Heavy Burdens...Luke 13:10-17... A reflection during Taize service

There was a Christian rock group in the early 80’s featuring Marty McCall Called Fireworks One of my favorite songs by them was called Rusty Burdens which can be found on their live album “Fireworks”…“Rusty Burdens like dusty curtains hanging from top the windows of my heart

I been chasing this dingy lacing for so long its tearing me apart though I can’t see the shining sunset the blue horizon or the dew on the ground

Well I have hope that I can cope till Jesus comes to me and rips those curtains down.”

This so reminds me of the woman who walked into the synagogue in today’s reading.  She is weighed down physically.  They do not say by what and it doesn’t really matter. This story is about Jesus healing on the Sabbath.

The message says the woman is twisted and bent over with arthritis. Harper Collins study bible says that the woman had “a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.”  In both versions Jesus says; “you are free…” (Luke 13.13)

How many people hear this message can see where I am headed already?  I mean let’s face it we are often troubled and burdened.  We often find life weighing us down. At times it can seem so strong and heavy it feels as if we are bent over with the weight of our anxieties, the weight of daily living, the weight of our job, the weight of bills and ailments, the weight of our own conscience and our failures, the weight of our procrastinated projects…If you can name it, we humans have a great talent into making it into a burden.

How do we free ourselves of our own guilt, of our own frustrations and of our own burdens? Bo Dunford a Baptist minister reminds us in psalm 55 it says to “cast your burden on the Lord.” (Psalm 55:22) “Let the Lord carry the burden for you!
* Since the burden is too heavy for you, give it to the Lord to carry.
* The word cast literally means “to fling or hurl.” * It requires and denotes action and effort.
* “Fling” that burden upon the Lord … “Cast” that burden upon the Lord!
* Or as they say in the south, “Chunk” that burden upon the Lord!” [1]

That sounds easy. So you all get it right? Just whatever is bothering you, whatever is keeping you awake at night, whatever is weighing you down you just give it to God and your done nothing more to worry about.  Got it? Good!

It sounds so easy, I wish our minds and hearts actually worked that way.  But they don’t so the Bible reminds us over and over and over again.  Isiah 53:4 “surely has born our grief and sorrows” or 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”  Why is this repeated so many times?  Because we forget it so many times.  Because this is not a once and done thing; this is a practice.

Practice, Practice, practice, and when you think you got it, practice some more.  Our hearts and minds are fickle and strange. We may think we have forgotten something or believe we have gotten over something and suddenly, decades later it comes back to us with just as much negative energy as it had the first time.

This is Human nature.  This is only defeated by a practice of prayer and devotion seeking the light of God.  Yet the more we seek the light …well let me quote; “There is a connection between light and shadow; more light means more shadow.  The more a person approaches the light, the more he or she will experience his or her own imperfections.”[2]

Yes we give our burdens to God in prayer but in prayer we also expose ourselves and our hearts to God’s light and as was just described the more light the more shadow.  One cannot begin on this journey of seeking God in our daily lives and just leave it for Saint Theresa said: “If you do not strive for the virtues and practice them, you will always be dwarfs.  And, please God; it will only be a matter of not growing, for you already know whoever does not increase decreases. I hold that love where ever present, cannot possibly be content with remaining always the same.”[3]

Once we start this practice of looking at what is weighing us down, honestly looking at our burdens and holding them up to the light and love of God.  Yes, they will diminish and we will also begin to see more clearly our own spirit.  Prayer, a simple prayer over and over again: “take this worry form me God.” Or “God I give this burden to you.” cannot stop there.  We are called to continue our work on and within ourselves.

Once we feel we have moved past a pain, a burden, a weight on our shoulders, our prayer life cannot stop there. One must continue to seek out this sustaining, life giving experience that is God.  For we know what has bothered us in the past will come back to us again.  In some ways it almost seems as prayer is futile but it is all a part of growing in God.

If one is taking actual and real time to pay attention to God in their life and in prayer daily.  One will see patterns arising, one will see concerns arising, and one will seek a deeper way, a better way of living in the presence of an all loving God.  As one grows in prayer, I will also suggest, you cannot do it alone.  I recommend seeking out companions.  A spiritual companion or friend someone you can talk to about how your prayer life is progressing.  How your spiritual life is manifesting in your day to day living.

 A spiritual companion can point out your journey and help you to notice things you haven’t noticed before. They can help you see what is arising in your heart in your spiritual journey, they can help you notice where you have energy around projects or songs or prayers that lift you spiritually and help you translate that experience into. How shall I say it...? God language!

When in our daily life burdens; the daily grind and our own conscience seems to be weighing us down, when we feel like we just cannot stand up straight, when even in prayer we cannot always hear the voice of God saying you are free, free from these burdens, stand up.  Though we try to give the burdens to God and we do over and over again, sometimes we need another set of eyes and ears to help us see we have been relieved of our burden. 

Just as when we have carried a heavy load and we set it down we may need a hand up to straighten our backs.  Prayer in and through our lives can help us to stand up straight and as we continue the journey a companion can be nice. ( I would add if this makes you wonder and want to learn more about spiritual companioning also called spiritual direction I would give these two links Seek and find Guide sponsored by spiritual directors international and Stillpoint CA if you wish to learn more about spiritual direction and maybe take a class.)

 Now as I come to the end of this reflection let me simply remind you…no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey you are welcome here and that welcome comes form no man, no one person but from an all loving God who says you are free, cast your burdens upon me!  amen.

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[1] Bo Dunford, Cast Thy Burden Upon the Lord, September, 2007, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/cast-thy-burden-upon-the-lord-bo-dunford-sermon-on-faith-113567.asp?Page=4.

[2] Norvene Vest, ed., Tending the Holy: Spiritual Direction Across Traditions (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Pub., 2003), Digital eBook.

[3] Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila (Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1976–<1980>), Digital eBook.

We Love our Stuff

Lord we love our stuff.  We collect records, or um CD’s or um MP3’s...I have my paperweights…my glass, my photos, my knitting, my weaving, my tent that sits in a garage used twice maybe 3 times.  I have books that I have read once that I can’t part with…I have stamps collected for who???  Because it brings me pleasure…Our stuff our Knick Knacks, bring us Joy.

The online dictionary says …noun

Plural noun: knick-knacks

A small worthless object, especially a household ornament.

Synonyms:          trinket, novelty, gewgaw, bibelot, ornament, trifle, bauble, gimcrack, curio, tchotchke; memento, souvenir, kickshaw

Se we need extra words for all our stuff because we have just so much of it….

There is no0thing wrong with collecting things…there is nothing wrong with storing up for a rainy day  there is something wrong with keeping so much you could never possibly use it and not even consider sharing it.

Nancy Rockwell shared a story; “Once, and with sadness, a lawyer on the brink of retirement told me he had spent his career in the midst of fights over inheritance that occur between siblings.  And really, he said, they are fighting over their parents love.

So the pain that Luke remembered in the shouted plea, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me, is deep and ongoing among us.  Luke remembers Jesus using the moment to define greed (the storing up of treasures) as the opposite of living richly toward God.

And death, which triggers the distribution of accumulations, becomes the moment in which living richly towards God becomes evident.  Or not.”[1]

There is nothing wrong with abundance, there is nothing wrong with wealth as long as we remember to share it.  You see the rich man already had barns that were sufficient for his needs but when he saw this abundant crop instead of using it for the good it could bring he decided to make larger barns to store it all in.

Nancy shares a few others people concepts and theories about abundance…”Montaigne, the French Renaissance philosopher, wrote It’s not want, but rather abundance, that creates greed.  In dire need, we want what we truly need, but in the midst of plenty, we want it all.”[2]

You see when we need to budget to survive we are ever so grateful for what we have. Yet as we are able to acquire more …more is what we want.  Now this isn’t true for all but it is something to consider as we pay attention to our own wants and needs and we consider the needs of the world around us.

Theologian Walter Brueggeman, says greed is born out of the idea of scarcity, and scarcity is born out of anxiety – and all three are acted upon in an abundant world.  Abundance is denied, not trusted, forgotten in our culture.”[3] In other words the concept of having so much as to have enough to give away has been denied by most and forgotten by others.  This concept that one can have too much seems to be slipping out of our consciousness.  Our society has become the fool in that no matter how much we have …what we have is just for us.

Yet “Rabbi Lawrence Kushner wrote: Wealth is the highly subjective sensation of having more than enough, so much that there is money to give away.  For this reason, wealth is a function of generosity:  the more you give, the richer you feel.”[4] That is what it means to be rich towards God.

Think of the widow and her mite. She gave out of her want but yet through her want she has continued to teach us what it truly means to be blessed and abundant.  What it means to turn our back on greed and self-centeredness and turn our focus on God and outward toward our community

Today’s centering prayer “going Down to the River” is a blessing in abundance that arose out of scarcity.  It is written and performed by a man who was homeless on and off for most of 25 years of his life.

This man had tried his luck at music at a very young age.  He even toured a bit with buddy miller back in the 70’s but dint like touring much so he went back home to upstate NY.  He married his girlfriend and raised his two kids.  He mad e a living doing cabinetry work...” After his time in Texas as a troubadour, he married his girlfriend and had two children. His woodworking kept him busy. "I built the wall unit for the White House when President Reagan was in office," he says. "I worked for the company in Long Island that had [the] contract. I remember I used Japanese Ash."[5]

But the music called him back.  He asked his son if it was ok if he pursued his music dreams and the 16 year old said it would be cool.  So back to Nashville he went.  He ended up living in the streets plagued by alcoholism and some drug abuse.  He went virtually unnoticed.

“Seeger’s made friends while living on the streets: especially the folks that operate the Nashville Rescue Mission, where he'd crash when he wasn't sleeping in a tent in the woods or under a bridge, and Stacy Downey, who runs the Little Pantry That Could food bank.

It wasn't a bad life. "The truth of that whole homeless thing is it's exciting to me, it's an adventure," says Seeger’s, his lanky build, tousled grey hair and weathered, angular face making him look like a character out of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. "In the summertime, you're outside living in a tent by a stream, maybe you're fishing. In the wintertime, maybe you've got a 55-gallon drum in the woods and you're throwing big logs into it and everyone's hanging around by the fire. It wasn't stressful to me."[6]

His life went on like this day to day often seen sitting in front of the Salvation Army with his guitar in hand and the box open for tips of any kind.  He was living hard going from shelters to under a bridge.   The song you heard today he wrote about 2011.

Seeger wrote the Song “while he was still homeless and wrestling with his demons. “It was almost like a prayer I wrote to myself," he says, sitting in a corner office of his booking agency in Beverly Hills, hours before his first Los Angeles show.

A few months later, he was struck sober. "I prayed for [God's] help and I feel like he pulled me out of it," Seeger’s says, who has remained abstinent. "Also, I had none of the joneses or the cravings or the pain. I had nothing. He removed them all. It was instant."[7]  It was that song that a Swedish documentarian who was doing a piece on homeless musicians heard.  She had him record it and it became number one on the Swedish charts.  His second album is due out this summer sometime.

He uses his luck and his gift as a message…“It is such responses to his music that have made him feel he is on a mission that can't be measured by airplay or sales. "I don't really care about the money and the fame," he says. "I want to be an inspiration; for people to benefit from what I've been through. I think that's what God wants me to be. I think maybe that's why God put me into this seat."[8]

I share this story not just because it is a lovely Cinderella music story but more so because he is the opposite of the rich man.  He suddenly has an abundance and all he wants to do is share.  Share his gift, which he has always done, and now share his experience in the hope of making people’s lives better.

But there is another side to this as well.  If someone had not noticed this man on the sidewalk, if someone had not taken the time to share some time, food, and give shelter to him, he might not even be here today.

I want you the meet another person who I also see as the opposite of the foolish man.

“Vikus Khanna, a Michelin-starred chef, has built an impressive career for himself in the culinary world, but in 2000 he was homeless and living in a shelter. To give back, he helped put together a special evening to feed those at the New York Rescue Mission. In the video above, watch Khanna explain the tasting menu and experience the “Hollywood” meal with those who enjoyed it.”[9]

This story is about giving back.  Yet again there is nothing wrong with his success.  What is important is he is giving it back or paying it forward.  It is the opposite of the foolish man.  He is not hording his abundance and keeping it all for himself he is giving it away.

I think one thing we often forget or over look is our own abundance.  I have been homeless with no income and I relied on the desert aids association and friends to get by.  Not everyone has friends that can help them.  I was very blessed. 

 I think no matter how bad off we are.  How little we believe we have.  There is always someone who has less.  No matter how powerless we feel there is always something we can do.  Be it monetary or of time.  No matter who we are we all have time…it might not feel like it but we do.  Time is one thing we try to horde the most.

It seems I do not know why but suddenly the day is over…I don’t know what day it is anymore. The years fly by…yet how much time did you spend just watching TV, listening to music, taking a nap?  How many times have we said; “my time could have been better spent.”?

I know in this day and age many people enjoy TV, Movies and computer time.  We often lose track of the real world as it is filtered and fed to us through electronic devises.  We often get bombarded with hateful speech, prejudices, or atrocities of people hurting people.

So I was wondering instead of spending so much time being abused by our choices of electronic stimuli, what if we took the time to find a way to contribute to others.  We have the feeding program here…there is no reason why any of us cannot take a few hours to participate. 

I know not everyone is called to get up early and make sandwiches or to go out and meet the homeless face to face.  That is a very special calling indeed and we have wonderful people who are called to it.  Maybe you can donate a bag of socks.  Perhaps some hygiene kits?

Maybe something not so creative.  Maybe just going through your closets and donating clothes to one of the thrift stores.  Did you know we have thrift stores that monies raised goes to the blind, to people living and with cancer, to children at children’s hospital?  We are an animal loving community did you know there is a thrift store helping hands for animals.

If you look around you one can find so many ways to give back.  Maybe volunteer time with a local hospice.  Many hospices use volunteers to read to clients, sing for them, and spend time to companion with them and their families.

We are still collecting money for the solar empowerment project they have about 11,000 dollars’ worth of solar panels at las Memorias.  Yet they need more, they are adding on to the building.  They have enough power for lights and things but they still could use solar panels for hot water.

You know you can bring a friend to church.  Be brave in your faith and share you experience of community and an all loving God.  Who knows sharing Gods abundant Grace is truly what we are about and maybe just what someone you know needs.

There are opportunities to share your time and talent in many places.  I will say if you are capable of walking and or talking you have gifts to share.

Let’s get back to our parable The Reverend Dr. David Lose says: “Jesus doesn’t warn against money, wealth, or material abundance. He warns against greed, about the insatiable feeling of never having enough. And the parable he tells illustrates this. The farmer’s problem isn’t that he’s had a great harvest, or that he’s rich, or that he wants to plan for the future. The farmer’s problem is that his good fortune has curved his vision so that everything he sees starts and ends with himself.

Listen again to the conversation he has with, not a spouse or friend or parent or neighbor, but only with himself: “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”

Do you see what I mean? It is an absolutely egocentric conversation, even including a conversation with himself inside the conversation he is already having with himself! This is why he is a fool. He has fallen prey to the notion that life, and particularly the good life, consists of possessions, precisely the thing Jesus warns against.”[10]

Jesus wants us to live a connected life.  One in which we build loving relations ships with each other in community.  Dr. David asks the question and answers it: “What, then, does the good life consist of? Read the rest of what Jesus says across the gospels and it becomes pretty clear: relationships -- relationships with each other and with God. And, as you inevitably discover while reading, these two can’t really be separated. Hence Jesus tells stories like the parable of the Good Samaritan that invite us to think more broadly about who we imagine being our neighbor, and he preaches sermons that extol caring for the poor, loving our enemies, and doing good for those in need. Not once does Jesus lift up setting up a retirement account or securing a higher-paying job as part of seeking the kingdom of God.”[11]

Now there is nothing wrong with wanting a better paying job, moving up the corporate ladder, preparing for a good retirement.  All these things allow us to have comfortable lives.  They give us the opportunity to support our church and community with financial support.  That is nice but the key is still building relationships with each other in community to help better this world and bring it closer to the kindom of God.

When we build a living and loving community the other stuff stops.  The electronic bombardment of bad news stops.  The constant fear of the other stops.  When we work with our brothers and sisters in our community we meet someone may be from each one of those emblems on the wall.  Because each one of those faiths are also working to better themselves and to make this world a better place and it is only through community and relationships can that happen.

Not through building bigger places for our stuff.  But by sharing our gifts, time and energy.  I love our stuff the stuff we have so much of that we can give it away.  The Love, the talents, and the gifts that come from god and the grace of God…go out and give a little love away…I’ll guarantee you will get some in return!

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[1] Nancy Rockwell, Rich toward God, July 29, 2013, accessed July 26, 2016, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/biteintheapple/rich-toward-god/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Melinda Williams, Homeless to famous, October 7, 2014, accessed July 26, 2016, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/doug-seegers-shares-homeless-to-famous-journey-20141007.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Kira Brekke, Celebrity Chef Who Was Once Homeless Gives Back To the Community That Fed Him, Medium, accessed July 26, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/vikas-khanna-celebrity-chef-new-york-rescue-mission_us_5697c474e4b0b4eb759d622e.

[10] David Lose, What money can and can't do, July 29, 2013, accessed July 30, 2016, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2668.

[11] Ibid.

This will not Destroy Us....

I confess when I started thinking about today’s sermon I did not know what I was going to write.  Now as I write I do not know which words are to follow.  I am wring from my heart. 

The pain of last Sunday morning is still fresh in me as I am sure it is with many of you. I find it good that today’s reading was about the mad man made sane.  It is an example of how one man’s madness can affect thousands.  I know it’s a stretch but I am keeping it.  Because other than that this has nothing to d0 with today’s reflection.

I am heart broken by what has been done to our community. I have been reassured by many of the proper, comforting responses.  I have been dismayed by the hateful rhetoric it has inspired in some, by the ignorance pronounced by others and the lies still being propagated by a few. I stand, no we stand in opposition of any hate speech because this can and does fuel more hate and that solves nothing.

A young man’s response that I think echoes many emotions this week

Us gays.

We make you look prettier.

We dress you for your important occasions.

We polish up your neighborhoods until we get priced out of them.

We plan and attend your weddings even though you take vows to an entity (that we hear too often though we know better) that hates us.

We are involved in every movie you see.

We are involved in every TV show you watch.

We are involved in every song you listen to - even the homophobic ones.

We teach your children without having to tell you it's us.

We protect your communities without having to tell you it's us.

We nurse you back to health without, without having to tell you it's us.

We clean your gutters, paint your houses and mow your lawns without without having to tell you it's us.

We fix your pipes without without having to tell you it's us, even though you let us know what bathroom we can use.

We govern your citizens - sometimes openly, sometimes only until we're involved in a scandal after years of spewing homophobic rhetoric.

We are on every, single one of the sports teams you root for, but are usually hesitant to say we're there because we don't want shit thrown at us on the playing field.

We are at the root of every cue you take in life - even those of you who wish us dead.

We fight and die on your battlefields without letting you know it's us - and until recently, we weren't even allowed to let you know.

We got rid of DOMA.

We won the right to marry, which was already guaranteed to us, but we just had to work harder than you.

And now, as though we don't have enough on our plate, we will absolutely be the ones to fix up your abhorrent f...ing gun laws.

Watch it happen, and marvel.

Because that's what we do.

We clean up your messes.

Without the guarantee of safety and respect in return.

Can you imagine doing ALL of that work without DECENCY as a reward?

So don't tell me I have to view #PulseOrlando as an attack on America instead of an attack on gay people.

Because we're not Americans when you call us faggots, we're not Americans when you legally fire us, we're not Americans when you kill trans people, we're not Americans when you deny us adoption rights, we're not Americans when you say nasty shit to us when we're holding hands on the street (and yeah, we do hear you) we're not Americans when you deny us marriage licenses or a simple wedding cake with our names on it.

In all of those circumstances we're just gay people, and being an American doesn't matter.

So, out of respect for everyone who fought and died before me, I'm going to take a few days to mourn as a gay man before I mourn as an American.

And then after that, you can resume telling me I have to be at war with people I don't know, even though I've been at war with my own countrymen my entire f..ing life.

Be happy you're at war with ISIS.

Because you would lose a war against us.

Oh, and you're welcome in advance for the gun thing. Like always.

-Dominic Pupa[1]

This is one person’s anger, justifiable anger, coming to the forefront but in his words there is a plan. He is doing something very creative.  He has decided instead of just being angry he is going to do something about it and fight the gun laws that allow things like this to happen.  That may be your path that may not be .But, he has done several very healthy things here that, I think are easy to see.  He has expressed his need to grieve and how he needs to grieve.  He is not allowing others to tell him how he should feel and he is being proactive in his response.

You see much like todays reading we have been affected by and yes even infected by somebody else’s madness. So how do we deal with that?  We cannot allow it to drive us to our own destruction.

Market street center for Psychotherapy has published 10 steps to help process the massacre written by Kip Williams.  I am going to paraphrase some of what kip says and quote other parts.

Some people have noticed that they should have felt more, that they were surprised by their initial lack of reaction.  Pay attention to your reaction we may be becoming desensitized to violence.  We are overwhelmed by so many stories of shootings, hate crimes and the so on.  Take a moment to  just look back and take note of your first reaction.

Second is that we need to regulate our consumption of news and social media?  It is so easy today to allow ourselves to be traumatized over and over again when they just keep repeating the same story showing the same ugly horrifying images.  Whether the news you are reading is commentary or reporting the facts doesn’t matter it is a fact that the more we watch the higher our anxiety level goes our perspective and clarity become impaired. Turn it off, walk away, step outside and walk around allow your mind and soul to rest.

3 notice how the discourse impacts your sense of belonging and acceptance.

“Many gay men in metropolitan areas have immigrated from other parts of the country or the world. What’s it like for you to be you within your family and your religious, cultural, and national context? Are you out to your family, and have you felt accepted by them? How has your family talked about the shooting, and how does that make you feel? How have people’s reactions affected your feelings about home? How have reactions within the gay community affected your sense of belonging?”[2] One person raised a question in another article where they said their friends have all checked in but not one call from immediate family or relatives…they just don’t get it.

Kip goes on to say that we should explore what death means for you what does loss mean?  Have you lost loved ones?   How did that affect you?  Is it affecting you now has this brought back anything for you?

You should pay attention on how you feel about the gunman?  Is there a judgement about him, his family?  Do we find a need to examine our own prejudices?  Is this just one man or does it translate into a culture, into many, or is your anger focused on just one man?  These are questions you need to explore.

Then check out your gut reactions to the political fallout…this is about gun control, hate crime, terrorism, national security, islamophobia, homophobia, the exclusion of gay men to donate blood, and many more.  What issues do you see that you may want to focus on, give some of your energy too?

You need to pay attention to how you are dealing with this experience overall.  What old wounds are opening for you? Are you feeling extremely connected to this attack or maybe just numb? Are you reaching out to one another or are you isolating yourself?  Either are legitimate responses the point is to pay attention to yourself and your needs and what is happening in you…stay connected to you!

When you can start to focus on what matter s most. 

“While a crisis can cause immense pain and suffering, it can also clarify what’s really important in our lives. What kind of person do you want to be, and who and what matters most in your life? Compassion is often a very good place to start. Remember the victims and their loved ones with loving kindness. Be gentle with yourself and the people you interact with. Notice when you get drawn into problems and conflicts that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and commit your energy to the things that do matter.”[3] Things that matter to you, we are each different and need to find our own way.

Finally Kip recommends don’t shut down; express yourself!  You each come from unique places and times and experiences which creates unique perspectives.  Allow time to write, paint, sing, dance, call a friend, and write a Facebook rant…whatever you need to do to allow what’s inside you to come out.

Finally I would add to kips suggestions by reminding you we cannot live in fear.  Fear is not a way of life and we cannot afford to allow this or any incident makes us cower and shut down.  There is a saying that says the bible uses fear not 365 times one for each day of the year,  it’ not true but it is a lovely thought.  God does say be not afraid, have no fear, fear not and more.  I searched fear not appears 127 times be not afraid 65 times more importantly there are over 333 verses about peace.  Basically God’s wish for us as humans as the creators gift is to be at peace, to live in peace and work towards peace that we may create god’s kindom here on earth.

So my wish in the midst of this turmoil, in this heartache and pain is that we may each find a way to heal.  To love one another, find a way to support one another and keep on loving.  Our love is not dead, but made stronger by this attach against us and our love will prevail.  This was an attack against the gay community but because the gay community is part of, and a strong part of the Christian community this was an attack against Christianity…because gay people are Muslim this was an attack on the Muslim community...because gay people are human this was an attack against humanity.

this progression I just listed is a justified and logical progression of our pain  for many the attack was very personal, it still feels that way and yet as we reflect and we allow the love we have through Christ heal us that pain expands and the need to reach out expands.  As we reach out and extend our love the attacks power is diminished and our power arises to unite as a people of faith, of interfaith, of humanity then through that power we can make this a better place.  Through that power of God’s love that is beyond all our understanding and comprehension, through the power of a God who made each and every one of us in their image we can take this pain, turn it around and do something, do something, do something that will make this a better place.

Do something, write, pledge, dance, hug do something and this world is already a better place for it.  This will not destroy us but only make us stronger.  Amen!

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[1] Domic Pupa, US Gays, accessed June 15, 2016, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154261250303980&set=a.141693468979.135697.586218979&type=3&theater.

[2] Kip Williams, 10 steps to help process the Orlando Massacre, June 14, 2016, accessed June 15, 2016, http://marketstreetpsychotherapy.com/blog/10-steps-to-help-process-the-orlando-massacre/.

[3] Ibid.

Out with the old in with the new or a movement towards compassion Luke 7:11-17

I want to start today's sharing with a quote.  I know this is a big surprise as I love quoting theologians and storytellers alike.  So here it is;

Anointed with the Spirit at his baptism, Jesus begins his prophetic ministry, declaring the prophetic verse Isaiah 61.1 has been fulfilled today.  For Luke, God has appointed him as a charismatic prophet to preach the good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, bring recovery of sight to the blind, free the oppressed, and proclaim a year of God’s favour. He breaks social and physical boundaries to heal and mend lives.  Luke highlights God’s compassion in Jesus’ ministry. In the ‘Sermon on the Plain’, Jesus announces ‘be compassionate as your God is compassionate’ (6.36) Marcus Borg notes that ‘…Compassionate bore the connotations of “wombiness,” nourishing, giving life, embracing; perhaps it also suggested feelings of tenderness’ (Borg 1984 (1998): 102).

Jesus speaks and lives the compassion of God by addressing the poor and the rich alike, healing the suffering, and creating an inclusive community.  Healings and exorcisms are prominent in Jesus’ ministry.  Luke’s Gospel appears to stress the suffering of those people seeking healing.  Traditionally, Luke was understood to be a physician, and that impression emerges from the portrayal of Jesus compassionately healing the ill and exorcising the possessed.  For Luke, Jesus makes whole those who are ill and restores them to a new society: God’s reign.  Since the sick are not part of the realm of the healthy they must be kept apart or excluded.  Jesus expresses God’s compassion for those physically suffering, even defying the Sabbath laws to heal the sick (4:31-7; 6.6-11; 13.10-17; 14.1-6).  Jesus argues that the Sabbath is a day of restoration and wholeness, and what a better day to heal and make people whole.  The Sabbath is about God’s compassion.[1]

Today’s Gospel is a wonderful example of Jesus’ compassion, God’s compassion, playing out in real life.  Fred Craddock says; “The Object of his compassion is the mother.  His total attention is on this woman who is a widow and whose only son, her sole means of support as well as being her whole family, is dead.”[2]  The compassion of Christ demonstrating Gods compassion for the world turns the world of the day inside out and upside down.  The story itself sort of shows the old ways going out and the new way stepping in.

When the story opens Jesus is walking into the town of Nain with his disciples and a crowd following him. They literally run into a man who had died, his widowed mother and a large crowd from the town.  So here is a group, following Jesus, whose ministry was all about how to be compassionate in the world and bring in a new kindom a new way of being in the world. He is followed by a crowed of people excited about Christ’s teachings and ministry, probably a slightly revelatory crowd, running smack dab in to their exact opposite.

They meet the woman who has no hope of a future for she has lost all her family and without a son she loses all her inheritance and support.  Her future is grim.  She is followed by a crowd from the town some probably professional mourners and those who are morning the loss of a friend.  A rather depressing group to say the least. Which represents the old way of being in this world.

To further the point Christ is so moved he has compassion for her. His heart goes out to her. “For Luke emphasizes that, when Jesus sees her situation, “his heart went out to her” (7:13, niv). Three times Luke inserts the feminine pronoun into this single verse. Jesus’ compassion is fueled by the widow’s plight. In the ancient world much more than in contemporary Western settings, it was the case that people’s children were their retirement. Jesus’ compassionate restoration of this widow’s son may have meant the difference between survival and destitution.”[3] He is not really concerned with the dead man here.

So what we have is Jesus’ modern, joyous, compassionate, lively society meeting the old society of exclusion, grief and death head on.  At the first he is moved by compassion.  The words used here convey more than just a feeling but literally a physical internal reaction. One researcher points out that: “‘Having seen her’: This is interesting. After the ‘behold!’ draws attention to the man who had died (which is in the nominative case in v.12), Jesus beholds the mother. In fact, the feminine pronoun ‘her’ is used three times in this verse. The lord saw her; he was moved with compassion toward her; he said to her. 2. In case we missed it, this is about her.”[4] This is all about changing the woman’s’ world and the way the world treats widows and women.

Then Jesus reaches out and touches the bier, the cot, which holds the dead man.  This alone could be viewed as making himself unclean.  Yet, here we have no objection and if there is any we do not hear about it.  In this narrative it is almost as if all the crowds disappear for a moment and it is just Jesus, the widow and the dead man.  Even those carrying the cot have stopped moving and are frozen in this moment of Christ’s compassion.  It is so strong that everything stops.

Jesus commands the man to rise.  Get up.  Immediately the man arises and starts speaking. Of course, at first the crowd is afraid and then they glorified God.

The widow who had no future, who was about to be an outcast, her life is turned around by one act of compassion.  The crowd who believed the world has to be one way and only operated in one way, had their lives turned around.  What was two groups of people in two very different places became one group glorifying God.

We live in a different world and yet this message is as needed today as it was then. In a Place where we think of ourselves as so advanced and yet “The raw wage gap data shows that a woman would earn roughly 73.7% to 77% of what a man would earn over their lifetime.”[5]  Women are still subject to pay inequality, regulated to certain expected professions, and are deemed too strong or Bitchy should they be in a position of Power.

We have men in power who publicly use horrible language when addressing their female counterparts. Saying things like “she is ugly inside and out”, or saying a woman is “Disgusting” because she needs to break to pump milk for her child and if a woman should stand up they are called an “animal” or a “child.[6]  These are quotes form just one person you can imagine quotes from others that are not being reported on.

Here in America, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, sexism is very much on the wane, but misogyny is not. Sexism—the conviction that women don’t deserve equal pay, political rights, or access to education—can be combated by argument, by anti-discrimination laws, and by giving women the opportunity to prove their ability. Misogyny is not amenable to such advances; they can in some circumstances exacerbate it, though they may drive it underground. An example of misogyny is when someone online threatens to rape and mutilate a woman whose opinions that person does not like. Another is when a Presidential candidate says of a female journalist whose questions he finds impertinent, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her—wherever.”[7]

Women are regularly raped on college campuses and no criminal charges are filed.  Women are harassed at work and expected to toughen up if they want to make it in this world.  Women are kidnapped and raped as political prisoners around the world.  Women are still sold into slavery even here in the United States.  One place where slavery is still rampant is in what we would call house workers or maid service.

according to that state department “the involuntary servitude of domestic workers, whose workplace is informal, connected to their off-duty living quarters, and not often shared with other workers. Such an environment, which often socially isolates domestic workers, is conducive to non-consensual exploitation since authorities cannot inspect private property as easily as formal workplaces. Investigators and service providers report many cases of untreated illnesses and, tragically, widespread sexual abuse, which in some cases may be symptoms of a situation of involuntary servitude.”[8] In this day and age there is no excuse for any of this!

The same attitudes toward women translates into the fear of the transgender people and fear of gay people. We need to be a voice for all people.

When I think of the widow in our Gospel I need to point out something no one thinks about.  The widow was a member of contemporary society and about to become the unseen marginalized.  You see she looks like everyone else.  Her plight would go on unnoticed not like a person who is lame, or has leprosy, or is mad shouting in the street.  Society sees those people and chooses to turn away maybe feeling guilty maybe not.

But the widow would be unseen.  She would quietly go back to her life and quietly it would fall apart and she would slowly disappear into society unseen uncared for.  This is much the same as our modern day marginalization of women.  Unless someone makes noise about it, it goes on unseen, unchallenged and there is no guilt or shame around it.  Yet Christ call in this Gospel is one of equality and justice for the unseen.  First to the widow, then to all women and then I would say to the rest of society.  Why do I say this?

For it is easy for us to turn our eyes to those who are obviously in need such as the homeless, the injured, the mentally ill on our streets.  But those who suffer from misogynistic attitudes, wage theft and inequality of pay.  We must seek out, we must be moved with compassion so that this world we can bring about God’s Kindom for all.

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[1] Deryn Guest et al., eds., The Queer Bible Commentary (London: SCM Press, 2006).

[2] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Digital eBook.

[3] Jeannine Brown, Commentary on Luke 7:11-17, Medium, accessed May 26, 2016, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1679.

[4] D. Mark Davis, Jesus Raises a prophet?, Medium, accessed May 26, 2016, http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/06/jesus-raises-prophet.html.

[5] wikipedia, Gender pay gap United states, May 31, 2016, accessed May 31, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap#United_States.

[6] Nina Easton, The history of donald trumps's insults to women, August 9, 2015, accessed May 31, 2016, http://fortune.com/2015/08/09/trump-insult-women-history/.

[7] Margaret Talbot, The G.O.P.’s Misogyny Primary, August 12, 2015, accessed May 31, 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-g-o-p-s-misogyny-primary.

[8] United states govermnet state department, What is modern salvery, accessed May 31, 2016, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/.

Whats next? A look at the In Between time! Luke 24:44-53

Ascension Sunday

As we read this Gospel reading today we celebrate ascension Sunday.  So what is ascension Sunday?  Where did it start and what does it mean.  Well as with everything else it means different things to different people.

According to timedate.com;

Ascension Day is one of the earliest Christian festivals dating back to the year 68. According to the New Testament in the Bible, Jesus Christ met several times with his disciples during the 40 days after his resurrection to instruct them on how to carry out his teachings. It is believed that on the 40th day he took them to the Mount of Olives, where they watched as he ascended to heaven.

Ascension Day marks the end of the Easter season and occurs ten days before Pentecost. Depending upon the phases of the Moon in a particular year, Ascension Day is celebrated on a Thursday. However, some churches, particularly in the United States, celebrate it on the following Sunday.

Many Eastern Orthodox churches calculate the date of Pascha (Easter) according to the Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian calendar used by many western churches, so their Ascension Day usually occurs after the western observance.

Symbols

Ascension Day celebrations include processions symbolizing Christ’s entry into heaven and, in some countries, chasing a “devil” through the streets and dunking it in a pond or burning it in effigy – symbolic of the Messiah’s triumph over the devil when he opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

In England, eggs laid on Ascension Day are said to never go bad and will guarantee good luck for a household if placed in the roof. In Devon, it was an ancient belief that the clouds always formed into the familiar Christian image of a lamb on Ascension Day. If the weather is sunny on Ascension Day, the summer will be long and hot. If it rains on the day, crops will do badly and livestock will suffer from disease. According to Welsh superstition, it is unlucky to do any work on Ascension Day.

In Portugal, Ascension Day is associated with wishes for peace and prosperity. Traditionally, in rural communities, people make bouquets from olive branches and sheaves of wheat with poppies and daisies. The olive and wheat are symbolic of abundant harvest; the poppy stands for peace and the daisy for money. Wheat is kept in the house throughout the coming year as a symbol of prosperity.[1]

For many of us we have an image of Christ arising through the clouds where he is crowned the king of heaven.  Martha Spong shares a story of the problem with this image we have of Christ on ascension Sunday.  This is from the Abingdon press creative preaching annual;

“Who is that?” she asked, looking up at the stained-glass window.  My eleven-year-old daughter and I were standing in the sanctuary of a church I had just come to serve.  Over the altar hung a white-robed Jesus with his feet on top of the Earth, an orb and scepter in his hands, and a crown on his head.

                “It’s Jesus,” I answered.

                “Really?”

     “Yes.” I thought a moment.  “It’s Jesus after he ascends into heaven.”

     “So he’s a king?”  She continued to struggle with the image.  “But in the windows in our other church he was holding a lamb in his arms and sitting with the children all around him.”  She knew Jesus in particular ways.  Her Jesus prayed in the wilderness for forty days, got some fishermen to be his disciples by telling them to try putting the net on the other side of the boat, told stories runaway sons and lost coins, and made sure the children got to talk to him even though the disciples tried to keep them away.

     The disciples knew the same Jesus.  He drove unclean spirits out of the suffering.  He fed thousands of people with only five loaves and two fish.  He straightened the back of a woman bent over for eighteen years.  He had flesh on his bones and a back strong enough to carry his own cross to the hill where soldiers crucified him.

     They knew the Jesus who lived and breathed and touched them in gestures of healing and love.

     “I miss the Jesus from our other church,” declared my daughter.  So did the disciples.  They couldn’t see yet what later generations would make of him, clothing him in stained glass regalia.  They could only watch him go…[2]

In today’s Gospel there is nothing of exotic rituals.  There is no talk about what is the plan.  We know the Disciples stayed in Jerusalem and worshipped in the temple.  We are told the disciples minds were opened so that they understood all that was said of Jesus in the scriptures, it was all made clear. 

This understanding is kind of important.  Remember time and time again Jesus is trying to explain things to show truth to the disciples but they don’t get it.  Not all of it anyway.  They may get glimpses or pieces or say something that is true but yet do not completely understand its meaning. So Jesus opens their minds.  This is beyond simple comprehension.  Jesus opens their minds so that they can see fully and clearly in a way that none of us can.  In a way that scholars and theologians are still trying to discern, learn and figure out all that Christ’s teachings imply and how they can be applied today in our daily lives.

But I can’t help but wonder about this confusing in between time.  We learned of Jesus death and resurrection three days later.  There was no time for a true grieving process.  Jesus appeared and says look I am dead but not really for I am glorified and resurrected.  I am sorry but for us mere humans this would seem, at least to me, to be a very confusing time.

“Many unclear good byes in everyday family life also fall outside of traditional categories of loss but nonetheless cause distress.”[3] So can you imagine what the disciples must have gone through first believing Jesus died, a few even witnessed his horrific death.  Then hearing the body is gone.  Then seeing the Lord. 

Jesus actually appears about ten times in different accounts over a 40 day period.  I can only imagine this left more questions than answers and knowing how we grieve as humans this must have left many happy and yet sad and wanting to mourn yet not sure they should.  Perhaps they should mourn and yet rejoice at the same time.

I am sure we can all relate to this confusion of emotions.  Maybe a good friend moved for a better job or for love.  We are happy for their lives being better but sad and mourn the loss of them being nearby. Or perhaps we can recall someone we knew who was truly suffering from illness.  We are glad they are feeling no more pain or suffering yet we still mourn their loss even though in our hearts we know they are whole again in heaven.

So this is the confusing ambiguous state we find the disciples in when they are happy to be in Christ’s presence for this final time.  Now Jesus Could have just said good-bye and left them for good leaving them to their own devices and manners of coping.  But he decided to give them this great gift.  A Gift of complete comprehension.

This new comprehension must have been overwhelming.  So everything in all the Old Testament that points to Jesus, the messiah, to God can now be understood in its entirety by these disciples.  That is everything from genesis through the Maccabees.  That’s is all the funky laws and the deeply coded psalms.  That must have been amazing and overwhelming and exciting all at once.

Suddenly they had no need to grieve or fear.  They now have more than faith, they have complete and total comprehension.  All that was leading up to Jesus’ Birth and ministry, all that he had been teaching and everything that had been taught about him, they understood it all.  They knew what this conquering of death meant.  They knew!  This is a gift not often given for this is beyond faith. They no longer had any need to grieve Jesus’ death or death at all.

They knew all that had happened and understood why it had to happen in such a way.  They knew what Jewish scholars and sects had been arguing over for years.  They understood each and every reference to Christ and how it was meant to be applied.  Then they were told they must proclaim forgiveness in Jesus’ name starting with Jerusalem and then everywhere else.  Then they were told that they must stay in Jerusalem until … until you have been furnished with heavenly power….Until you have been clothed with power from on high…  wait …what???

Jesus final recorded words in Luke are really no surprise.  We have often seen Jesus give the orders that require a blind trust.  Go to the village you will find a colt tell the owner the master has need of it …okay I’ll go get  it and hope I am not arrested and or clobbered…..Take the pitcher of water and pour it for the master of the feast…go wash your eyes in the river…stand up and walk.  Jesus stories are full of  bold statements and his followers and the people he encounters do what he says.  He had that charisma.

So after you been following this guy around for three years, you have seen all that he has done,  you have been a part of this fantastic life for three years and he tells you hang around the city you do it.  You go to the temple praising God for all that you have seen and all that you now understand and know.  The world you had known three years ago is gone there is no going back to the way things were.  You hang around the city waiting for what’s next.  They may have had no issue with this as what was to come next they may have already understood due to this divine comprehension.

But what is next?  What is going to happen now?  Well I can tell you what isn’t happening there is no vision of a white robed king hovering over the earth judging us all.  The disciples weren’t taught that.  There is no vision of toppling over Rome…Jesus himself squashed that vision.  This is a time of in between.  This is a time of change, and opportunity.  You see while the disciples waited for what was next they continued to do what they knew.  Isn’t that the best thing to do in the midst of transition?  The best advice in the midst of radical change is not to do anything but to wait, pray, weigh things out carefully.

Again today’s reading is what we call “the great commission” and it is found in all the Synoptic Gospels. It is the emphatic call from Jesus to the church that would be created by apostles that the gospel is to be preached among all nations for the salvation of all who will receive it. This is the call that later becomes communities of love and support.  The model of the early church where, yes they shared the Christ story, but more importantly, they practiced the Christ story.

The apostles had this gift of complete and full knowledge during this in between time they did what they needed to do.  They attended temple.  They prayed and cared for each other and the community around them that had been touched by Christ. They probably reminisced and shared what they now understood amongst themselves and perhaps a few others.  They had time to process all of this for a time until the day they were all gathered again in that room and things would change once more.

See I may be repeating myself but to have suddenly been gifted with all this understanding of the scriptures.  It is a staggering thought, it had to be a rush like neo in the matrix when they plug a computer into his brain and he suddenly knows Kung Fu.  His eyes are closed as all this information is dumped into his brain he opens his eyes lets out a very heavy sigh and states I know Kung Fu.  Morpheus says show me and well that doesn’t quite go as Neo expected.

Again a reason for the time between the commissioning and the gift of the spirit.  To know something is one thing and actually apply it is another.  The apostles had all this knowledge but they needed time to figure out how it may all apply.  How they were to use it, where they were to go.

here is a brief summary.

– Andrew – missionary to modern day Georgia/Bulgaria (area adjacent to the Black Sea near Turkey); martyred/crucified in town of Achaia (Greece)

He was a fisherman from Galilee; was Peter’s brother; brought Peter to Jesus; preached to the Scythians and Thracians; was crucified and buried at Patrae (Greece).

3 – Bartholomew – missionary to India; martyred/crucified upside down in Armenia (Georgia)

Eusebius, in his Church History, confirms the ministry of Bartholomew in India.

4 – James, Son of Alphaeus – local missionary in Jerusalem; martyred/stoned in Jerusalem and was buried there beside the temple.

5 – James, Son of Zebedee – local missionary in Judea; martyred/beheaded in Judea

6 – John, brother of James and son of Zebedee – banished to Patmos; died of old age

John was one of the few disciples that did not die a cruel death, but of old age.

7 – Matthew/Levi – missionary to Parthia (Iran); died of old age

8 – Simon/Peter – missionary to Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Betania, Italy, Asia; martyred/crucified upside down in Rome

9 – Philip – missionary to Phrygia (Turkey); martyred/crucified upside down in Hierapolis (Turkey)

10 – Simon the Zealot – bishop of Jerusalem after James; died of old age

11 – Thaddaeus/Judas son of James – missionary to Edessa and to the surrounding Mesopotamian region (Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran); died of old age

He may have taken the name Thaddaeus (“warm-hearted”) because of the infamy that came to be attached to the name Judas;

12 – Thomas: Also called Didymus; possibly a fisherman; often remembered as “Doubting Thomas”; preached to the Parthians (Iran), Medes (Iran), Persians (Iran), Hyrcanians (Iran), Bactrians (Afghanistan), and Margians; was killed and buried in Calamene, a city of India.

13 – Matthias – local missionary in Jerusalem; died of old age

After Jesus’ ascension the 11 Apostles met in the upper room where they were staying and cast lots to decide between two disciples, Matthias and Joseph called Barsabus, who was surnamed Justus.

Matthias replaced Judas Iscariot to bring the Apostles number back to 12; was one of the 72 and preached in Jerusalem; died and was buried there.

14 – Paul – missionary to Illyricum (Croatia), Italy, Spain; martyred/beheaded in Rome

Paul became an apostle a year after the ascension of Christ and beginning at Jerusalem, he advanced as far as Illyricum (Croatia), Italy and Spain, preaching the Gospel for 35-years. In the time of Nero he was beheaded and buried at Rome.

12 disciples + Matthias (replacement to Judas) + Paul = 14 disciples

Out of 14, 1 was lost forever, 9 were martyrs. 4 were local missionaries in Jerusalem/Judea. The rest were foreign missionaries who left their local surroundings–9 of them out of the 14 were foreign missionaries and church planters.[4]

Often we fear change or in the midst of it make rash decisions. Though the fate of the disciples is hard they made their choices with clear heads and full hearts because they took the time to live in the present of the between time.  May we have the grace to do the same as we grow and live into who we are called to be as a church and as individuals.  amen.

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[1] Time and date AS, Acension, accessed April 25, 2016, http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/common/ascension-day.

[2] Jenee Woodard, The Abingdon Creative Preaching Annual 2016 (nashville: abingdon press, 2015), 97.

[3] Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999), Digital eBook.

[4] Ray Choi, What happened to the 12 disciples after the resurrection and ascension?, June 1, 2012, accessed May 7, 2016, http://raychoi.org/2012/06/01/what-happened-to-the-12-disciples-after-the-resurrection-and-ascension/.