"To an Unknown God"-- Acts 17:22-31-- May 25, 2014

 

It was a very impressive gallery. The wood floor glistened. The lighting was subtle but targeted directly to bring out the shape and shimmer of the objects– a glistening Oscar statue from the Academy of Arts and Sciences; an Emmy, a Tony, an Obie, a Grammy–all the highest awards given to stars of stage and screen and concert hall and internet downloads. There was a Heisman trophy, a Stanley cup, an Olympic gold medal, a Wimbledon cup, a green Master’s jacket–prized honors to athletes at the top of their game. There were framed magazine covers– Time’s Man and Woman of the Year, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, People’s 50 Most Beautiful People, Forbes’ Richest Man, faces and bodies that represent the ideal human form and station in life. And then in one corner was a black and white photograph of a young woman with Afro-Eurasian features– a blend becoming more and more common. Her clothes hung off her body; her eyes were haunting. She was holding a young child in one arm and clutching a plastic garbage bag in the other, leaning wearily against a cement wall, on which had been spray-painted the words, "And the winner is....?"

It was not so unlike the marketplace through which the apostle Paul walked almost 2000 years ago in Athens. "Athenians," he said, standing on the steps of the Areopagus, "I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’"

Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that "all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new." The philosophers debated with one another, and welcomed Paul into their debate, saying "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means." This was a gathering of seekers, "engaged [as one commentator describes it] in intellectual conversation, searching questions, honest answers, lively debate, and real dialogue." (Rev Anne Howard, The Beatitudes Society, 5/20/14)

In the midst of various altars and idols, with the sound of hawkers and sellers and philosophers and chanters, there stood that one altar with the inscription, "To an unknown god." "Maybe it’s not enough," the altar seemed to say for the Athenians, "maybe it’s not enough that we worship the sun over our heads and the ground beneath our feet... Maybe between the altar to the Goddess of the harvest and the God of the sea we’ve missed something..." [Howard, op cit.] "To an unknown god."

That market place, that gallery I mentioned at the beginning, is what we walk through everyday. All around us, on airwaves and microwaves, in magazines and newspapers, on small screens and big screens, the altars of the gods our society worships are all around us. "I see how very religious you are," we might say, even though most people would protest and say, "Oh, I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual."

Paul’s speech--we might even call it a sermon– may be a good model for us as we try to engage in conversation with our "spiritual but not religious" friends and neighbors and family. Even though Luke tells us that Paul was "deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols," he still looks for common ground. "I see how extremely religious you are," he says, ‘and I found among your idols and altars an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’" Paul meets the Athenians where they are and, at least as he begins, he does so without judgment.

"I see that you are seeking." Isn’t that a much better place for conversation than "You’ve got it all wrong" or "I know that I’m right"? "To an unknown god" is a much more honest ascription than a claim to The One and Only Truth, which, of course, Christians have done all too often. Too often we have taken Mystery out of that mysterious name for God–"I am"– and narrowed down the path that Jesus called "the way," shrunk the shimmering wisdom of his "truth," and cut off huge parts of "the life" he embodied–"I am the way, the truth, and the life." "To an unknown God." You must not speak the name of God, our Jewish forebears warned.

St. Augustine, who did quite a bit of seeking of his own in his youth, looking for love in all the wrong places, as they say, wrote, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Our strivings, our addictions, our obsessions, all the things that we make religions or gods of, are all, at their heart, at their deepest level, longings for God. Paul talked about this to the Athenians–

The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is that One served by human hands, as though needing anything, since God gives Godself to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God–though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For [Paul said, quoting one of the Greek philosophers] in him we live and move and have our being’; as even some your own poets have said, ‘For we too are God’s offspring.’

This is the human condition, Paul is saying, this longing for something deep and true and beautiful within us, and in our own experience, we know that to be true. We "know" all sorts of things–we are constantly "telling or hearing something new," like those who heard Paul–in biology, technology, psychology, geology, astronomy–so many discoveries and insights into the way we human beings, our world, our universe work, and yet, and yet... the more we know, many scientists will tell you, the more we discover what we don’t know. The Mystery continues to deepen.

And for all we "know," those of us who may be spiritual and religious,"we still don’t quite know how to name God,[as one writer put it,] or how to name ourselves in relationship with God, not to mention Jesus." And particularly for those of us who don’t want to appear dogmatic or pushy, maybe we have never even tried to figure out who God is or who we are in relationship to God–to figure that out for ourselves, let alone try to explain to somebody else. And so we kind of just settle, we let it go. "Let go and let God," we may rationalize, but really, what do we do with that restlessness that Augustine talked about, that longing and hunger for Home? What do we do with those questions that we had as teenagers? What do we do with those questions about our purpose in life that plagued our young adult career choices? What about those unanswered questions of our midlife crises? Where do we leave those questions raised when we lose a loved one, or a job, or a dream? How do we understand the inevitable failings of our bodies? What about that big, final question, about death? This Memorial Day weekend we remember and we acknowledge our losses. Where can we find a place where it’s safe to keep on asking those questions? Where can we find companions in that search? If not here, we have no business staying in business.

To settle for that "unknown god" Paul says in essence, is to settle for ‘a polite little god who asks little of us." (Howard, op cit.) For Paul that is not enough. God is knowable, he tells the Athenians, we have experienced the true God in the man whom God raised from the dead. This God is the God of all creation, indeed the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Like fish are in the sea, we are in God, and we cannot separate some people or parts of creation off from God. Have you tried doing that with the ocean? We know that this God whom we know in Christ Jesus is not the god of empires. Though he suffered and died, Jesus was raised from death by God to demonstrate that nothing–not even death–can separate us from this God, who is love and light and life, whose power paradoxically is manifest in weakness, who may indeed appear as a poor young Afro-Eurasian woman holding a child and a garbage bag.

The Way of Jesus, in whom we know this God, along with the truth and the life, appears less and less naive to me as I look at the world around us, at the problems of our community, our nation, and our world. It appears less and less naive and more and more wise. This Way must be presented in the marketplaces and galleries of ideas and actions in our 21^st c. world. It can stand up to and alongside some of the more dominant ones. Look where the way of empire and domination have gotten us and the planet on which we live. Look where the way of celebrity and riches have gotten people like LA Clippers owner Ronald Sterling, or Lindsay Lohan, or any number of casualties of the star-making cult. Look at the poisoned rivers and decimated mountaintops and black lungs which greed has produced. Look at the hopelessness and shame that our economic system has generated in our young people.

This "unknown" God whom we know in Christ Jesus offers us life-saving wisdom for the world and for our lives. We have got to find ways of living and sharing that good news with folks, with generations, for whom the language and norms of the church hold little meaning. It doesn’t mean that all those folks "out there" don’t long for God, by whatever name we call God. In a Pew Research survey, it was discovered that Millenials–those people between the ages of 18 and 33–pray with as much regularity as their grandparents. Just because they are not affiliated with faith communities doesn’t mean they are not seeking. The House for Sinners and Saints in Denver CO where the 6 foot tall, tattooed 30-something Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber is pastor, describes its norm as "low obligation/high commitment." They meet on Sunday afternoons and have no pews or flags, but they share a longing for God and community in which to experience God, a place to come to know this "unknown" God.

"I will not leave you orphaned," Jesus says to his disciples in our reading from John’s gospel. He was speaking to them before his death, before they would have to face the world without his physical presence, but he assured them that they would not face it alone. The God who was in Him would be with and in them. God’s Spirit would advocate for and empower them and their community. He was addressing that same longing that the Athenians and that all of us have–to know that we are not alone, and, more than that, that we are loved and worthy of love. This is not a polite little god who asks little of us. This great God of love and light asks of us everything–all that we have and all that we are–and at the same time, asks nothing at all– we are simply loved completely and forever.

May we seek and come to know this God and even, as the catechism says, to "enjoy God forever." Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

Read More

"Abundant Life–really?"-- Acts 2:42-47, John 10:1-10-- May 11, 2014

 

Mother’s Day, for all the hearts and corsages, is a minefield. Absolutely we should acknowledge and express gratitude to our mothers who labored and nourished and nurtured us, who loved us and gave sacrificially of themselves, so that we might have life. Absolutely, although not just on one day of the year.

But sometimes the ones who did all that for us weren’t our biological mothers. Some-times, for a whole host of reasons, our biological mothers were unable to "mother" us, and so other people did, other women, even some men. Sometimes our mothers were so young, so wounded, so sick that our association with the word is very complicated. Some of us today are missing and grieving our mothers who are no longer physically with us. And that’s just looking in one direction, down the line of those who mothered us.

Then there’s the other direction, down the line of succession: those we have mothered–or didn’t. For some women, this day has painful associations–perhaps we’ve never been able to or chose not to give birth. Perhaps we’ve lost a child–or more than one. Perhaps we’ve given up a child, to adoption or foster care. Perhaps, like most of the women in the bible who were childless, we’ve been made to feel shame, or been pitied, because we weren’t "mothers."

So "Happy Mother’s Day" is a loaded expression. ...Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it, just please think about it first. It may not be quite the sweet sound you assumed it to be.

"Good Shepherd Sunday," which this year is the same day as Mother’s Day, is another one of those days that sounds sweet and innocuous, especially if you’ve never known or been a shepherd, but, like other’s Day, Good shepherd Sunday has a bit more ‘bite" to it than it may seem. All the pictures and stained glass windows of Jesus as the Good Shepherd show him holding adorable lambs with happy sheep crowding around him. That probably wouldn’t have been the image that came to mind to the folks to whom Jesus told he was the Good Shepherd. Remember the Christmas story? The shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night, out in those fields, because nobody wanted them any closer. They were the unsavory, marginal characters whom no one else but God would think of entrusting good news to.

One commentator reminded me of another image–that of the shepherds in the movie "Brokeback Mountain." They were cowboys, she said, rugged, horse-riding, independent,[ and, of course in that movie, gay.] Nothing sweet or innocuous about them or about the nature of the business they were in.

In the 10^th chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus uses a couple of different sheep-related images–"I am the gate for the sheep," he says. "I am the good shepherd." And he talks about the dangers of thieves and imposters.

In what is sometimes called "The Shepherd’s Psalm," Psalm 23, the psalmist writes about having a table spread in the presence of enemies, and walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

And finally, in the reading from Acts, we hear about the early Christian community in a way that many people think is probably idealized. They all lived together, shared everything in common, spent their days praying and worshiping, adding loads of people to their numbers each day and held in high regard by everyone. Really? Some 40 or 50 years later, which is when Acts was written, that may have been how Luke imagined it, but chances are, like every other human community, things were not quite so perfect.

So, in addition to being a lot grittier than we have sometimes been led to believe, what else do these texts for Good Shepherd Sunday have in common? The notion of sufficiency. "The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need." "I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come and go out and find pasture...I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." One could even argue that the challenge of motherhood is the challenge of enoughness–how do we provide children with what they need–for health, for wholeness, for discovering their true identity–

without giving them too much.

Of course, our culture has certain ideas about sufficiency and "enoughness," and the main lesson is, You can never have too much. You can never be enough. You hardly ever hear about "enough." If a little is good, a lot must be better, right? Our food is engineered so that we crave more and more. "Bet you can’t eat just one," the Lay’s Potato Chip commercial used to say, and they’d have a pretty good bet–all that fat and salt that most of us have become addicted to? It’s impossible to stop at "just one." And, clothes, toys, gadgets, ...the one who dies with the most toys wins, right? Or maybe just dies.

Of course, it’s money that we’re sure will make us happier if we get more and more. But actually, unless you’re at a sufficiently low level of income that you still need money to take care of basic needs–food, shelter, clothing-- it has been shown that levels of happiness do not increase over the long term with more and more money. Ask folks who’ve won the lottery or Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Usually, if they were happy before they won, they’ll end up being about as happy. If they were unhappy before they won, they’ll end up being just as unhappy. Sometimes it’s a nightmare.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the pro-ceeds to all, as any had need." Every December we witness the seemingly endless amount of stuff that we as a community have accumulated. It’s called the Serendipity sale. And there’s nothing like moving to discover just how much stuff you have. We as Americans are being buried by our stuff, and our landfills and storage units grow literally into mountains. While the Serendipity Sale is a great way to recycle some of that stuff, might we also think about establishing a kind of sharing system where we could commonly own–or at least use–items and appliances that we don’t all need to have all the time? Rototillers, snowblowers, sewing machines, carpet shampooers, chainsaws, camping equipment, maybe trucks or cars? The Time Bank is another example of exchanging and sharing time and talents. Our loan fund, in which we could pool more of our resources, might become a resource for those who want to purchase energy-efficient appliances but need a little help with their extra upfront costs. And of course, thinking of our air, water, soil, our ecosystem as held commonly might be a start in making sure the generations who come after us will have enough–to breathe, to drink, to grow food, to live.

"The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." Despite the pastoral setting, it sound pretty stark. Does living in the sufficiency of God have to be sparce, bare, bland, colorless? "I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly," Jesus said. Really? What kind of abundance is he talking about? Author Cynthia Bourgeault writes,

What seemed disconcerting to nearly everybody was the messy, freewheeling largeness of [Jesus’] spirit. Abundance and generosity bordering on extravagant seemed to be the signatures of his teaching and his personal style....[In many of his parables] the thing that sticks in people’s craws is in each case the display of a generosity so beyond comprehension that it can only be perceived as ‘unfair.’ But as we look further, that extravagance is everywhere...

...the feeding of the five thousand, with 12 baskets of leftovers...the seed that falls on good soil yields 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold...the jar of priceless nard, poured over Jesus’ head and feet.

"It was not love stored up," Bourgeault writes, "but love utterly poured out that opened the gates to the kingdom of heaven. Over and over, Jesus lays this path before us. There is nothing to be renounced or resisted. Everything can be embraced, but the catch is to cling to nothing." (Wisdom Jesus, pp. 69-70)

The secret to abundant life is simply letting go of everything, allowing yourself to be emptied. We might even say, allowing yourself to be "enough." Because we live in such an abundance of Love, when we trust in the Source of that Love and don’t cling to or grab anything, Love flows freely through us and we ourselves become sources of love and life. It’s that simple. Easy, it’s not...maybe even a bit like "asking elephants to fly," as Bourgeault points out, but she goes on to say, "It is not a matter of believing in flying elephants so much as of purifying the heart." (The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, p. 52)

The practice of self-emptying which Jesus embodied "is not a stoic stance against a pitiless reality," she writes; "rather it is a direct gateway into a divine reality that can be immediately experienced as both compassionate and infinitely generous. Abundance surrounds and sustains us like the air we breathe; it is only our habitual self-protectiveness that prevents us from perceiving it." (Ibid., p. 104)

"I came that you might have life," Jesus said, "and have it abundantly." Greed and grasping and hoarding only stop up the flow of Love. "I am the gate," Jesus said. "Whoever enters by me–by the way of self-emptying, embracing and letting go–will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture....The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need."

We know that there are any number of false shepherds luring us to what they say are greener pastures, but they are thieves and bandits, as Jesus said. We and our children are bombarded by calls to come over where the grass is greener. Buy this. Eat this. Be this. Don’t be a fool and believe all that God and Love stuff. Look where it got Jesus.

Where it got him is resurrected. It got his band of sorry, clueless followers filled with the Spirit of Love and Life and Power that changed their lives and countless generations after them, not, granted, with a flawless record, but the abundant life he offered them is still offered to us. "The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." "I am the gate"–that gate is the way to life for us and ultimately for the whole world. The Good Shepherd, God our Mother, a community that cares for all who have need, all of them more complex, more challenging, but ultimately more life-giving than any Hallmark card could ever portray. "I am the gate," Jesus said. May we enter through that gate and find abundant life. Happy Good Shepherd’s Day!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

Read More

Church World Service Kits

As the sign reads, the wall of cartons are from 27 churches.  They weigh 3,092 pounds and contain 777 School Kits, 706 Hygiene Kits, 170 Baby Kits, 2 Flood Buckets, 25 Quilts, 1 Box of Rolled Bandages.  The estimated value is $24,150!!

Read More

“On the Road Again, Still, Always...”-- Luke 24:13-35-- May 4, 2014

 

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus. Now, Emmaus isn’t on any map, which, of course, hasn’t kept the archaeologists, the scholars, those who would “re-trace” His steps, from trying to find it. There are at least 4 places within that 7-mile radius from Jerusalem that have been identified as “Emmaus,” but I prefer to think of Emmaus, as Fred Buechner suggests, as “the place to run to when we have lost hope or don’t know what to do, the place of escape, of forgetting, of giving up, of deadening our senses and our minds and maybe our hearts, too.” [The Magnificent Defeat, cited by Kate Huey in Sermon Seeds, 5/4/14]

So, once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus, when a stranger fell into step beside them, and asked them what they were talking about. They could hardly believe he hadn’t heard. The events of the past days seemed so all-consuming to them, in fact, seemed to be boulders all around and in front of them–Don’t you see them? Ooh, look out! You’d better be careful....

But he turned out to be their guide through the rock-strewn path, re-reading the guidebook that had led them up to this point, drawing them into his calm, assured narrative, so that when he appeared to be heading on after they had reached the inn, they invited him to join them for a meal. It was only then, when he sat at table with them, and blessed and broke the bread, that the vibrations of their own bodies caught up with his, and they recognized him. And then he was gone again.

“Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens,” writes biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan. [The Historical Jesus, p. xiii] In this one, exquisitely written story, the early Christian community described their life in those days and months and years after Jesus was crucified. It was in the encounter with strangers, with scripture, in the breaking of the bread as he had done, that they encountered the Risen Christ in their midst, over and over again. Traveling two by two, being invited into homes, sharing meals, telling the story, bringing healing and good news, they experienced His presence, saw His face, and then he vanished from their sight...only to turn up again as they were walking down the road, sitting at table, telling the story, again, still, always.

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus... “but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” It was their self-pity and nostalgia that kept them from recognizing him, Cynthia Bourgeault suggests. “Clearly they are stuck in their story, [she writes] and their stuckness is what makes them unable to see the person standing right before their faces.” [Wisdom Jesus, p. 129]

Are you stuck in a story that keeps you from recognizing the Risen Christ walking beside you? Maybe it’s a story about how the world “really” works–that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that might makes right, and that the one who dies with the most toys wins, and you’re a fool if you think otherwise. You won’t find salvation in hanging out with homeless, powerless people. Is that the story you’re living? Or maybe like the two companions stuck in their story of self-pity and nostalgia, you can only see how much you’ve lost, how much better things used to be. Or maybe you’re just so busy you don’t even think you’ve got time for stories–you’ve got this meeting to go to, and this practice or lesson to get the kids to, or this doctor’s appointment or that deadline. Maybe there’s just so much noise and distraction and so many text messages and e-mails that whatever vibration the Risen Christ is on, you’re pretty sure you’re not on the same frequency.

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus, that place we run to when we have lost hope or don’t know what to do, the place of escape, of forgetting, of giving up, or deadening our senses and our minds and maybe our hearts, too... Do you know that road?

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. But the story of Emmaus tells us that resurrection is not enough. “You still need scripture and eucharist,” Dom Crossan writes, “tradition and table, community and justice; otherwise, divine presence remains unrecognized and human eyes remain unopened.” [The Birth of Christianity, p. xi.] The risen Christ doesn’t invite his companions on the road to share a meal. They invite him. It’s the same, still, always. He won’t barge in unwanted or uninvited. That’s not the kind of power God wields. But hospitality and openness make transformation possible. Our transformation. The world’s transformation.

Once upon a time, two companions were walking on the road to a place called Emmaus... and they invited the stranger who had joined them in to have dinner with them. “When he was at table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.”

So may we invite friend and stranger – and the Risen Christ – to the table. Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens. “Lord Jesus, be our holy guest. Our morning joy, our evening rest. And with our daily bread impart Thy love and peace to every heart.”

May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

Read More