PROPER 22, B

Mark 10:2-16

In the 20 years I’ve been preaching, I’ve never had to preach on this lesson – and, when I read it this week, I considered many possible ways of avoiding it today. Instead, I’ll just preface what I have to say by reminding you that I cannot approach this in an unbiased way. I married at 24, divorced at 36, and remarried at 70. Thus, if we read this text in a literal way, I am both a priest and an adulterer – simultaneously. Not a pretty picture!

So How are we to understand Jesus this week? The basic setup is a familiar one. Someone asks Jesus a question to test him – that is, to try to trick him into saying something “wrong.” “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

As usual, Jesus answers their question with a question. “What did Moses command you?” They answer him. “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce her.” That was the Jewish law. Notice that only men could dismiss their spouse, not women.

As David B. Howell notes: “In Jesus’ day, when a woman received a "certificate of divorce," she lost most of her rights (like the right to own property). She could easily find herself begging for food on the street or prostituting herself for income. Clearly, Jesus had a pastoral concern for women who could have their lives torn apart by a signature on a piece of paper. In the kingdom of God, there should be mutual respect and concern for each other, not a quick certificate of divorce or a call to a lawyer to ‘take her (or him) for everything I can.’" (Feasting)

Jesus then tells the questioner that Moses made this rule because of people’s hardness of heart. And then Jesus quotes from Genesis, “God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. . .therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Later, when the disciples ask him about this he goes further. “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Notice that Jesus is now applying the rules to both genders equally.

One way of seeing this passage is that it creates a new law concerning marriage and divorce. Many Christians see it this way. The Bible says— therefore it must be so. When I confront this understanding, I have to ask, if Jesus believed this to be a new law, why would he have even talked to the woman at the well? He knew she had had multiple husbands, and been with some who were not her husband, and besides, she was a Samaritan. Why wouldn’t he have scolded her for that? Or condemned her?

This understanding would label me as an adulterer, but I sure don’t feel like I am. It just doesn’t ring true to me.

Another way of understanding what Jesus is saying is this: divorce is not something that God intends for us. Men and women who marry should love and cherish each other, support and respect each other, all the things that are in our marriage vows. Sadly, that doesn’t always happen, but it is what God intends for us.

As C.Clifton Beach puts it, “The point is clear: while dissolution of marriage is permissible, owing to human incompetence in sustaining their vows, God’s intent at creation is wholeness, including oneness of flesh. Normatively speaking, human beings should not rupture what God unites (v. 9).

What may sound to our ears as relentlessly harsh assumes a different tenor when we understand that Jesus’ intent is the protection and honor of the spouse as a child created in God’s image, not as chattel to be discarded on selfish whim.” (Feasting)

I know you have heard stories or known people who have experienced abuse within a marriage, whether physical abuse or emotional abuse – either of which contravenes the marriage vows. You may also know people in that situation who have gone to their priest or pastor and been told, “You just have to make the best of it” or even, “if you can be a better spouse, this won’t happen any more” thus further abusing the victim.

Can you imagine Jesus saying such things to an abused spouse? It seems to me that Jesus always takes the point of view that pastoral concerns are more important than the law. The Sabbath is made for people, not the other way around. It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of the mouth. Think of the shepherd who leaves the whole flock to its own devices just to find the one who is lost.

Clearly, all churches operate on a certain set of rules, but we have to remember that Jesus was a Jew and did not seem to believe he was founding a new religion. He came to fulfill the law. Clearly he respected the law, but he did not respect the people who put the law before kindness and loving their neighbor, who used the law to put others down, or used the law to elevate themselves or to win arguments!

The last part of today’s lesson seems unconnected to the marriage issue. But in suffering the little children to come to him, Jesus is reinforcing all his pronouncements about who is IN rather than OUT in the Kingdom of God. Charles Campbell connects this to the marriage discussion in this way: “Jesus here reminds the disciples that one enters the kingdom only by receiving it in complete dependence on God. One does not enter the kingdom through the fulfillment of any abstract legal principles, including those related to divorce and remarriage. The affirmation in the second pericope thus forestalls any attempt to set up Jesus’ earlier teaching as a timeless law, obedience to which is requisite for entering into God’s reign. . . .Indeed, those suffering the pain and brokenness of divorce may be precisely the ‘least of these’ who can receive the kingdom in dependence on God’s love.”

AMEN to that.

PROPER 20, B, 09/20/15

Mark 9:30-37

On many occasions I have claimed that what Jesus taught was not only counter cultural, but was also radically so. If you haven’t seen that, today’s lesson should make it clearer.

In just 8 verses from Mark, we have what could be considered three different events, but they are so closely related that I’ll have to talk about all three of them.

In the first part, Jesus is trying for the 2nd time to warn the disciples about what is going to happen. What he says is so contrary to their idea of Messiahship, they cannot understand – or they chose not to understand. Once again they don’t get it. It’s so easy to see that they don’t get it, that we may not notice how much we still don’t get it either.

The disciples expect the Messiah to rise up and drive the Romans out. They expect what John Dominic Crossan calls “the great clean-up” to begin, where God comes into the world to set things right – to punish the evil doers, to create the new Jerusalem and subdue the rest of the earth to their rule. How can anyone with these expectations take in the words of Jesus about being killed, much less the business about rising on the 3rd day?

How often do we want someone to come along and set things right? What is the entire “Left Behind” series of books about but that? The old-time view of messiahship is still alive and well – lets throw all the sinners into the fires of hell while we enjoy the fruits of the kingdom. No way is the leader of this clean-up supposed to die!

In the second part of the lesson, Jesus asks the disciples what they had been arguing about along the way. They are shamed into silence because they know that he won’t like what they did. After he explains what is going to happen to him, they end up arguing about who was the greatest among them – sort of like when the Messiah takes over, which of us will get to be Prime Minister? Who will get the plum jobs?

This is a great segment of Gospel to try out the practice of mentally playing one of the roles in the drama. Just imagine yourself in Jesus’s place. I’ve done that and found myself ranting at the disciples for their obtuseness! How frustrating for Jesus, knowing that time is getting short, and the disciples are squabbling among themselves about who’s on top. But Jesus instead sits down and patiently tries again to teach them.

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” What? What is he talking about? That is not the way of the world. Jesus says to gain the highest place in the kingdom you must be a servant, even a slave, to all others.

After 2000 years we still don’t get it. How quickly we conform to the norms of our culture, where the one with the most always wins; where the one who rises to the top, usually by pushing others down, is the winner; where the one with the most money or the one who has been here longest has the most influence and status. You don’t have to listen to the current political speeches very long to hear exactly the opposite of what Jesus says.

Serving others also means serving wherever we’re needed, not only the jobs with prestige, but the ones that are menial, and knowing that all are of equal importance for the good of the whole. Consider what our economic lives would be like if people lived for what they could do for others instead of how much they can get for themselves. What would our political scene be like if people put serving others above serving their own ambitions?

In the third part of today’s reading, Jesus takes a child and stands among the disciples saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Think of the pictures you’ve seen of Jesus with a child. Is the child clean? Beautiful? Is it a picture of sweetness and light. Well, erase from your memory all such sentimental, warm and fuzzy pictures, because it is not an accurate rendering of what happened or what this all means.

In the first century, in the Middle East, the infant mortality rate was about 30% of live births. Of the children who lived, 60% were dead before the age of 16. In that culture, children were loved, but NOT valued, at least not until they reached the age of maturity and were of some use to their family and/or tribe. Even so august a person as Thomas Aquinas taught that in a famine, children should be fed last. In other words their status in that culture was the equivalent of a slave’s. (Pilch)

So, if you want to picture Jesus with a child, it should be a child who is barefoot, ragged, and dirty, more like the pictures we see of children from the barrios, or the garbage heaps, or the starving ones of Africa. Furthermore, a child cannot help us in our careers or give us anything of value. So Jesus is saying that we are to welcome the very least among us.

Particularly in his society, which was so status conscious, this message was totally counter-cultural. Unfortunately, it still is today. Have you been in a large city where the homeless are evident in the streets? People who live there ignore them. Can you look at them? Say “hello” or “good morning?”

What Jesus is saying in this lesson is essentially the same as in the famous Matthew text: “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, this you do unto me.”

When we ignore the homeless, or anyone else who is not worthy of our notice, we are ignoring God. When we turn a blind eye on the suffering of people in our country or anywhere else, we are turning a blind eye on God. If we don’t care about the immigrants in our country, even the illegal ones, who are often exploited and mistreated, we are not caring about God. If we refuse to pay taxes to care for the disabled or to educate our children (and they are all our children), or to provide for those living in poverty, we are refusing God’s word, and we’re certainly not following Jesus.

If we refuse to see the connection between ourselves and those who are presently poor, if we have no compassion for those without medical care, if we still believe we’re better off than others because we’ve worked harder or we’re smarter or we’re more deserving, then we are just as blind as the disciples were.

Jesus calls us over and over to a new understanding of our place in the world and how we are to behave. If we could only follow him, life would be better for everyone instead of the few. Life would be about serving others, making sure everyone has enough to live with dignity, and that no one is exploited for another person’s profit. Just imagine it! That’s the kingdom Jesus preaches and that we are supposed to help bring to reality.

So, love one another as God loves you, and give yourself in service as an act of gratitude. AMEN

PROPER 19, B

Mark 8:27-38

As he hiked one day alone along a little used trail, a man lost his footing and fell over cliff overhanging an enormous gorge, at the bottom of which lay a rushing river. Arms flung out wildly and feet kicking for any purchase as he plunged towards certain death, the man suddenly found himself grasping a scrubby tree growing against all odds from the sheer cliff face. He looked up and saw only the horizontal cliff face. He could not climb up. He looked down. The roaring river cascaded far below over sharp rocks. The cliff face was unbroken by other trees or outcroppings or handholds. It was a cool and windy day in the off-season. His voice would be lost to the winds if he yelled for help, and no-one would be near to hear it if it happened to carry. He knew he could not hold on much longer. To fall would be to die – crushed on the rocks below.

Then he had an idea, born of desperation. “God!” he yelled.

His own outcry reverberated around him and the wind echoed in his ears, but no other response greeted him.

He had no other options. He yelled again. “God, if you exist, then save me. Save me and I will believe in you, and I will teach others to believe in you.”

Again, silence.

His hands began to slip, his arms to tire, and he almost lost his grip entirely when a voice boomed from the heavens, “That’s what they all say when they are in trouble.”

“No, no, God. I am different. Already, I believe in you. Just save me, and I will proclaim your name to the ends of the earth”

“All right. I will save you. Let go of the branch, and you will be saved.”

“Let go? Let go? You don’t understand. I’m too far up. There are no foot holds. Those boulders…”

“Let…go….”

Silence filled the canyon.

“Yeah. Um. Is there anybody ELSE up there, God?”

(Adapted from The Spirituality of Imperfection, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketchum and Taking Flight, Anthony De Mello)

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Really? Is there a plan B?

If television and social media bear any relation to the true inclination of society, if the bumper stickers and banners accurately reflect our desires, we cherish the notion of a Jesus that SAVES! Saves us from sin, saves us from death, saves us from our enemies, saves us from…, saves us from all manner of inconvenience. Deny myself? Lose my life? Is that really what I’m signing up for?

What is the point of having a messiah if He isn’t going to help you out now and again?

“Who do you say that I am?”

After a bit of hemming and hawing, Peter blurts it out. Lays in on the line. “You are the messiah.” We consider it now a great confession of faith. Maybe Peter did too, at the time. But he had no idea what he was talking about. You are the messiah. The Hebrew messiah simply means “anointed”. The Greek is Christos. You are the anointed, the messiah, the christ. To the Greeks and Romans of the time, the concept would mean essentially nothing. It was not part of their tradition. To the Jews, the word came laden with meaning. It could refer to an anointed priest – like Aaron, or to a warrior, a judge, a prophet, or a leader set to deliver God’s people from the yoke of oppression they labored beneath. But it could not, would not, under any stretch of any Jewish imagination, refer to someone destined to be murdered in shame and humiliation by the very source of that oppression. No wonder Peter objected. He said the right word – but it doesn’t yet have the meaning it does now in our post-Easter perspective.

As commentator Sarah Dylan Breuer writes, “Peter says that Jesus is the anointed one — but anointed to do what? Until we’re really clear about that — and I’ll argue that no vocabulary speaks as loudly as actions on this point — the “right” words will carry no meaning or a misleading one.”

She goes on, “It’s a problem we’ve still got as much or more in our world. I can say that Jesus is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God,” and if what I mean — and what my life testifies I mean — when I say “God” is “that very powerful being in the sky who’s itching to punish everyone I dislike or find threatening,” my supposedly orthodox confession of Jesus becomes empty at best and oppressive at worst. I can say that Jesus is “my Lord and Savior,” and if my life testifies that Jesus saves me from responsibility to care for my neighbors…and that Jesus’ lordship is a kind of lording it over those perceived as weak or dirty, my confession is a distraction at best”

Who do you say that I am? You are, we are, the Body of Christ. Who do our lives say that He is? We want to cling to the scrubby, unstable tree of security, avoid at all costs the bumps and bruises that come from leaping over the cliff that is life in Christ. Yet, Jesus is quite clear. I will undergo great suffering and humiliation and be killed. Follow me. It wouldn’t do well on a bumper sticker. It has been taken as a basis within Christianity for self-imposed suffering, or justifying or even for imposing the suffering of others.

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. … To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is: “He leads the way, keep close to him.”

“The necessity of the suffering comes from the way Jesus lives – a life that reaches out to those who are ostracized (Mark 5:1-20), unclean (Mark 5:21-43), or marginalized (Mark 7:24-30).” (Micah D. Kiel, Working Preacher.) Jesus does not offer us safe haven from life’s suffering. He did not take up His cross to ensure we did not have to bear our own. Rather, He took up His cross in order that we might be able to take up our own, that we might join Him in bringing about the Kingdom of God, that we might know goodness, and love, and life within ourselves.

As we journey together away from self, and toward life, I pray not that you walk in my shoes – nor I yours – but that together we walk so close to Rabbi Jesus that we are covered with dust from his sandals. (Neal Rylaarsdam). Amen.

PROPER 18

Isaiah 35:4-7a
Mark 7:24-37

On September 1, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and President of the House of Deputies the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings wrote us (the Episcopal Church) a letter.

“Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,” they wrote. “On June 17, 9 members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, were murdered by a white racist during their weekly bible study. Just a few days later at General Convention in Salt Lake City, we committed ourselves to stand in solidarity with the AME Church as they respond with acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice.

Now our sisters and brothers in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church have asked us to make that solidarity visible by participating in Confession, Repentance and Commitment to end Racism Sunday on Sunday, September 6. We ask all Episcopal congregations to join this ecumenical effort with prayer and action.”

They go on to quote AME Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, “Racism will not end with the passage of legislation alone; it will also require a change of heart and thinking. This is an effort which the faith community must lead, and be the conscience of the nation. We will call upon every church, temple, mosque and faith communion to make their worship service on this Sunday a time to confess and repent for the sin and evil of racism, this includes ignoring, tolerating and accepting racism, and to make a commitment to end racism by the example of our lives and actions.”

I read the letter with a mix of reactions. On the one hand, it has been a year of heightened awareness of racism. Not just the horror that happened as faithful Christians attempted to study the Word of Christ in South Carolina, but the events in Ferguson, MO; the highly publicized traffic stop in Texas, (the death in Baltimore in police custody), the loud and vehement debates about what the Confederate Flag “really means”. Race relations are generally understood to be worsening according to polls. Somebody must do something to reverse the trend, and this seems to be a positive something.

On the other hand, we live in a relatively homogeneous community. We don’t think of ourselves as racist, for the most part. Racism is something that happens other places – the South, the slums, the big cities – somewhere else, someone else – not us, not here. We can keep living that happy illusion day by day because, most of the time, nothing confronts us to test or to shatter it.

“The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.” wrote activist and poet Maya Angelou. Dr. Angelou was a beautiful and insightful soul who spoke truth from her heart. I fear that she accurately illustrates the subtle, constant, unbidden influence of century upon century of racism. But if that is the case, if racism (along with ageism and classism and sexism, and all the other loathesome isms) if racism has wormed its ugly way into the structure of our society, woven itself into the very fabric of our beings, what do we do next? Must we look at the repugnant unrecognizable reflection of ourselves? Isn’t it better then just to stay in our separate bubbles and have enlightened thoughts without risking actual interaction?

A man travels to a foreign land. It has been a long and stressful trip making him tired and grouchy. He wants to be alone. He just wants a little peace. He is approached by a woman whose daughter is sick. She begs Him for help. It is help that He is perfectly capable of providing, but He insults her instead. The desperate mother of an ill child, begging for help. He.calls.her.names.

We don’t recognize Jesus in this story. We don’t want to know the Jesus in this story. But we must, because therein lies the hope, therein lies the Good News.

Extraordinary homiletic gymnastics through the years have desperately undertaken to render Jesus’s words in this lection more palatable. Apparently, the Greek word translated as “dog”, might more accurately mean something more akin to “puppy”. I don’t see that helps things much. Whether he thought of her as a cute little fuzzball or a roving scavenger – given the 1st century Jewish attitude towards dogs, the latter is far more likely – either way He clearly meant to say that she, and her sick daughter were somehow “less than”. He has healed lepers and talked with demons, eaten with tax collectors and prostitutes, but considers this mother beneath his notice.

Another suggestion to ameliorate Jesus’s seemingly callous remarks is that they did not reflect his true nature, but rather were specifically intended to draw out the very response the distressed mother gave – to bring out her faith. Surely, approaching a strange man from an enemy territory, bowing at his feet begging “Help me, please.” shows faith enough. Far from placing Jesus in a kinder light, any further “drawing out” seems convoluted and cruel.

This is Jesus’s first direct recorded encounter with someone from another religion and culture. He grew up around other cultures, other nations, but in first century Jerusalem Jews associated almost exclusively with Jews, Greeks with Greeks, Romans with Romans, Syrophoenicians with Syrophoenicians. Jesus treated the woman with the contempt that any Jewish Galilean would employ towards a Syrophoenician from Tyre. What happens if we accept that Jesus might not have grown up immune to the effect of centuries of enmity between people? Rather than tying ourselves into theological knots trying to excuse or rewrite that distasteful interaction, what if we accept it? Because if we do, then we can consider the possibility that his interaction with her changed him. Made him think. Made him open his eyes to all His brothers and sisters. Brought him suddenly and beautifully to the truth that Maya Angelou expressed two millenia later – No human being can be any more human than any other human being. If He can be changed, maybe we can change…

“Ephphatha.” Jesus said to the deaf, mute man. “Ephphatha.” And the man could hear. “Be opened” The man could speak. “Ephphatha” “Be opened,” He says to us all. Be opened as I became opened. And we can open our eyes to face our own culturally ingrained biases. We can open our mouths for justice, for peace. We can open our ears to the stories of those among us who have been have been ignored and reviled. We can open our hands to do the difficult work of reconciliation. We can open our hearts to the cries of those who have been silenced and insulted for too long.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Amen.

PROPER 17

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Laws. Hmphhh.

In Charlotte, NC a lawyer bought a box of rare, expensive cigars. So rare and so expensive that he felt the need to take out insurance on his investment. A prudent investor, he insured them against; “decay, spoilage, theft and fire.”

Over the course of the few weeks he smoked all of the cigars. Then, he filed a claim with his insurance company, stating in the claim that the cigars were lost in a series of small . . . .fires. The insurance company rejected the claim. They lawyer sued.

The man admitted smoking the cigars, and the judge noted that the case was frivolous. Nonetheless the lawyer won the case . . .”the company declared the cigars insurable property, and did insure them against fire, and the Company failed to specify what sort of fire was excluded, therefore the claim is legitimate.” The man collected $15,000.

As he was leaving the courthouse, the man was arrested and charged with 24 counts of arson. His insurance claim and testimony in the civil case served as evidence against him. “the series of small fires” which had caused his loss of property were deliberate. He was convicted and sentenced to 24 months in jail and was fined $24,000. (News of the Weird)

Some days it is easy to be contemptuous of the law.

“Pharisee.” The word has become synonymous with “hypocrite” in our culture. (Literally. I checked the dictionary – the ancient Jewish sect was mentioned, but the more succinct definition was “a self-righteous person”, “a hypocrite”.) The pharisees were people of the law. They made it their life’s work to serve the law, every letter, every syllable.

We look at that ancient law and dismiss it. The Law the Pharisees defended so fervently seems now even crazier than our own – a burdensome set of standards and rules that simply do not apply: We stop far short of putting people to death if they work on the Sabbath, as recommended in Exodus 35:2 – they are more likely to get a promotion than an execution. We delight in the consumption of shellfish (forbidden in Leviticus 10:10). In spite of Leviticus 19:19, I admit I pay no attention to what is planted next to what in the garden and the only thought I give about wearing blended cloth is to avoid that sort of plastic-y sort of polyester so inexplicably popular in the 1970’s

We happily use passages like our Gospel to chuck it all, law and commandment, letter and spirit, baby and bathwater in to one big compartment labeled “Not My Problem”, to be pulled out only when it serves a purpose we want served.

Look closely at what Jesus is saying. He does not condemn the Law – He simply insists that the Pharisees understand and respect the gift that they have undertaken to protect. The Law is a gift, a gift from God to His people – designed to foster love and co-operation, to protect the unprotected, to feed the hungry – to make sure everyone is fed, to promote health, and to allow a close, intimate relationship with a compassionate, just Creator. The pharisees that frustrated Jesus have forgotten that the Law serves the people – not the other way. Jesus does not scold them for up-holding the law, but rather for their failure to uphold its spirit.

Sesame Street has been on the air since 1969. It has long been known for the interactions it portrays between adults, children and muppets. In a documentary about the making of Sesame street, one of the producers was asked about how the children react on the set, particularly when the are working with muppets. Unembellished by the power of television, the muppets are essentially puppets with an adult crouched on the floor underneath them holding them up. The producer said The producer said the kids don’t pay any attention to the humans; they just talk to the Muppets. He went on to tell of one little boy who saw BIG BIRD take OFF his top half. An actor stepped out. He stared and then yelled to his mother, “Mom, Mom. Do you think Big Bird knows he has a [hu]man inside?” Jesus asks the pharisees, asks us, to remember the human inside. We do not always see the human inside. The humans inside the church. The human inside the stranger. The human inside the image that we portray to the world. (thanks to writings of Rev. Delmer Chilton)

We look into the misty mirror that reflects our lives. We see orderly lives, following the societal norms, making a living day to day. We look away and continue our way, unaffected by the view. “…they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.”

Mirrors. The thing about mirrors….well. As the decades pass, does anybody else here take a long, searching look in the mirror and think, “Oh. No. There must be some mistake. That gray hair, that crazy gravity effect, that just isn’t right.”

C. S. Lewis wrote, “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” Jesus calls us to the uncomfortable job of looking into the mirrors of our souls, calls us to an honesty we do not like – within that painfully human soul lies evil intentions that should not be ignored, impulses we would prefer to deny. We deny them at our peril. Their presence affects who we are. Jesus not only sets the arduous task recognizing the brokenness within, but gives an invitation to recognize that those broken, beautiful, damaged, lonely souls can open to serve God, serve God’s people, serve God’s creation.

We gather today to keep the Sabbath – in praise and thanksgiving, in penitence and forgiveness, eating and drinking in together the sustenance of Christ, to be healed and strengthened AND TO GO FORTH. To love as we are loved. To discern God in all the fellow broken, damaged souls around us. To remember the human child of God within the projected images. “Anybody can observe the Sabbath” writes Alice Walker. “Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.” May we make it so, ever and always, by the grace of God. AMEN

PROPER 15

Proverbs 9:1-6

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58

I love today’s reading from Proverbs. Wisdom is personified as a woman who has built a house, slaughtered some animals, mixed up the wine and set a table. Obviously she is planning a feast or a banquet. Then she sends her servants out to summon the guests.

She says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Eat my food and you will be wise – you will have insight.

Paul admonishes us to be careful how we live, not as unwise people but as wise. Do not drink wine to become drunk, but to be filled by the Spirit.

Then we read John, where eating gives us eternal life. The language of this passage continues to bother me. I think I mentally labeled it as “cannibal language” about 50 years ago, and then ignored it.

“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

It isn’t just that his language bothers me. I wonder how it might hit a visitor or a non-Christian. Is it any wonder that rumors about Christians killing babies and eating them persisted for so long? I have friends who are spiritual, but are totally turned off by this kind of imagery. So how are we supposed to understand it?

I have three perspectives to offer. One is this: in primitive cultures, even non-cannibal ones, there was a strong belief in a literal understanding of this passage. If I eat the heart of a brave animal or a brave opponent, I will become more brave. I will become more like that being. Moreover, I honor that animal or person in the act of eating, so that their death serves some purpose.

The second perspective comes from a seminar Lee and I attended 9 years ago with John Dominic Crossan, one of the best-known Biblical scholars of our time. He has done extensive work on the historical Jesus, and on Paul and Jesus in opposition to empire, specifically the Roman Empire. He’s an expert on the political, social and religious world in which Jesus and Paul lived and worked. Here’s part of his perspective:

In the ancient world there were two ways to establish, maintain, or restore proper relationships with others: give them a gift or invite them for a meal. The gift is a sacrifice, something of your substance that you give to the other, the more valuable it is to you, the greater the gift. The meal required that you kill one of your animals.

An animal taken to the temple is killed to make it holy and is then eaten. So a sacrifice is something made holy or sacred.

Both of these understandings apply to the death of Jesus. The Romans executed him for subversion. He could have hidden in the hills. He could have gone back to being a carpenter, but he continued his mission and preaching in spite of the risks. This was his sacrifice – to die was what it cost him to bring us his message of love and non-violence.

Note that this sacrifice is not dependent on suffering. The sacrifice would be the same whether he had been killed instantly or starved to death instead of crucified. Suffering happens in all sorts of ways, but is not part of God’s intention for us.

This idea of sacrifice is different from that in the Isaac story. It is much more like the tradition in the pagan world that the king must die to restore the kingdom. In some versions the king died each year to insure good crops, but in others the king went willingly to his death in a time of trouble or crisis to restore the relationship between his kingdom and the gods – to insure their blessing upon his people in the way of good crops and fat cattle. The king was saving his people from disaster, from starvation, from bad weather, from earthquakes, or whatever had beset them.

In this understanding, Jesus died in his attempt to restore right relationship between God and God’s people, not to atone for anyone’s sin. In fact, the tradition of Jesus dying to take away our sins became orthodox a thousand years later.

The third perspective on today’s reading is this — The author of John’s Gospel is a mystic. Mystics seek spiritual union with God. So the eating of bread and drinking of wine are outward and visible signs of our incorporating the spiritual qualities of Christ into ourselves. We seek to become one with Christ and have Christ dwell in us.

And when we speak of belonging to the Body of Christ, that reminds us of our right relationship with everyone else, especially, but not only, those who share this Eucharistic meal. It connects us to all the saints both past and future.

The implications of these connections are clear and staggering. If I make a disparaging remark about Georgeanne behind her back, or if I cheat Lee in a business deal, or I treat Sam in a way that humiliates her, I am hurting them, obviously. But I am also hurting me, and ALL of you too. Why? Because these are acts that destroy relationships; they tear the fabric or our community; they weaken the web that binds us together as children of God. Where is the wisdom in hurting others when we hurt ourselves and our community at the same time?

I’ve often commented on how lucky we are to be belong to a church that is not part of a confessional denomination. It is not our theological statements that bind us together; rather it is our worship.

Especially in times of rapid change this is so crucial. In this church we can hold differing theological views and still worship together. We can disagree on all sorts of issues, but in worship we metaphorically become again the body of Christ. Worship doesn’t change our differences, it changes their relative importance to us. It reminds us that our relationships are more important than our opinions.

When we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, the whole purpose is to restore our relationships with God and with each other. We confess our failures and receive forgiveness, we share a meal of bread and wine made sacred by the sacrifice of Jesus, and in these acts we knit up the raveled sleeve of compassion and restore our community. When we leave here, we are once again, the family of God. Alleluia!

PROPER 14 B

1 Kings 19:4-8,

John 6:35, 41-51

Jesus said to the people, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Coming as this does, shortly after the feeding of the 5,000, it’s meaning may seem clear. On the other hand, while most of us have never experienced real hunger or thirst, we know that some people have, even if they are Christian. So what is Jesus really promising us here?

Let’s start at the literal level. God fed his people who were wandering in the wilderness after their escape from bondage in Egypt with manna, a form of bread. Each morning the manna would appear and the people would gather it and eat, but they could not store it up for later meals, so they were totally dependent on God providing it each morning. All they could eat was enough.

Then we have the story from Kings today of God feeding Elijah in the wilderness. He received a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. Twice. And it was enough to maintain him for another 40 days in the wilderness. There’s that number 40 again – so do not get too literal about this. The point is that this God feeds his people in times of trouble.

And since bread was the staple food of the time, the word bread and the word food are often interchangeable. When Jesus fed the 5000 it was with bread and fish. In all of these examples the food is real and it serves the purpose food does for us: it sustains the bodies of those who eat. It meets their present need.

Last week we heard Jesus say to the crowds who followed him after the feeding of the 500, “Very truly, I tell you, y ou are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life. . .”

Jesus knew that many came for more free bread, but each literal feeding only lasts for a day.

But when Jesus says today, “I am the bread of life,” he is not just talking about food for the body. He’s talking about food for the soul. To understand this as his audience might have, we have to go back again to the Jewish scripture.

In Ezekiel 34 the prophet says to the leaders of Israel, “Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the sheep.”

And just in case you think the prophet is speaking literally, he goes on to say, “You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.”

This passage makes it very clear that the metaphor of feeding is about more than just food. It’s about caring for your people, nurturing them. It’s about all the sorts of things Jesus did for people, that he tells us to do, and that God does for us.

When Jesus says he is the bread of life, he’s talking not just about feeding us, but also caring for us in numerous other ways. Ultimately he is talking about the ability to live an abundant life, no matter what our literal circumstances may be.

As with bread, which represents food, which represents abundant life, the promise that those who come to Jesus will never be hungry or thirsty is metaphorical. Jesus is not saying that literally they will never experience physical hungry or thirst. Rather he is saying that they will be free of desire for stuff that doesn’t feed their souls. They will be free of seeking for more and more of whatever, whether money or fame or possessions or reputation or food.

I suspect that all of us have encountered people who are driven to chase after something so badly that they never have enough. They must continue to go after more. This appetite is not about physical need, and to others it may be evident that they have more than enough, but they cannot be satisfied.

Living life by the precepts Jesus taught is more satisfying and more meaningful. Building strong relationships is more sustaining to our souls than building a strong stock portfolio. Helping others and sharing what we have is more satisfying to our spirit than climbing over others to get ahead. Building a better neighborhood, community, or country is more significant than building a highly profitable business that makes its profit off the backs of its employees.

In our culture the word bread is often used to mean money. So to speak metaphorically, how much bread do you need? What kind of bread do you need? Especially in times of economic downturn, the fear factor enters into our considerations of money matters. This is understandable, but if we don’t recognize it for what it is, it can become a way of life – the habit of viewing the world through the lens of scarcity rather than the lens of abundance.

When Jesus offers us the bread of life, buried in the metaphor is the promise of a life of peace, which means a life without fear. This is hard to grasp and even harder to hold on to in a culture that is as fear-driven as ours is, especially since 9/11. When did gated communities become a standard part of our communal life? When did children quit walking to school? Or playing outdoors unsupervised? When did people start installing alarm systems or “safe rooms?” When did millionaires get bumped from the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans because there are now so many billionaires (I think it was 80 some millionaires who did make the list this year!)?

I know a woman, now in her eighties, whose husband was president of a huge bank in Minneapolis. He died at 55, about 30 years ago. His salary was less that $100,000 per year. Top executives today make millions. What does a person do with that much income? Does anyone, whether bank president or football player, deserve that much salary, especially when so many more people are falling into poverty?

Warren Buffet, one of the billionaires, defies all the stereotypes of Wall Street barons. He lives simply, he is giving away most of his money, and will not leave millions to his children for their own good.

So – how much bread do you need? How much bread is enough? Imagine winning the lottery and decide what you would do with the bread. Would it help you to live a more abundant life?

As you receive communion today and go forth to another busy week, ponder these questions for yourself. Remember that the ritual of bread and wine is a constant reminder to us that God, our shepherd, feeds us and encourages us to see and seek God’s kind of abundance, a life of peace, love, joy, and gratitude. AMEN

PROPER 12, B

2 Kings 4:42-44

John 6:1-21

When I was in my late teens or early twenties, I asked my Grandmother to show me how to make bread. She didn’t use recipes, so I had to follow her around and estimate how much of what she used. She worked by feel, and look, and smell. She had me put my hands in the dough and feel it early in the process and also when it had been kneaded enough.

But it wasn’t until I worked at bread baking, maybe thirty years later, that I began to understand what a primal task it is. I remember kneading bread one day and thinking about how women all through the eons have been doing this same task, either daily or weekly, all their lives, as my grandmother did, but not my mother. Whether it’s cardamom bread, pita bread, corn bread, tortilla, bannock, fry bread, or whatever. Making bread is right up there with nursing a baby or rocking a baby. No matter how we go about it, we’ve been doing it since we became human or longer.

The Christians made bread the central element of their most important celebration, Communion. Why? It’s necessary to life, like air and water. It symbolizes, or stands for, all the food we need for healthy life, not just grains, but fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy.

Another primal event is eating together. Have you ever sat at a holiday table and thought, by the flickering candle light, about how people gathered just like this in caves, or in desert tents, or in castles, or in ghettos, or at Country Clubs, or in walk-up tenements, or even out in the open. Food is meant to be shared and we’ve been doing it forever.

Now consider the numerous people whom Jesus fed in today’s lesson. They were mostly of the farmer/peasant class, people who had once owned their own land and had enough to care for their families. By Jesus’s time they had mostly become sharecroppers – farming land for one of three wealthy families, who told them what to raise – invariably cash crops that would be sold to Rome. Now these families had to buy their food from their share of the money. In a bad year their families went hungry.

Jesus takes 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, blesses them, and feeds everyone. What are we to make of such a story? Too often we focus on the miracle rather than on the impact it had on them, or on us.

We have here a tale of astonishing abundance – not that any of it was fancy or rich or special—just bread and fish, but there was enough for everyone. The fish would have been a significant piece of the picture when this happened because the commercialization of farming that converted family farmers to share croppers was then also occurring to the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.

Sorry, but I can’t talk about Jesus feeding the 5000 without talking about Ruby’s Pantry feeding the 500 last week in International Falls.

I’m sure you’ve heard that there is still enough food grown in the world to feed everyone. The abundance of God’s creation is astonishing and even now we have not ruined it so much that we can’t feed everyone. Yet people starve in many parts of the world, including the U.S. In our country 40% of the food grown is thrown away, dumped in landfills to rot. The problem is in the distribution pipeline.

Growers make contracts with sellers who set certain standards. Any food that does not meet those standards is thrown out: apples that are not red enough or large enough; produce with blemish marks on the skin (which, by the way, we don’t eat!); on and on.

On a PBS special recently I saw a dump truck full of perfectly good, wholesome bananas, ready to go to the dump (I know some of you have heard this, but the sight still haunts me). They were being thrown out because the curve of the fruit did not meet the sellers’ criteria. Not only are we wasting good food, but we’re wasting the water and the energy it took to grow it! Meanwhile more and more families are suffering real shortages of healthy food.

Ruby’s Pantry is attempting to deliver such food to whoever wants it. Yes, it’s especially meant for people in need, but there’s so much of it that it is available to anyone who eats. Evidently this is hard to convey to people who still see it as part of the welfare system. If people who don’t need assistance don’t also participate, the food still goes to waste. The idea is to use it for food, not for landfill.

Ruby’s get the food free, warehouses it, and distributes it. Of the $20 people pay for a share of the food, $18 goes to Ruby’s to pay their expenses. The other $2 stays in the community to be used for benevolence – i.e. to help people in need. They count on volunteers to do most of the work, both here and in their operations.

It’s important that this service be used by all segments of society! We’re all in this together and here’s a place where everyone can help by volunteering and everyone can get a share of food. This makes it a community event, where people who need help with food, but won’t use the food shelf or other government “handouts” can go. It also means that people using Ruby’s will have extra dollars now to spend on meat and produce. The local grocers support this program!

Ruby’s Pantry does not receive any government money; it’s not part of the welfare system. It’s a Christian based 501C3 non-profit. It’s goal is to use food that would otherwise be wasted and to create community along the way.

Isn’t this what Jesus did? In one version of the story, the disciples wanted to send the crowd away, everyone on their own, to find food, but Jesus said, “You feed them.”

Like Elisha’s servant, the disciples moan about how much it would cost to provide food for everyone.

As we so often do, the disciples focus on the issue of scarcity, while Jesus focuses on abundance. Whatever we have is enough in God’s kingdom, something to keep in mind when we start to make excuses. Jesus goes on to tell the crowd to sit down or has the disciples do it. Here, he says, take what we have that I have blessed, that God has blessed, and pass it out.

Isn’t this the classic picnic, or even church potluck! There isn’t any potato salad, nor jello, nor brownies, just bread and fish, but there’s enough of both to meet the needs of everyone. And in the midst of the passing out and the wondering about how it could possibly be enough, and all the conversation going on, people actually talked to one another! Here is a place where tax collector and Pharisee meet, where rich and poor are in the same boat, hungry and without food.

In other words, everyone received enough, and a good time was had by all! This is an image of the abundant life God wants for all of us. And maybe, with a bit of lounging in the grass and enough to eat, they might have wondered why society isn’t more like this or how it might become more so. They were ready to listen to Jesus. Are we? AMEN

Proper 11, Year B
Psalm 23
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

“To achieve great things,” Leonard Bernstein said, “two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” In China, I understand, the polite answer to the question “how are you?” is “I am very busy, thank you.” We are busy, also, are we not? I find that even when I talk to a newly grieving person about how they are doing – “How are you really doing?”, I’m as likely as not to hear, by way of reassurance, “I’m keeping busy.”

We really must stay busy – there is so much to be done. The list gets longer and we must work faster because that is what successful people, effective people, worthwhile people do – they do more, they produce more, they are more because they are so very busy. Busy-ness marks our worth, measures our well-being.

Theologian Henri Nouwen said “We experience our days as filled with things to do, people to meet, projects to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like overpacked suitcases bursting at the seams. It fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, unrealized proposals. There is always something else that we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus, although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligation.” We write lists and keep calendars. We set alarms and reminders. And still we are behind, and still we must keep busy, do more, discuss louder, hurry faster…. Stop!

Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
….
We don’t do well with quiet, with calm, with rest. That was less than 1 minute of quiet contemplation, less than 60 seconds of time within a context already dedicated to worship of following the psalmist’s exhortation “Be still and know that I am” (Psalm 46:10). And still we hear the impatient wiggling of itchy bodies in suddenly too-hard pews, feel the uncomfortable irritation of time lost, and find we must consciously suppress or simply capitulate to the extraneous thoughts querulously demanding our attention in the brief moment.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters.

It’s poetic. It’s bucolic. It sounds perfect. But do they have wifi in those pastures? “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord, forever” Right, marvelous! But how’s the cell reception? What if somebody needs me? What if something happens? What if nothing happens? What if I have to think? What if I have to face the notion that the overpowering thirst I keep trying to quench with more activity, more noise, more involvement, more activity, more planning – what if that thirst is for something I don’t control and never will?

“Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” The disciples have been busy. Busy in worthy, wonderful ways – healing, teaching, learning. Come away, says Jesus. Rest. Rest. Sabbath. Literally to cease.

We are frightened by what we might find when we stop doing, stop running. When the noise stops. Barbara Brown Taylor writes about a spiritual practice of keeping the sabbath – not simply going to worship service, but keeping a time of rest in which there is nothing on your list except “more God”. She recognizes the vulnerability intrinsic to this practice, “If you decide to live on the fire God has made in side of you [instead], then it will not be long before some other things flare up as well. Most of us move fast enough during the week to outrun them, but if you slow down for a day, then all kinds of alarming things can happen. You can start crying without having the slightest idea why. You can start remembering what you loved about people who died before you were ten, along with things you did when you were eighteen that still send involuntary shivers up your back. You can make a list of the times you almost died in your life, along with the reasons you are most glad to be alive.” She goes on to recognize the profound spiritual benefit, “Released from the bondage of the clock, you eat when you are hungry instead of when you have to. Nine times out of ten you discover that you are far less hungry than you thought you were, or at least less for groceries than for the bread no one can buy. As you slow down, your heart does too. The girdle of your diaphragm loosens, causing great sighs too deep for words to pour from your heart, a greater capacity for fresh air.” (An Altar on the World)

Rest, prayer, spiritual nourishment and re-creation are vital to following Jesus – following Jesus in his compassion, living His love for all the world to experience. Dominic Crossan explains, “[The gosple writer] Mark joins contemplation and action in the healing process. Those who serve Christ must take time for prayer; they must nourish the connections that enable them to experience the lost and broken as brothers and sisters rather than nuisances and nobodies.”

“Walk joyfully on the earth and respond to that of God in every human being.” said George Fox – beautiful advice that we cannot follow if we are spiritually cranky as tired toddlers who missed their naps. Come away and rest. Then live and love fully.

Blessing of Rest
Curl this blessing
beneath your head
for a pillow.
Wrap it about yourself
for a blanket.
Lay it across your eyes
and for this moment
cease thinking about
what comes next,
what you will do
when you rise.
Let this blessing
gather itself to you
like the stillness
that descends
between your heartbeats,
the silence that comes
so briefly
but with a constancy
on which
your life depends.
Settle yourself
into the quiet
this blessing brings,
the hand it lays
upon your brow,
the whispered word
it breathes into
your ear
telling you
all shall be well
all shall be well
and you can rest
now.

– Jan Richardson

Pentecost, Year B

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Acts 2:1-21
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

(Spinning) Do you remember this game as a kid? Turning and turning and turning until the world moves all cock-a-ninny and you fall down? “I only do this” one story says (Brian Andreas, Proper Steps), “‘I only do this until I get dizzy & then I lay down on my back & watch the clouds,’ she said. ‘It sounds simple but you won’t believe how many people forget the second part.’”

Today marks the end of our dizzying journey from mortality to eternity – the second part of our liturgical year. We began with the unrelenting reminder of death that marks Ash Wednesday, the ash that clings to us as a dusty reminder through the lenten season. We travelled with Jesus through the pain and suffering that marked His Passion, then delighted in the glorious mystery of Resurrection. Finally, we soared into the heavens in the Ascension of our Lord, living, as Lynn said last week, the persistence of “upness”. And thus it ends.

As with most endings – the end is the beginning. Now is our time. We have studied the dizzying journey – now we must watch the clouds, feel the wind, put the bones together, remember to breathe. “You won’t believe how many people forget the second part.”

Pentecost is much older than Jesus. The original Pentecost, described in Leviticus as the Festival of the Weeks – in Hebrew, Shavuot. This is the time that the Jewish people celebrate the anniversary of the giving of the Law, the Torah, on Mount Sinai. The word “Pentecost” derives from the Greek for 50th day – the festival happens 50 days after Passover. For Christians the literal meaning of the name still holds – Pentecost is 50 days after Easter (including Easter Day). We do not celebrate the coming of the Law but rather the coming of the Spirit, the Paraclete: counselor, advocate, comforter, guide.

Some say that Pneumatology, the study of the doctrine of the Spirit, is the most neglected of Christian studies. That idea that Pneumatology is a neglected study didn’t surprise me nearly so much as learning that there actually is a study called Pneumatology. Pneumatology – from the Greek for “breath” “And the breath came into them and they lived….”

You can see why it would be a neglected study. How, exactly, does one study such a nebulous thing as the interaction of Spirit and mortal? How indeed, in this day and age of science and proof and the paramount importance of the rational, the palpable, the tangible – how is one even sure that such a thing exists?

English preacher and writer Leslie Weatherhead, tells of a visit to Aldersgate in London where John Wesley experienced his transforming conversion experience. The chapel held a plaque on the wall that read: “On this spot on May 24, 1738, John Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed.”

Weatherhead prayed and pondered about Wesley’s “warmed heart” in a back pew. As he prayed, the chapel door opened. An old man with a cane walked down the aisle. Not realizing he had company in the chapel, the old man read the words out loud, “On this spot on May 24, 1738, John Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed.” The old man dropped to his knees and pleaded, “Do it again, Lord! Do it again for me!” paraphrased from SermonSuite

We long for the Comforter, the Advocate, the Counselor – we long for our hearts to be warmed by the presence of the Spirit. If we study the Spirit, however, if we really pay attention to what happens when the Spirit of Truth gets involved in our lives – the phrase “be careful what you wish for” springs to mind.

Jesus said the Spirit “will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Jesus was a revolutionary, counter-cultural trouble-maker, completely crazy by any modern standard, teaching His disciples to become revolutionary, counter-cultural trouble makers, also completely crazy by any modern standards – indeed even by their own 1st century standards – “They are filled with new wine” the onlookers said. Indeed, such must the Spirit be for us.

We echo Alice in Wonderland as we ponder the gift of the Spirit –

But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

We make a choice – to be mad with the Spirit; to live it, love it, dare it, serve it, serve the Spirit of Love, the Spirit of Truth; or to stop after the dizzying witness of the Resurrection and Ascension – and simply forget the all important second part.

Barbara Brown Taylor points out, “In the first four books of the New Testament, we learn the good news of what God did through Jesus. In the book of Acts, we learn the good news of what God did through the Holy Spirit, by performing artificial resuscitation on a room full of well-intentioned bumblers and turning them into a force that changed the history of the world”. She goes on to ask, “The question for me is whether we still believe in a God who acts like that. Do we still believe in a God who blows through closed doors and sets our heads on fire? Do we still believe in a God with power to transform us, both as individuals and as a people, or have we come to an unspoken agreement that our God is pretty old and tired by now, someone to whom we may address our prayer requests but not anyone we really expect to change our lives?”

Do we stop after the Easter season and just let the dizziness fade slowly away, or do we echo Bishop Steven Charleston’s prayer?

“When I said I would follow You anywhere, O God, I don’t think I really understood what that meant.
So far you have taken me to places I never wanted to go,
introduced me to people I never wanted to meet,
had me do things I never thought I could do,
put me in situations I was afraid I could not cope with,
told me to speak when I thought I had no words,
invited me to see things from a viewpoint I had never imagined.
Was it comfortable? No.
Was it easy? No.
Would I do it again?
In a heartbeat.
So where to next?
I am with you all the way….”

The spirit comes to us all – sons and daughters, young and old, to those who are free, and to those held captive to whatever may enslave them. The spirit comes in comfort, in counsel, in fire and in wind –

And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.

-Mechtild of Magdeburg 1207-1297

The spirit comes – are you crazy in love enough to answer? As the late, great Episcopal theologian Robin Williams said, “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You musn’t lose it.”

Amen and Amen