That’s a whole lotta praising going on!

But does God "need" our praise? Is God so insecure that the Holy One just needs perpetual praise and reinforcement? What does it mean, really, to "praise God" night and day, and whatever can it mean to have rocks and hills "praise God"?

"Do we know what it means to praise? To adore? To give glory?" the Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton asked in his book Praying the Psalms.

Praise is cheap today,

[Merton wrote in 1956]. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets that are supposed to make life more comfortable–everything is constantly being ‘praised.’ Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it, and since everything is ‘praised’ with the official hollow enthusiasm of the radio announcer, it turns out in the end that nothing is praised. Praise has become empty. No one really wants to use it...

So,

[Merton says][because we don’t want to "praise God,"] we go to [God] to ask help and to get out of being punished, and to mumble that we need a better job, more money, more of the things that are praised by advertisements. And we wonder why our prayer is so often dead.

Merton wrote that the psalms–these ancients songs of Israel’s worship-- lead naturally to contemplation. He recommended choosing one at a time and making it the heart of one’s morning and evening meditation or prayer. (If you do that sort of thing). Spend time with it. "Praise the Lord, O my soul...and all that is within me, praise God’s holy name." Morning and evening...maybe at noon. See what it does to you. Let it do its work on you.

When my father died, I decided to take on the Jewish practice of saying the Mourners’ Kaddish every day for one year after he died. It’s a prayer that never mentions the loved one’s name or anything really about death; it simply praises God, who made the universe and life as it is.

Let God’s name be made great and holy in the world that was created as God willed. May God complete the holy realm in your own lifetime, in your days, and in the days of all the house of Israel, quickly and soon. And say: Amen. May God’s great name be blessed, forever and as long as worlds endure. May it be blessed, and praised, and glorified, and held in honor, viewed with awe, embellished, and revered; and may the blessed name of holiness be hailed, though it be higher than all the blessings, songs, praises, and consolations that we utter in this world. And say: Amen. May Heaven grant a universal peace, and life for us, and for all Israel. And say: Amen. May the one who creates harmony above, make peace for us and for all Israel, and for all who dwell on earth. And say: Amen. [Prayers for a House of Mourning]

Over and over. Night after night. Some nights it was all I could to keep my eyes open. Some nights the words were meaningless. But it became part of me. It reminded me that life is as it is, that there is a deeper wisdom and blessing in life than always appears, that I and my father were part of something much greater than both of us, that deeper than my meager imagination was a harmony and radiance and love which permeates the universe. Praise God. Bless God’s holy name.

I’ve spoken before about thanksgiving–that if the only prayer you offer is "thank you," that’s enough. It still is. But my friend and colleague, Marshall Hudson-Knapp–a former member of this congregation and pastor of the Fair Haven Congregational Church for the last 35 years or so–and I have had an ongoing conversation about the difference between thanksgiving and praise. Praise is slightly different from thanksgiving, Marsh maintains. Thanksgiving has a subtle thread that refers back to us. "Thank you, God, for this thing that somehow makes or has made my life fuller, more beautiful, more peaceful"–whether it’s God’s presence with me or the one whose well-being is on my heart, whether it’s for the food or the view or the company which nourishes me... Thanksgiving is always somehow self-referential.

But praise-- as I’ve come to learn from Marsh–praise seems one-directional–it just goes out there. It’s just about God, not about me. "So does that mean God is ultimately transcendent," I asked Marsh, "ultimately other?" "And inescapably imminent," Marsh nodded. "Inescapably inside of us." [This is the kind of conversation clergy have when they get together!] Praise, at the very least, gets us out of ourselves. It affirms that we are part of something much greater than ourselves. It’s not all about us. That’s why music is often a much more effective form of praise than words, not for God’s sake, [although maybe God prefers music] but for ours–it’s too easy for us to get caught up on the words, whereas music–if it’s truly great music-- has the power to transport us beyond ourselves. And, some would argue, music speaks more truly the language of the soul.

Another way to get beyond ourselves is service, of course. Tending to another’s need instead of ruminating on our own is a time-honored way of healing mild depression or of just being in a "funk." To praise God by serving another is a deeply wise practice, and sometimes may have more integrity than going through the motions of ritual or "worship"--

I hate, I despise your festivals,

[God says through the prophet Amos] and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (5:21-24)

"Every day I will bless you, [God], and praise your name forever and ever." While praise takes us out of ourselves, it also connects us to our true Selves. In the act of praising, we enter into ongoing creative activity of God, we align ourselves with God’s being and with the ultimate truth of our lives. What we focus on is what we give our attention to; we might even say that we become what we focus on. God’s presence becomes larger in our awareness. We become more generous when we focus on God’s generosity; we become more compassionate when we meditate on God’s compassion. Rather than focusing on our faults, our blemishes, like the minister with the radiated facial deformity that Maria Sirois told us about, we can focus on what is beautiful and good and true within us. That doesn’t mean ignoring our faults and blemishes, it simply enfolds them into a larger picture.

In the praise psalms, praising the God of creation, the source of all abundance, Walter Brueggemann says that "Israel’s song of ‘exuberant trust’ praises the way God set things up, the way God established ‘a coherent, viable, life-giving, life-permitted order–a place for life." (Cited by Kate Huey in Sermon Seeds, 11/10/13) "Exuberant trust"–I like that. "The Lord watches over all who love God," the psalmist says in v.20, but then we read that jarring statement, "but all the wicked God will destroy." Is this the God we trust in, exuberantly or otherwise?

"The happiness or prosperity of the righteous, "writes Clinton McCann, "is not so much a reward as it is their experience of being connected to the true source of life–God." [That’s what praise does–it connects us to God.] Similarly [he says] the destruction of the wicked is not so much a punishment as it is the result of their own choice to cut themselves off from the source of life. The compassionate God does not will to destroy the wicked, but their own autonomy gives God no choice." (Cited by Huey, op cit.) Or, I would say, "their own autonomy chooses for them their own result, which is disconnection to God, which is ultimately destruction."

So we praise God....which connects us to God...which puts our lives in such a vast, mysterious, wondrous context that, in the midst of-- and at the end of-- such a life of praise, we can let go, knowing that we are connected by so many threads to God that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which we know in Christ Jesus. To praise God is to align ourselves with the Truth of the universe, including ourselves–which rocks and hills and trees automatically do, so they "praise God." To praise God is to notice, be aware of, the wonder and beauty and mystery all around us, not so hard in this season now passing, but possible in every season. To praise God is to notice, be aware of, the wonder and beauty and mystery within–"I praise you, God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"–how amazing that our bodies work the way they do! That they heal and re-route pathways, that they are built for pleasure and given pain to notify us that something’s wrong, that they are able to express love and caring and solidarity.

And even in the midst of times when praise seems the farthest thing from our minds– when we are confronted with injustice or cruelty or pain or illness or even death–the psalms provide models for us as well. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" one psalm well-known to Jesus begins. We can express any and all emotions in God’s presence–anger, despair, vengeance, grief– as many of the psalms do--but there’s always an "And yet," or "still...I will praise you...my ancestors trusted in you...You are my God." The threads of praise still connecting us.

Help, Thanks, Wow is the title of Anne LaMott’s book on prayer–a slight modification on the claim that "thanks" is the only prayer you need. "Wow" is praise. "Oh, wow, oh wow, oh wow!" are the last words Apple founder Steve Jobs is said to have uttered as he died.

Finally, Walter Brueggemann offers this guide to prayer–

...these words that tell our truth bind us to you, and to your passionate truthfulness. While the words linger sweetly on our lips, we are summoned beyond ourselves–as we always are–summoned to you, in awe and doxology, and exuberance. Summoned past ourselves to you...only to say...

Alleluia...God of heaven;

alleluia....still the same forever;

alleluia...slow to chide,

swift to bless;

alleluia...gladly all our burdens bearing.

When we sound these ancient cadences, we know ourselves to be at the threshold with all your creatures in heaven and on earth, everyone from rabbits and parrots to angels and seraphim...alleluia...angels teaching us how to adore you.

And then in the middle of our praise which causes us to float very light, we are jarred and sobered:

Dwellers [as we are] in time and space

...

In time–the beginning of winter, as so many will not have enough to heat their homes...alleluia;

In time-- as flu season begins, and we cannot figure out a way to provide healthcare for all...alleluia;

In place–in the Philippines, where thousands are lost to wind and waves; in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, where cars explode and children are gassed...alleluia;

In place–in Washington, where the rich are given seats and the poor are forgotten; here, where escape and pleasure are sought through drugs, where lines form at the Kitchen Cupboard...alleluia;

That is how it is when we praise you. We join the angels in praise, and we keep our feet in time and place...awed to heaven, rooted in earth. We are daily stretched between communion with you and our bodied lives, spent but alive, summoned and cherished but stretched between. And we are reminded that before us there has been this One truly divine (at ease with the angels) truly human...dwellers in time and space. We are thankful for him, and glad to be in his missional company. Alleluia. Amen. (Brueggemann, Awed to heaven, Rooted in Earth, pp. 85-6)

 

And amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"No Shame" --Luke 19:1-10-- November 3, 2013

One of the elements of humor is that it’s often unexpected, it surprises us. It turns a phrase in a way that catches us off guard. "Autumn leaves. Jesus doesn’t." [seen on an outdoor church sign yesterday, theme of children’s moment today]. So, imagine my surprise and the smile that came over my face when I read this in a Biblical commentary--

"Even in antiquity, the only exercise some people got was jumping to conclusions." (John Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Yr. C, p. 160) It’s a wonderful image, but of course, jumping to conclusions can have devastating or even deadly consequences. Take the issue of racial profiling. Or perhaps less dramatic but no less hurtful, all those prejudices–which means, "pre-judgement"–we all have. We judge people by the way they look, by who they remind us of, by what we’ve been taught about them, all before we ever speak to them, let alone get to know them.

The gospel of Luke is full of "reversals," of having common assumptions turned upside down, beginning with Mary’s song when she is pregnant with Jesus-- about the mighty being taken down from their thrones, and the poor lifted up. About the hungry being filled with good things and the rich sent away empty. There’s the unlikely Samaritan rescuer of the man who had fallen among thieves, or the rich man who went away sadly from Jesus, because for all his righteousness, he couldn’t let go of his possessions. There’s the defenseless widow who persistently comes to the judge to demand justice. There’s the shepherd leaving the 99 and seeking out the 1 lost sheep, or the woman sweeping her entire house to find the one lost coin.

So here at the end of Luke’s travel narrative about Jesus’ determined journey toward Jerusalem, we find Jesus seeking out a tax collector, of all people, even one who was hiding out in a tree so he could catch a glimpse of Jesus. "Zacchaeus," Jesus calls up to him, "hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today."

So Zacchaeus scrambles down the tree, suddenly full of hope and joy, but he can hear the crowd grumbling around him. My guess is his ears were pretty well-tuned to that sort of thing. "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner," is what they were saying, and Jesus looked at Zacchaeus as if to say, "Hey, they grumble about me all the time. This isn’t about you."

But Zacchaeus stands his ground and protests. Most of the versions we read, and most of the versions we learned, have him say, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Another sinner repentant in the presence of Jesus.

But what usually gets translated in the future tense–"Half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor.... and I will pay back four times as much"–now is recognized by may reliable translators as actually the present tense–the progressive present tense. In the Greek, this has the meaning of a repeated, ongoing action. So, "Look–half of my possessions, Lord, I already give to the poor. And if I [find that] I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay them back four times as much." Roman law required a payback of four times only for convicted criminals, and the Torah required restitution of the object or amount plus 20% interest. Zacchaeus has more than fulfilled both laws.

In fact, the name "Zacchaeus" means "innocent," "pure," or "righteous one." Maybe he is. Maybe instead of a story of redemption, this is a story of revelation. (Richard Swanson, cited in Kate Huey, Sermon Seeds, 11/3/13) Zacchaeus knows he is part of a system that oppresses. He’s part of the 8% of Palestinian culture who were the "retainer class," serving the 2% of elites, who controlled and acquired their wealth which was produced by peasants. Rome taxed every aspect of daily life, and they depended on a system of tax collectors, set up at crossroads or harbors or markets to collect those taxes, but those tax collectors all worked under "chief tax collectors," like Zacchaeus, who had to pay the tax upfront to Rome, and then recoup their payout. It was only by surcharging or graft that any of the tax collectors could make a living. Zacchaeus, "the righteous one," one commentator (Huey) suggests, wants to make reparation for his gain from the system, and can’t live with the fact that he has benefited from the system which has oppressed others. "The fact is," writes Fred Craddock, "that one is not privately righteous while participating in a corrupt system that robs and crushes other persons." (Huey, op cit.) How many of us sit uneasily with the fact that we benefit from a system that crushes so many? I wonder if certain outwardly pious politicians ever are challenged to think about that from the pulpits they attend to.

Stan Duncan, a UCC pastor who went on the trip to Honduras with Sue Wiskoski and Vic Callirgos and me 10 years ago, writes that tax collectors in almost every instance were viewed negatively by the wealthy, including the Pharisees, while almost universally befriended by Jesus. (Blog, 11/3/13) Again, I wonder how many "Christian" Tea party members are aware of that.

So maybe Zacchaeus, like his name implied, was in fact, a "righteous" tax collector, just like the other tax collector whom Jesus named in his story about the Pharisee and tax collector both praying. Jesus saw that; in fact, sought him out. The crowd, though, had already formed their opinion of him. "Even in antiquity, the only exercise some people got was jumping to conclusions." There seemed to be "conclusion-jumpers" all around that day.

But then there is that other detail that must have been so remarkable that Luke retained it in his story. Zacchaeus had trouble seeing Jesus because "he was short." Now, actually, it’s not clear whether it’s Zacchaeus or Jesus who was short, but somehow a "short" savior is unbearable. So, let’s say it was Zacchaeus who was short. Maybe he had been teased and even bullied his whole life because he was small. Maybe that’s why he became a tax collector–at least he then had Roman soldiers to back him up. Zaccheaus was aware that he bore some guilt for what he did–for the job he apparently did well–and so he went over and above to repair the breach. "Half of my possessions, I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone, I pay back four times the value."

But Zacchaeus also knew shame–not for what he did, but for what he was–short. "He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature." She was trying to eat at the lunch counter, but because of the "crowd" she could not, because she was black. He was trying to rent an apartment with his partner, but because of the "crowd" he could not, because he was gay. Shame is about who you are, not what you’ve done. You’re black or brown, you’re Latino, you’re not physically attractive, you battle with depression, you’re gay or lesbian or bisexual or transsexual, you’ve never married, you’ve never had a child, you’re not cool, you don’t have the right clothes, you’re a band geek instead of a jock, your mother drinks too much, your father is unemployed. Shame. Shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown defines shame as the "intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging." Everybody’s experienced shame, she says, but shame grows exponentially when kept in secrecy, silence, and judgment. Shame that is kept secret and silent is lethal, Dr. Brown says, and "we [as a culture] are swimming in it deep." (Super Soul Sunday interview, OWN) Think about it. Is this not true in your experience? Have you not experienced that "intensely painful feeling," that hot face and churning stomach, when someone or something has triggered a "shame storm" in your? I happen to think Bennington is swimming in shame.

What shame cannot survive, Brown says, is empathy and being spoken; though, I might add, as she does elsewhere, that our stories of shame should only be spoken to someone who can be trusted. Zacchaeus knew Jesus was someone who could be trusted. He responded "whole-heartedly [as Kate Huey says] to God’s radical grace in his life." (Op cit.) "Here’s the good news," writes another commentator (Peter Woods, I am listening, 10/26/10)–"Jesus is drawn to shame. Shame and sadness are the pheromones that attract the amazing grace of Jesus." In a culture that was based on honor and shame, Jesus consistently zeroed in on the people defined as shameful by that culture–the outcasts, the possessed, the sick, the non-attached– and reconnected them to community. "Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and connection," remember? This isn’t shame as we use it when we say, "Have you no shame?" Or "Shame on you!" What we mean then is really, "Have you no conscience?"

The church is often perceived as being in the shaming business, the finger-wagging business, but that in itself is "a shame." I see Jesus confronting the shame-- that "intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and connection"-- head-on and being the vehicle for transforming that shame into re-connection, healing, the embodiment of love and worthiness. In fact, Jesus took the shame on himself, up to and including the excruciating pain and shame of crucifixion. Part of the good news of the resurrection is that even death cannot make us unworthy of love and connection.

Brene Brown writes of those who are able to overcome shame as whole-hearted people, people who live with courage, compassion, and connection. ("Gifts of Imperfection") Zacchaeus experiences such joy and wholeheartedness when he scrambles down that tree to Jesus and tells him who he really is. Not so with the rich young man who had followed all the rules but couldn’t detach himself from his money.

"Today salvation has come to this house," Jesus said, reaching out to touch Zacchaeus’ arm, "because he too is a son of Abraham." This one whom you thought you knew but never took the time to know, this one whom you have kept out of the circle of community, he too is a son of Abraham. He is part of the family. Salvation, wholeness, restoration, has come to this house today. There is no shame here.

Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here. You are welcome to this table. Jesus must eat at your house–at our house-- today. Come, let us keep the feast!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"The Long Defeat"-- Luke 18:1-8 -- October 20, 2013

The news of the suicides of three teen-age girls this week has been heart-breaking and sobering. The Banner reported that a student at Mt. Anthony Union Middle School had com-mitted suicide, and our thoughts and prayers have been not only with this young girl’s family but also with Tim Payne and his staff and students as they have dealt with this tragedy. Though the initial reports are that bullying was not involved with this death, it does appear to have been involved in the cases from Mt. Abraham High School and earlier this month in Florida. One of the bullyers in the Florida case, a 14-year-old girl, is reported to have admitted to bullying the student and not caring that the girl was now dead.

Though yesterday’s Banner carried a story about the violent and abusive atmosphere in which this 14-year-old bully has grown up, it is still distressing to hear what seems to be more and more common– no sense of remorse or responsibility for the harmful results of one’s actions, a sense of anomie, that is, lawlessness, no sense of a moral code, an utter disregard for the consequences of one’s actions. We find it in computer hackers who thrill at the chaos and devastation they can wreak from the privacy of their bedrooms or kitchen tables upon not only corporations and governments but also countless citizens whose home computers are infected. We find it in ultra-libertarians, who see their own individual liberty as being paramount, regardless of their impact on others. We hear echoes of it in students who say that cheating on a test or paper is perfectly fine, as long as they don’t get caught.

"In a certain city," Jesus began, "there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people." "There is no greater definition of impunity," writes one commentator, "than someone who has power and yet has no fear of God nor regard for humanity. [Mark Davis, Left Behind, 10/20/13] People like that, including the judge in this parable, are "living as if there is no moral order to the universe, life has no divine purpose, meaning, or consequences." This judge who had no "fear of God" had "no sense of accountability for serving justice, rather than [his] own self-interest."

Jesus goes on. "In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent’–probably a relative of her deceased husband or someone else trying to advantage of her vulnerability. "For a while [the judge] refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’"

These daily encounters between the widow and the judge would have been very public scenes. All legal proceedings took place at the city gate, not in closed courtrooms, so the widow’s grievances, and her wailing upon the judge, were heard and seen in the court of public opinion as well. The Torah was quite clear about the responsibility to care for widows, orphans, and foreigners, so the judge’s disregard for the Torah was as public as his disregard for the widow’s plight. He was in fact, being shamed by this widow’s persistence, and the black and blue marks on his face (which is what the Greek implies by the word for "wearing me out") were becoming badges of shame. It is finally to restore his honor–so essential in this culture-- that he grants the widow justice.

"Listen to what the unjust judge says," Jesus concludes. "And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them."

Luke’s community was tired of waiting for the return of Jesus, tired of waiting for God to bring justice and the fulfilment of history. So, Luke says, "Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." How much more tired then, we might ask, are we, some 2000 years later? When young men and women throw themselves off towers and bridges because of callous bullying...when aid to children’s food and education programs is cut off while corporate profits soar...when elephants are slaughtered and their tusks hacked off to be made into trinkets...when political candidates are bought and sold...when a few have infinitely more than enough while most have barely enough to survive–aren’t we entitled to being a little tired and tempted to give up hope?

In JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, "the Elves of Lothlorien admit that they’re losing their forest lands. But they battle on. They describe their struggle as ‘fighting the long defeat.’" (cited by Dan Clendenin, Journey with Jesus, 10/14/13) In the letters of Tolkein, the author describes the human struggle in similar terms. "Actually, I am a Christian [he writes], and indeed a Roman Catholic, so I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’–though it contains...some samples or glimpses of final victory." (Clendenin, op cit.)

In Tracy Kidder’s biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, entitled Mountains Beyond Mountains, Farmer describes the battle to bring health care to the poor of Haiti, using Tolkein’s phrase again:

"I have fought the long defeat [Farmer says] and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory....We want to be on the winning team but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat." (Cited by Clendenin, op cit.)

Nelson Mandela, 27 years in a South African prison, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest for so many years in Burma/Myanmar, Martin Luther King Jr., all fighting the long defeat, yet believing that, as King put it, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice." " Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart."

Over these past weeks, a crowd of people gathered on the lawn of the Capitol for what they called a Faithful Filibuster. Every day that Congress was in session over the shut-down, they engaged in prayer and a public reading of the 2000 or more verses in the Bible about poverty and justice. Their effect was powerful, and in the last days, three Republican Senators–Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine–joined them in prayer before walking into the Capitol to propose an end to the shutdown. The Faithful Filibuster was of course most powerful for those who participated in it. One woman who was on furlough came to observe, and joined in to read. "I thought I was walking over to observe something holy, but I had no idea that God was going to use this to encourage me. Being asked to step to a podium and read the word of God a day after I was told it wasn’t my place brought me to tears....We serve a God who has put passion in the hearts of all His children. If we silence even one of those voices, we are missing out on a precious piece of God’s redemptive plan for this side of Eden!" (Cited by Jim Wallis in Hearts and Minds, Sojourners, 10/17/13)

The word for "widow" in Hebrew means silent one, one unable to speak. Barbara Brown Taylor writes that the widow in this parable of Jesus "was willing to say what she wanted–out loud day and night, over and over–whether she got it or not, because saying it was how she remembered who she was. It was how she remembered the shape of her heart." (BBT, Home by Another Way, p. 201)

" Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." Don’t lose heart. Don’t forget the shape of your heart. In his sermon to the Southwest Association up at Grace Congregational Church in Rutland a few weeks ago, Jerry Handspicker spoke about our call and need to be faithful, not successful. We must not forget that the shape of our heart is relational, communal, longing for and in fact held in the heart of God. So we must continue to stand with those who have no voice, no power, even though the odds seem stacked against us. That’s why we walk in the CROP Walk this afternoon. So we must continue to "pray always," not just like brushing our teeth, as part of our spiritual hygiene program, as Barbara Taylor puts it, once in the morning and once at night, but always– always open to the heart of God, always listening for God’s whisper, always straining for a glimpse of the kingdom of God in our midst.

Jerry quoted 3 great warriors in this long defeat. Czech poet and leader Vaclav Havel wrote, "Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."

And Thomas Merton, 20^th. C. saint and Trappist monk–"Do not depend on the hope of results...you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no results at all, if not the opposite of what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself...In the end it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything."

And finally Margaret Wheatley, author and organizational consultant. Jerry quoted her, saying, "The only thing we can predict is that life will surprise us. We can’t see what is coming until it arrives, and once something has emerged, we have to work with what is. We have to be flexible and willing to adapt–we can’t keep pushing ahead, blustering on with our outdated plans and dreams. And it doesn’t do to deny what has emerged. We need to be present and willing to accept this new reality." Compelling words for the church.

" Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart."

The November issue of National Geographic magazine arrived yesterday, and the editorial addresses the question, "Why cover a place so full of sadness?" referring to their story on the ongoing violence in northern Nigeria. "Why cover a place...like northern Nigeria–a place so beset by insurgency and corruption, so full of sadness and violence? [the editor asks] "To tell stories that need to be told," answers Ed Kashi, the story’s photographer. To bear witness. To hope the story adds to the conversation. Perhaps to make a difference...Who will speak for this woman crossing the street? [the editor asks, referring to the picture of an anxious woman leading her family across the street on their way to church] Not the government. Not the terrorists who bomb churches, schools, and mosques. Violence, we know all too well, has no borders. It matters that we pay attention to and report these stories. ‘When I see someone struggling, it’s in my DNA to help,’ [photographer] Ed Kashi says. If only by bearing witness to a frightened woman crossing the street. (NG, Nov. 2013, p. 4)

Surely it is in our DNA to help, when we see someone struggling. " Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." Remember the shape of your heart. Pray always. Do not lose heart.

May these words be hope and courage and strength for us, for the living of these days. Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Obedient, but not in love"-- Luke 17:11-19-- Oct. 13, 2013

 

You may have noticed that there’s a whole lot of blaming and complaining and griping going on these days. "Missiles of righteousness," to use a phrase from Eugene Peterson, are being launched from one side of Congress and one end of the Mall to the other. Op ed pieces and radio and tv commentators do not lack for material, as the drama in Washington continues day by day. But, of course, it’s not just taking place in Washington, but also here in our own community, where levels of anxiety are rising amongst those whose benefit checks are held up and in jeopardy, those whose children are enrolled in Headstart, those on furlough, those whose already meager food stamp benefits are soon to be reduced even more. Congress’s positive ratings, if you can even call them that, are hovering somewhere around 5%.

So, it’s easy to get caught up in the blame game, the fist shaking, the hair-pulling. And doesn’t that make it all better? Doesn’t that make you feel better? I have to say it’s not working too well for me. There’s a certain pit in my stomach when I wake up to the news on our clock radio alarm. There are certain voices that I just have to turn off when I hear them on the radio or TV. We hear plenty of "us" and "them" talk, words like "extremists," even "terrorists," the gap seems to get wider and wider and my level of frustration and even anger and disgust rises.

It was into just such a boundary region between hostile sides that Luke says Jesus and his disciples were making their way to Jerusalem, "going through the region between Samaria and Galilee," separated by ancient and deep hostilities. And just on the edge of one of the villages, 10 lepers approached. It was a mixed group, made up of Jews and Samaritans, but they were bound together in their outsider status. The skin disease was not discriminating–it took Samaritan fingers and toes as eagerly as it took Galilean ones. With their prescribed rags and tinkling warning bells, their mouths covered with whatever was left to cover with, you couldn’t really tell the difference between a leper from Galilee or a leper from Samaria.

So, "keeping their distance, [as Torah demanded], they called out, saying ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean." There was no laying on of hands here, no making of spittle and rubbing it on eyes or ears, not really even words like, "You are healed." Just the instruction to go and show themselves to the priests in the Temple, who could pronounce them clean or unclean, and give them certificates to get back to their lives, if they passed the test.

So, obediently, they did as they were told. The ten headed down the road to the Temple, and it was only then, as they were walking, that they noticed they were healed. Strength returned to limbs shriveled and shortened; hands stretched out in fullness long gone; itching, scaling skin became smooth and pink. And the nine quickened their pace, racing to the Temple to receive their clean bills of health and to get on with their lives.

But the other one realized as he ran and felt himself becoming whole that the priests in the Temple would have no clean bill for him because there was no such thing as a "clean Samaritan." He wouldn’t even be allowed inside. He would not be given back his life through any ritual, but he knew what relationship could make him whole, and the joy of it all–the healing, the healer, the Power that had shot through his body with the words of Jesus–well, the joy of it made him leap around in the air and head back the other way, back to the Source of his healing and wholeness, and in a great, loud, slobbery show of emotion, he prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet, praising God and thanking Jesus.

It was then that Jesus wondered out loud–"Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well," or, as the Greek says, "your faith has saved you."

Where were the other nine? At the Temple, Jesus, just where you told them to go. They were being obedient. "Ten behaved like good lepers, good Jews [writes Barbara Brown Taylor]; only one, a double loser [the leper and the Samaritan] behaved like a man in love." (Taylor, The Preaching Life, p. 110)

Taylor tells the story of her urban Episcopal Church in Georgia, where she was one of the priests on staff.

At this church

[she writes] we leave the sanctuary open five days a week from nine to five, like the banks and businesses that surround us. We like to think of it as a peace offering to our corporate neighbors...a kind of oasis in the middle of the city...But as you also know, the city is full of all kinds of people, and not everyone comes in here with godly intentions. So we have installed a closed circuit television camera to keep an eye on the place, to make sure no one runs off with the candlesticks or does anything unseemly in the pews, like drink or sleep or embrace. You have got to be sensible about these things.

The monitor sits beside the receptionist’s desk in the parish office, where the volunteer on the desk can keep watch over the altar and its furnishings. One day last fall the receptionist on duty became concerned. "There’s a man lying face down on the altar steps," she said. "I wouldn’t bother you, but he’s been there for hours. Every now and then he stands and raises his arms toward the altar, and lies down again. Do you think he’s all right?" Four priests and several staff members conferred over the matter and elected the parish superintendent to go check on the man. As he did so, we all huddled around the monitor to watch. Our envoy appeared on the screen, walked up to the man, exchanged a few words with him, and returned to the parish office.

"He says he’s praying."

"Aha," we said, thanking him for this information.

It went on for days. Every morning around eleven the receptionist would look up from her desk and there he would be, prostrated before the altar, his hair in knots, his worn clothes covered with dustballs from the floor. The sexton cleaned around him; the altar guild tried not to disturb him when they came to polish the silver; the florist asked if he should leave the flowers somewhere else but we said no, just step over the man and put them on the altar where they belong.

We discussed the problem at staff meeting. "Should we do something?" someone asked. "I don’t know," said someone else, "what do you think?

"I think I want to get on that guy’s prayer list," one of us said, and we all laughed.

Finally it was Sunday, and my turn to celebrate communion at the early service. He was there when I arrived, blocking my path to the altar, and I did not know what to do. Maybe he was drunk, surely he was crazy–what would happen if I asked him to move? Approaching him as if I were approaching a land mine, I tapped him on the shoulder. He was so skinny, so dirty. "Excuse me," I said, "but there’s going to be a service in here in a few minutes. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to move.’

He lifted his forehead from the floor and spoke with a heavy Haitian accent. "That’s okay," he said, rising and dusting himself off in one dignified motion. Then he left, and he never came back. The 8 o’clock service began on time. The faithful took their places and I took mine. We read our parts well. We spoke when we were supposed to speak and were silent when we were supposed to be silent. We offered up our symbolic gifts, we performed our bounden duty and service, and there was nothing wrong with what we did, nothing at all. We were good servants, careful and contrite sinners who had come for our ritual cleansing, but one of us was missing. The foreigner was no longer among us; he had risen and gone his way, but the place where he lay on his face for hours–making a spectacle of himself–seemed all at once so full of heat and light that I stepped around it on my way out, chastened if only for that moment by the call to a love so excessive, so disturbing, so beyond the call to obedience that it made me want to leave all my good works behind. [Taylor, op cit., pp. 110-12]

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

Nine were obedient. One was in love. Where are we in this story? I know where I put most of my energy–it’s into being obedient. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I think, unless you find that you never do anything simply for the love of it, simply for the love of God. I am a product of those beloved "Frozen Chosen," good Protestants who know about obedience and duty and doing things properly and in order, but I confess to sharing Janice Campbell’s complaint from last week’s ‘epistle,’ that sometimes "I just can’t stand it!" When was the last time I – or you–or any of us, were overcome by love and did something impetuous, even "wild and crazy", for Love? How often do we turn aside from the Road of Obedience to say "thank you"? My guess is that we who are still in the institutional church are perceived at best to be obedient, but when was the last time we were accused of being in love?

"The root of joy," writes Brother David Stendl-Rast, "is gratefulness...it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful." What if we were to notice the blessings, the beauty, in our daily lives? Noticed them and named them? Might we experience not only blessing but joy? It’s a well-proven fact–writing down 3-5 things for which you’re grateful every night for at least a couple of weeks will make you happier. Try writing a thank-you letter to someone who has made a difference in your life, and, if they’re still alive, send it to them. Better yet, if they’re within phone or physical proximity, read it to them yourself. See not just how good it makes them feel but how good it make you feel.

The one man who not only noticed he was healed but came back to name his blessing and give thanks for it received a double blessing. "Your faith has made you whole," Jesus said. "Your faith has saved you." Nine were healed. One was saved, made whole. That’s what the others missed.

Gratitude frees us from fear and anxiety, it connects us to something larger. "If the only prayer you make is ‘thank you,’" the mystic Meister Eckhart said, "then that is enough." If we try to shape every prayer into a prayer of thanks–even those where the thanks seems premature or even naive-- it has a way of changing us, even saving us. "Thank you, God, for already being with me when I make that presentation." Instead of, "O God, help me make that presentation!" Feel the difference? "Thank you, God, for the healing you intend for Cindy." Rather than, "O God, please heal Cindy." Sometimes it’s a real challenge, especially when we know what we want to happen. Giving thanks to God for already being in the midst of our prayer concern bridges the gap between us and God.

And speaking of gaps, can you imagine what might happen if every discussion between John Boehner and Harry Reid began with each man thanking the other for something–maybe 3 things-- they had done? If those on the left and right began their conversation with each other with, "I appreciate your concern for those who are without access to health care," and "I agree that we need to build on Americans’ compassion and care for each other"? It may seem a little forced or gimmicky, but what have we got to lose?

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

May we–just once–and then maybe another time–get so caught up in gratitude that we do something absurdly extravagant, something even wild and crazy, that we are overcome with joy and love. People may start talking about us, you know... and we just might be saved.

Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"The Face of Jesus"-- October 6, 2013

From the very beginning of the movement, followers of Jesus have been sharing their experiences of him and sending letters to encourage one another. "Epistles" was the word the tradition used, and the apostle Paul, of course, was one of the great epistle writers. His students and co-workers, in fact, would later write epistles, using "Paul’s" name, and it wasn’t thought of as plagiarism or copyright infringement, it was just keeping the energy and the fire going.

This morning we have an "epistle" from one of our church members who has moved away but was an important part of our church’s ministry while she and her family lived here. Janice Campbell was our Ministries Coordinator for a year, back a few years when we first tried out that position. She and her husband Ty and son Quincy now live in Virginia, but keep in touch through the wonders of the internet.

It is through that medium that Janice’s epistle comes to us today. When I read it, I thought immediately that this was a message that would be wonderful to hear on this World Communion Sunday–

The Face of Jesus

Recently I have been pondering how we usually celebrate the Lord’s Supper. And by "we", I mean the Protestant church in general with the little cups or little pieces of bread. How we stand in line, taking turns. It’s all very polite. We’re all very solemn and respectful.

I just can’t stand it. It drives me crazy.

I’m thinking of the movie of Charles Dickinson’s, "The Christmas Carol", the one with George C. Scott. When the Ghost of Christmas Present shows up, he’s like a huge Viking having a feast. And the feast is one of total Abundance. There’s food everywhere. And when he drinks wine from his goblet, it rolls down his chin. Very messy. But so full of life, it takes my breath away just to think of it. That’s how I want to celebrate.

By the way, Big J and the Boys were celebrating the Passover meal. When we celebrate the "Last Supper", we say, "In remembrance of me." When I’m remembering Jesus, I can’t be polite and solemn. I have to feel the gusto, the exuberance. And I think Jesus didn’t mean for us to only remember him at this "Lord’s Supper". I think he meant to think of him constantly, all the time, whenever we eat, whenever we drink, whenever we breathe.

OK. This brings me to last week. I was having a glass of wine, or two. And I was thinking of all this and I decided to dip bread into the wine as my own little form of Communion. And when I did, when I looked up, there was the face of Jesus. An alive face. I could see his head. No body. Just the head. It sounds weird but it didn’t seem so at the time. It was like looking into a different dimension. Seeing a live person.

He was gorgeous. Dark hair, dark beard. I hadn’t known he was so dynamic, so charismatic. I can see how everyone who saw him was drawn to him. No one could resist him. Even his enemies could not resist him, that’s why they hated him so.

He was so vivacious. And he was the personification of living in the present. He had no fear, no judgment. Just an incredible compassion and understanding. He was not particularly humble. That was not an issue.

I had never seen that face before. And I’ve never come close to seeing anyone so full of life. It wasn’t like he appreciated life or that he was in awe. It was like he breathed in life with every breath. He was in love with life. He reveled in it...

I do think it was really him. And "Jesus" is the perfect name for him. I have the feeling he had become the quintessential of himself. If we are to be like him, I sure have a hell of a long way to go.

PS…Upon reflection.

I’ve taken time to consider the face I saw…and what I see in the face. As a portrait artist, I’m experienced in detecting personalities from just looking at faces. And there are some amazing characteristics in his face.

I’ve noticed that in writing about this, my verb tense changes back in forth from past to present within the same sentence; which is a no-no for writers. You are supposed to maintain the same verb tense throughout the entire paragraph. But it occurs to me, that this experience has made me aware of Jesus being in the past and in the present at the same time. What I saw, is what I continue to see. I saw him in the past, but he is in the present as well. He transcends time.

When I said he had become the quintessential Jesus, what I saw was that the Christ was fully manifested within him, within the person of Jesus. And that is what caused him to be the fully evolved Jesus. And that is how we are to be like him. Not like Jesus, but like the fully evolved us; with the Christ fully manifested within us. And that will make me the quintessential Janice. Not Jesus. Not Abraham. Not Moses. But Janice.

There was no part of Jesus that was not fully evolved. No more "learning experiences". He was complete. Perfected.

I mentioned earlier that there was no fear. That’s true. I’ve never come upon this in anyone before. Not a smidgen of fear anywhere in him. Makes me remember, "Perfect love casts out fear." That’s true. That is what he had become.

When I say he loved life, he lived life like how little children live life. Not only completely in the moment, but he embraced everything he experienced. No holding back. He jumped into each experience whole heartedly. No judgment on if it was positive or negative. It didn’t matter. It was life. I’m thinking that is how he approached the cross, he even embraced that experience. He embraced each of life’s experiences simply because it was part of being alive, even dying. He shied away from nothing. He feared nothing.

Because of this, little kids and little puppies ran to him, knocking him over. They laughed together and rolled in the grass together. You know how they say you can judge a person by how little kids or how dogs react to them? He was totally approachable.

And he was connected. You know how there are times when you feel connected to nature? Maybe during a walk in the woods or at the ocean? He was like that all the time. Maybe that is how he could calm the sea…he just asked and the sea was happy to comply.

People felt this connection and felt his connection with them. When he looked into your face, you knew that he truly saw you, saw who you are and loved you. There was no need for you to clean up or become a better person. He loves you truly, deeply right now exactly as you are in this moment. Amazing.

Janice Campbell

Summer 2013

May we taste this sweetness, drink in this overflowing life, and live in this love as we share this meal together. So may we be fully alive, to the glory of God forever. Amen.

–ML-C

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