reflections on an anniversary

Tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of the signing of the Called to Common Mission statement. For those of you not aware, CCM is the full-communion statement between the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church (ELCA). And I find myself in a place I had hoped for but didn't expect ten years down the road.

When the agreement was first being talked about, I was suffused with hope. How beautiful that two Christian denominations would let go of our differences enough to recognize the Holy Spirit in our midst. How welcoming that could be to folks on the outside to see Christians doing what we say we should do--love one another. How intriguing it would be to pastor a multi-denominational (not non-denominational) church.

One of my first thoughts was, "Ooh, I want to be that pastor. I want to help us come together where we've historically pulled apart." And my second was, "How will this really work?"

I was delighted that a given congregation could ask for resumes and choose among a wider field of applicants so as to find the right person for the job, regardless of denomination. That's not how it works, as you might have expected, but I did not. No, a Lutheran church will look at Lutheran candidates and will only look at an Episcopalian when the options are gone. And vice versa.

But ten years out, I find myself working for the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and also representing the Episcopal Church. And sometimes Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Catholic, but that's another story. Here ten years later, the club of pastors whose jobs are a result of the CCM is fairly small. And we don't all know one another. But we're here, and we're offering something to our churches you don't often find in a regular church--intentional differences.

At the Edge campus ministry house at UC, we've been working on our "Rule of Common Life," akin to the monastic practice of the same name. And one item which comes up in every discussion is that of diversity. We value our differences, not because it looks pretty or attractive to donors, but because those differences in race, sexuality, denomination, faith, gender, socioeconomic status, or politic encourage conversation. It would seem that because we began as multi-denominational, our whole ethos has taken on that flavor.

I don't agree with everything brother Martin Luther wrote. And my Lutheran students don't agree with everything brother Thomas Cranmer wrote. We might all agree with brother CS Lewis, but then again, maybe not. We spend our time listening not for judgement but for connection and for understanding. We don't always succeed. But I don't think a place like this would exist without the Called to Common Mission to push us towards each other so intentionally.

last week's sermon--Ecclesiastes 1-2

I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and say that Death is not okay.
Actually, it’s kind of pointless
Like stories we’ve heard of high kids who commit suicide
because they were bullied for being gay
or my neighbor a few houses down who had been clean and sober,
Who had dedicated his life to helping other addicts clean up
My neighbor who was murdered last year in his house
by God knows who
or all the civilians being killed in Ivory Coast and Libya
in complicated wars that seem to be based on who’s in power
“Vanity, vanity,” says the writer of Ecclesiastes
“all is vanity and a chasing after wind,” am I right?
Vanity is not a great translation, though, of Ecclesiastes’ words
the word is more like wind or breath,
something which cannot be seen and dissipates in seconds,
something which has great importance or maybe is meaningless
“Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind”
Death, it seems, isn’t so much gravity pulling us down,
keeping us from soaring with Jesus—
death, it seems, is pointless, empty, unfathomable.
There’s a moment in the movie The Mummy Returns
when the charming archaeologist,
—she’s the wife of the charming, rogueish hero
and mother of the charming young boy—
She dies.
And it’s so anticlimactic.
They’ve just survived a ridiculous amount of supernatural threats
And they’re resting, they’ve won!
And she gets knifed in the ribs.
Ridiculous.
And tragic.
And as her son and brother look on,
her husband the hero kneels beside her saying
“what do I do, Evie? What do I do? I don’t know what to do…”
and then in tears “come back, Evie, come back, come back”
there is only a breath between the life in her eyes and death,
it’s such a thin moment, such a pointless death
such a chasing after wind
“Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind”
When I worked as a chaplain in the hospital at the University of Tennessee,
death was a constant companion.
Whether or not our patients died,
the possibility was always there, lurking.
It often made our actions feel pointless
what am I praying for, exactly?
For you my brother, to be miraculously healed
of your emphysema after 40 years of smoking?
Or for you, my sister, to find a job
and suddenly pull yourself out of generational poverty? Absolutely! but not with much hope.
Let me tell you two stories of death from that hospital
they might illuminate what Ecclesiastes is talking about
and what it is that Jesus did for Lazarus and us:
In the first, a man in his mid-nineties was admitted to the hospital
with pneumonia
I visited him and his middle-aged daughters
—he seemed charming but frail, as you might expect
They patched him up and sent him on his way
Only a week later, he was back, this time in the ICU
His daughters were there at his bedside constantly,
praying for his recovery
But as the days wore on into weeks, the situation became more grim
The man’s daughters insisted that he remain at a full code status
Meaning that whenever his heart stopped or similar
Eight nurses descended to do CPR
and they broke his ribs every time
His bed was covered with small prayer cloths, and crosses
And several bibles opened to specific passages on healing
When I visited, every single time,
they were on their knees on the floor praying hard
for the return of his health
—and not just health,
but vitality, energy, strength, youth
Brothers and sisters—their devotion and love were palpable
and I do not mock them—
but their unwillingness to see his life as well-lived
and nearing its end was tragic.
And pointless.
He hung on for months and, based on what else I saw at the hospital,
it was because they wouldn’t let him go.
Death became the beast in the room,
prayer became a pointless exercise in denial.
Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind.
Now, in the second story,
a man in his mid-sixties was admitted to the hospital
with complications from heart surgery
When I visited, his family was no less devoted or loving
But their attitude was much different
As he slowly slipped away from them in the ICU
They prayed with and for him
But for a different kind of healing
They prayed for his forgiving folks in his life
They prayed for his own forgiveness
They prayed that they would be able to bear their grief
They prayed that he would be with God
And they said goodbye
“Daddy” they said, “it’s okay. We love you. We miss you.
It’s time to go.”
Now, I can’t imagine saying goodbye to my dad so finally
I don’t want to think about his not being here
I know I’ll have to one day, and it’s not okay.
Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind
We’re approaching Holy Week and Easter
and it’s easy for us in 21st century American churches
to look across Good Friday to Easter like it’s just a speedbump,
to not really connect with Jesus’ death
to pretend it doesn’t mean much
because we know the end of the story.
He dies, but it’s okay because it’s not for long.
But, people, he dies.
And with him are all our moments of death
—the physical deaths we’ve experienced in our friends and families
the disasters around the world that take so many lives
we cannot comprehend them
and the more metaphorical deaths as well
When you asked someone out and they said no—a little death
When you argue with your spouse
and end up not solving anything
but just feeling bad about it—a little death
when we give in to temptation
—to anger or self-righteousness
or just ignoring another person—a little death
every one of those deaths Jesus takes with him
to the grave on Good Friday
every one of them seems pointless but they’re not.
something else happens in that last breath before dying.
Something happens to us each time someone we care for dies
And it’s not pointless at all.
—why not take a little more time to talk with someone on the street,
why not let go of some theology or political ideology,
why not appreciate every part of yourself
instead of thinking you’re not good enough?
Because we do know the end of the story.
Death is not okay. But it is real. It’s not something we can ignore.
And death is not the end.
Our Christian story says that death,
while worthy of grief, is not the last thing.
There is new life beyond.
And that’s kind of the point of the gospel today
about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
My friend and Lutheran pastor Nadia Tweeted about it:
“before Christ defeats death for good,
he first just gives it a really good slap in the face.”
This is what resurrection looks like, brothers and sisters.
This is what new life in our God is.
Resurrection—requires—death.
New life cannot grow without the end of the old one.
The plants in our gardens go dormant, die in a way,
so that they can come back lush in the Spring
We cannot live a life of charity without first letting our greedy selves die
Death is necessary for new life to flourish
But death is not the end of the story
Whether we react to the deaths we experience with denial
like the two daughters in the hospital
Or whether we react to them with tearful acceptance
like the other family,
death is not the end.
whether we’re talking about the seeming finality of physical death
or the shame of everyday emotional deaths,
it’s not the end
one of my favorite quotes is,
“Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
I saw it on a greeting card at Joseph-Beth, if you can believe it,
and the breath was knocked clean out of my chest.
Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
This is the good news in every single moment of bad news we ever have.
“True life and resurrection cannot deny the reality of death.”
But there is always, always, always new life after death.
Everything will be okay in the end, my brothers and sisters,
whether it’s tomorrow
or it’s the Rapture supposedly on May 21,
or it’s some far-off judgment day,
everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

Ash Wednesday sermon--Joel 2:1-17

[play clip from The Mummy Returns: composite clip of the army of Anubis arising from the sand and fighting the human army]
That’s a clip from the movie The Mummy Returns
—it’s a fun flick, not particularly deep,
but this bit with the rag-tag good guys
going up against the powers of darkness—it’s very moving.
There’s no way they can survive,
no way to endure the endless onslaught
of the army of the Egyptian god of the dead,
yet they stand their ground,
refusing to give in to the forces pulling them down
into despair and death.
And it kind of looks like the Old Testament.
We all think of the Old Testament as angry and judgmental, right?
That reading from the prophet Joel—how much of that did you take in?
It was a bit long, I know…
It talks about invading armies like darkness,
destroying everything in their path
God at the head, leading them on, calling for bloody recompense
—that reading from the prophet Joel doesn’t help, does it?
God just seems so cranky in the Old Testament,
so violent and approving of violence
and we go with it, don’t we?
There’s some good stuff there, but it’s mostly blood and sand
and angry people fighting each other in God’s name
It’s convenient to forget the violence in the New Testament
The places where Jesus throws the vendors out of the Temple
with harsh words like a lash
The places where Jesus curses a fig tree for not having figs,
even though it isn’t fig season, which the text points out
The place where Ananias and Sapphira, Christian converts,
sell their land and give the money to the Apostles
for the well-being of the church.
And, because they hold some of the money back
and lie about it, they drop dead. Right there.
And then Peter launches into a sermon on the spot.
Don’t tell me the New Testament doesn’t have it’s share of violence.
Don’t say Jesus is all sunshine and comforting stories,
because you’ve missed the point.
Absolutely Jesus shows us a different way, brings hope and comfort
Absolutely he brings and is good news!
But there’s a darkness mixed into the message as well.
We see the anger in the Hebrew prophets
We see the weirdly abrupt shifts of mood in the Psalms
And we don’t get it
we see them as evidence of God’s capriciousness,
God must be this vindictive, when we don’t do as God asks, right?
Scripture says it, so let’s take it seriously for a moment.
Tremble in fear, says the text, and we reject that out of hand.
We oughtn’t fear our God who loves us like a parent.
Yet the scriptures are full of language describing God as awesome
…and not like most of us use it now.
Awesome as in worthy of awe,
so inconceivably large, so powerful, so beautiful,
so overwhelming that all we can do
is crash to our knees and gape.
Maybe pray.
Maybe cry in joy and fear.
If God is omnibenevolent and omnipresent
and omniscient and omnipotent,
maybe we’d better be at least a little scared.
Joel writes, “Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible
indeed—who can endure it?”
If God sends the armies, seriously, who would survive?
There’s a new book out that I’m eager to read
It’s called Love Wins
and author and pastor Rob Bell says in the promotional material,
“What is God like? …Millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the gospel of Jesus, is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. So what gets subtly caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that God ever be good news?”

What is God really like?
How does God act in the world?
Seems to me that these are the questions
that scripture, at the very least, is trying to answer
What is God like?
In verse 12 of the Joel reading, we get a sudden shift
Invading armies, fear and trembling, yadda yadda…
—yet! “God is gracious and merciful
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.”
This is the God we know from every sermon ever
This is the God we long for, the God who we love and are loved by
This is the God from whom we can believe good news
But what if they’re both God?
What if God is both angry and forgiving?
And what if God isn’t bipolar, as my friend Ross suggested last night,
but is complex and not easily understood?
At the risk of describing God in too small a way, I offer an example
I have a 2-year-old and she’s delightful
I would go so far as to quote God from last week’s Gospel
“this is my daughter, my beloved,
in whom I am well pleased”
being 2, Abby is innately curious and exuberant
and, being 2, she has no filters yet,
and so any roadblock is a huge crisis
by “huge crisis,” I mean, “reason to throw herself
on the floor and scream and cry”
so, the other day, we were watching Toy Story as we often do
and Abby had a cup of juice without a lid
now, this may have been my big mistake, the no-lid thing,
but she’s a big girl and often can drink unaided
I said, “be careful with that cup, Ab”
And she said, “OH-kay!”
And I said, “I’ll be right back—don’t sit on the couch”
And she said, “OH-kay!”
And from the other room I heard her say “more juice”
And I looked and she’d spilled it
All over the couch
And the floor
And my papers
And I was angry
—angrier than I ought to have been, probably
But I would never, absolutely never ever hurt her
In that moment I was both angry and forgiving
I was both frustrated with what had happened
and deeply in love with my daughter
we forget that much of scripture is poetry
—the prophets and the Psalms are experience and art
not history or biography
Joel is a poet, translating what he sees in the world into verse
Seeing his country, his faith, his enemies, and his blessings
through the lens of metaphor
Joel is writing not about a specific invasion then or now
But about every invasion Israel had had to that point,
about the fear in his gut at seeing an army arrayed on the horizon,
ready to descend,
about the experience of being at war
and he’s writing about invasions of locusts
which, by all accounts, were fairly common in Israel
locusts which, when swarming, make a sound like a raging fire
locusts which destroy an Eden-like landscape in minutes
locusts which might seem like an army,
which might seem like divine retribution for our sins
Joel is writing a poem where God’s anger is the invading armies
and it is the devastation of locusts,
and where all of that fear and despair becomes,
in the blink of an eye,
hope
This is not the work of some dumb desert-dweller
who only saw God as angry,
nor is it a literal picture of God
leading heavenly armies to destroy us now
This is a painting of a multi-faceted God
who loves us
and is annoyed by us
and who created us in the beginning for community and love.
And who relents.
Who does not hurt us, no matter how often we say
“it’s God’s will” in response to something bad
who scatters the invading armies like so much sand
and who calls us back every week, every day,
every hour, every minute
to faithfulness, justice, compassion, and prayer
What if the imposition of these ashes is our responding to that call
Is our saying that we ourselves have been the invading armies
to someone
and that the armies we see invading us
—whether Islamic extremists, Christian extremists,
Communists, the British, secularism, conservatism, etc.—
these armies, like us, are but dust, and to dust they shall return.
What if the imposition of these ashes is us standing our ground,
Like the guys in The Mummy Returns
Receiving these ashes is our refusal to give in
to the forces pulling us down into despair and death.
What if the imposition of these ashes and the communion that follows
Are a gift from God of patience and strength
and protection and deep, abiding love
What if these ashes signify humility—of course—and also new life?
[play second clip from The Mummy Returns: composite clip of the human army preparing to face a second wave of the army of Anubis, the sand-army rushes forward and at the last second disintegrates into black sand which disappears. The humans rejoice.]

Newsletter article 2.27.11

“Did that hurt?”
This is the number one question I get about my tattoos. Followed by “What’s that say?” and “Why would you do that?” (This last, usually from my father.)

Does it hurt? Of course it hurts. Not to be gross, but it’s basically an open wound for a day or so. It stings for a few hours after it’s done, and then it feels bruised for a day or so.

So why do I do it? Each of my six tattoos is a physical marker for a moment in my life I want to remember. From the moment I realized God was calling me to be a priest to the birth of my daughter, each one is representative of a difficult but rewarding experience. I hesitated to talk about it here, since they’re so personal, yet they also strike me as a good metaphor for the gospel.

Gospel comes from the Greek euanggelion which means “good news.” The four Gospels in our scripture are good news to all of us living in the middle of bad news. Jesus—his deeds, his words, the very fact of his existence—is good news in our bad news. And, while good news is always good, we don’t always receive it that way. Too often, the good news that we don’t have to rely on ourselves and our big brains for salvation reads like bad news—I don’t want to lose control, I have some pretty cool ideas if you’d listen, who’s this God-person anyway. Too often, healing from whatever wounds we have—whether they’re physical or spiritual—is worse than when we got them. In the movie Wit, Emma Thompson’s character notes that the treatment for her cancer makes her much sicker than the disease itself.

And, to be fair, sometimes the good news is simply that—good news. Sometimes it is freeing and transforming and delightful right there on the surface. Thank God for those moments. But as freeing and transforming as the good news is that Jesus brings, we sometimes don’t want to hear it. It’s painful or scary. Yet when we accept it, when we step back to see the painting Jesus has made on the canvas of our lives, it’s beautiful.

The process of getting a tattoo is painful, but the result is beautiful. To me, anyway. The healing of my skin reminds me that God heals all our wounds, that God created us resilient, that even the worst pain can leave us different but wiser.

sunday's sermon--Matthew 17:1-9

Apologies again for the weird formatting.

---

the disciples get a bad rap in the Gospels
they never seem to understand anything Jesus says
and even when they're shown convincing proof
that he can do what he says he can do
they don't believe and seem puzzled when Jesus rebukes them
just before the Gospel we heard today,
the disciples are seen complaining that they're hungry
and have no bread to eat
just before that Jesus had fed the 5000 with just 5 loaves and 2 fish
and he is understandably frustrated that they can't make the connection
we might say they have no vision
it seems Peter doesn't have vision either
many of us know the story of the Transfiguration well
—and think Peter is an idiot
it's hard not to read it that way
he's gone up the mountain with Jesus to pray
and when Jesus suddenly glows with an unearthly light
it's as if Peter's seeing Jesus for the first time in all his glory
his heart is full
and he's got butterflies in his stomach like he's in love
and he sees God, really sees God in this Jesus
and it's amazing
and he thinks
"I'll put up some tents so we can stay here always
cause this is so cool."
what an idiot, right?
how could he not see what was right in front of him?
how could he not see God revealing Godself and not interrupt?
we, of course, are rational and perceptive people
and we would certainly have been silent and pious
in the face of such holiness…right?
I don't think so
at the sight of my buddy suddenly clothed in dazzling white
and talking to long-dead prophets
I probably would have screamed like a little girl
the history of the church doesn't give us a positive example either
every time a mystic or prophet had a vision,
we codified it
isolated the moment from creation
created a worship service around it
or added to our protocols so we'd be ready the next time
we are nothing if not prepared for the unexpected
the thing is, God breaks in anyway.
why do we do it?
why keep ourselves so scheduled that there is not time for pause or silence or prayer?
is it because we don't actually feel the presence of God?
that we feel like frauds if we admit we don't know what we're doing spiritually?
that we need to hide from a chaotic and seemingly immoral universe by being busy?
think of the times you've tried to make a difference and failed for whatever reason
for years people have been trying to revitalize historic Old Saint George church in Clifton
making it a gathering place, a café, anything
Leighton and I used to go there for lunch every week
they always had fresh, seasonal foods
like corn on the cobb or summer tomatoes
or ribs that melted off the bone
and we always met interesting people there
musicians, business people, homeless men, and visionaries
Old Saint George burned down a couple years ago—it’s vacant
many of us know people who are addicts or mentally ill
and their behavior can be irrational and hurtful
we try to help by forcing them into rehab or intervening
and often it doesn't work and they spiral away
why bother?
in her recent book Leaving Church
Barbara Brown Taylor laments this same situation
she was a small-town parish priest
working hard to make a difference
when she realized there was no joy in what she was doing
She writes, "I pecked God on the cheek the same way I did Ed, drying up inside for want of making love."
that's something we don’t talk about in church
but that's just it
we've been making dinner and making money and not making love
maybe our need to build tents on the mountaintop is because we are so in awe
because we long for something beyond ourselves
not a god-shaped hole
but a pull towards the god we somehow already know
and who knows us
the story of the transfiguration is not about Peter's being an idiot
and trying to pin down what can't be pinned down
it's about his longing for God
he is amazed and overwhelmed by the vision before him
all his life he's desired to see God
to have proof of his faith
to experience that deep joy
and he does
he sees the immediacy of God
the physical incarnation of God in all things
more than that, the story of the transfiguration is about God
God desires us in return
God created us out of love, out of desire for another
how can we not speak of falling in love with god and god with us?
isn't that why you're here today?
You've met God somewhere
on the road
at work
in a stranger
in your family
in a book
even in church
and you've fallen in love with Jesus
the Psalm assigned to yesterday's feast of the Presentation
speaks eloquently of this desire:
"my soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
That is beautiful—"my soul longs for the Lord…"
can you feel that?
like the speaker's heart is pounding
and there is an ache in her chest
and she is leaning towards God
to hear the words and just be in the presence
And what does God say in response?
At the transfiguration
after Peter's vulnerable cry
and attempt to cling to the experience
after he falls to the ground in embarrassment and awe
his face flaming in recognition of what he's said
Jesus leans down and takes him by the hand and says
"Get up and do not be afraid."
Or maybe he's saying "I love you. Don't worry."
we're going to keep trying to make a difference
we're going to keep messing things up
we're going to keep doing some pretty fantastic things
and in every moment of every one of those things,
God is present
God is transfiguring us
no matter how low we are
no matter how perfunctory our attention to God
no matter how highly we think of ourselves
God is present
God is transfiguring us
in your longing for more and better
in your longing for understanding or connection
in your longing to reach out and invite in
God is present
God is transfiguring you
God desires you and your love
even when you don't.

sunday's sermon--Matthew 5:21-37

Baruch attah adonai elohenu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of all possibilities.
* * *
My daughter Abby is 2. It’s delightful. Except when it’s not. They talk about the terrible twos and you think, “yeah, it’ll be tough, but we can handle it” but you don’t know what that’s like until you’re in it. You really don’t. It’s more like the Sudden Unending Wailing for no Good Reason twos.

Basically, Abby wants what she wants when she wants it. She doesn’t like no. And she doesn’t like rules. A limit of one hour of television does not go over well. I once heard that toddlers are just like us grown-ups only without anything holding us back.

We don’t want rules and restrictions any more than Abby does. And so today’s lessons put us in a bit of a bind. The Old Testament lesson tells us if we obey, we’ll be prosperous, and if we don’t there will be only death and misery. Matthew talks about self-mutilation and extreme interpretations of the law. Even the Psalm talks about how delighted we are to be under the Law of the Lord, that we delight in God’s rules.

Do we? I mean, really?

How many rules govern Washington Park? Or maybe I should say “Governed”? No sleeping over night, no soliciting, no spitting, no standing, no doing anything. Awhile back, my friend Bob McGonalgle was trying to get arrested for distributing food here to bring attention to the plight of the homeless and the ridiculous laws around them. How many more rules govern the park now that it’s a construction zone, do you think?

It’s not that rules themselves are bad—I think we can all agree that having traffic lights is a helpful thing for our safety and civility—and it’s not that a given law, whether Cincinnati’s or God’s is unnecessary or too much. But they can seem so at times.

The most popular book and movie series in recent years is Harry Potter—and how often does the hero Harry follow the rules? How often does he do his own thing and delight in doing it? This is, of course, why many folks didn’t like it—because Harry wasn’t a good little boy, following the rules and doing what he was told. But if he hadn’t been creative and curious and determined not to let the people he cared about get hurt, evil would have won. Within his world, rule-breaking was the heroic response. It’s not the Bible, sure, but it is human nature writ large…

And just last week we heard Jesus say that he’s the fulfillment of the law, not the destruction of it. He even goes so far as to say not even a single cross on a T in the law will be removed because of him. So much for the kinder, gentler Jesus, the Jesus who says, “it’s okay, man—come hang out with the tax collectors and prostitutes, the tattoo artists and people who live in “bad” neighborhoods—they’re more fun anyway!”.
And this week, he says, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Sorry, this is not PG rated, folks—this is the gross part, the angry, judgmental part of the New Testament we like to forget. Jesus says pull out your own eye if you look at something you shouldn’t. And cut off your own hand if it does something it shouldn’t. Now, as Lutherans, we don’t read these things literally—you know that right?—so don’t go home and mutilate yourselves after church. But how are we supposed to take this?
He follows that up with saying that adultery is not just sleeping with someone you shouldn’t but the very thought of it—your fantasies themselves are adultery. As is divorce. This is extreme, man. Kind of like taking the Pharisees—the literalistic, religious establishment—even more seriously than they take themselves. It makes the Law pretty much impossible to follow, you know? And maybe that’s the point.

My husband says, Jesus was saying it’s not enough just to follow the rules, that following him, loving God, it’s a way of life. Can’t just check off the boxes, it’s about constant effort/work. Jesus is saying it’s about a different way of life. Being a Christian is not about rule-following—though there are certain things that we do and do not do—being a Christian is about living a different life. It’s about seeing hope where others see only failure. It’s about connecting to one another when the world says just do it for yourself. It’s about seeing something beyond our current situation, about seeing something bigger in everything we do—whether it’s raising our kids or tutoring someone or asking for change. It’s about not being alone and it’s about trying to be better.

And, more than that, it’s about God knowing that we can’t possibly fulfill it all. Jesus makes his point so extreme to point us towards God’s grace. It’s not about checking off boxes but about relying on God completely.

In my daughter’s case, she’ll figure out what rules she can break and what she can’t, just like she’ll figure out that no matter what she does, I will always love her. Seems like that’s the point of these lessons, that’s the point of talking about God as a Father, as Divine Parent. As human beings, we know what it is to be loved, but when we become parents, we know what it is to love so deeply that we are brought to our knees.

In another place, Jesus says he came to give us life and life abundantly. THIS is life abundant—to live for one another, to live with one another, sacrificing ourselves for each other and receiving each others’ sacrifices. THIS is life abundant—to return here every week to be filled with the bread of life. THIS is life abundant—to love one another as a mother loves her baby, to love one another as God loves us.

Amen.

sunday's sermon--Isaiah 58.1-12

teach song “you shall be like a garden, like a deep spring whose waters never fail”

That’s so pretty—really, you guys, good singing.
But that’s not going to save you.
I’m sorry, but you heard Isaiah
—“day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.”
“as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness”
Brother Isaiah says we people here in church tonight,
we people want to know God,
love reading about him and singing about him,
love designing stained glass windows
and wearing fancy crosses around our necks,
as if we knew what God was really about.
As if we actually cared what God said
and did what God wanted.
We sing prettily as though what we sing
and what we do with our lives made a difference.
But it doesn’t.
Harsh.
Isaiah says as long as we argue and oppress
our prayers will not be heard.
Isaiah says IF we sacrifice ourselves for others
and work for their betterment,
THEN we’ll be that deep spring.
But not before.
Our worship here tonight is empty, pointless, he says,
if it is not accompanied by justice out there.
Harsh.
I’ve heard this before
—from high school students, from college students, from folks in bars—
church people are hypocrites,
church people don’t believe any of what they’re saying,
they’re just saying the same thing over and over and nothing changes.
Did you know that something like 75% of young people
in the Millennial generation
—those same young people who we want to be in our congregations,
with whom we want to share our passion for God
and worship and justice,
those young people have predominantly negative things
to say about the church?
According to research from the Barna Group
published in the book unChristian,
Christians are perceived as
judgmental, hypocritical, antigay,
too political, sheltered, and conversion-oriented.
Harsh.
It’s not like we haven’t done anything
—look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa
in the wake of apartheid
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
fostered thousands of difficult, truth-telling conversations
which have helped to heal the country.
Look at Christians’ role in reforming child labor laws in the 1800s.
Look at Habitat for Humanity
or any of thousands of soup kitchens, faith-based advocates, and literacy centers.
We do work for justice.
Mostly. Well, some. Not enough, that’s for sure.
And it doesn’t take a 6th century BCE prophet to show us that.
But maybe it does take a 6th century BCE prophet to show us the way out.
Maybe we need Isaiah to show us a path of hope.
Maybe we need Isaiah to show us how to practice righteousness
so God doesn’t have to say “as if.”
Brother Isaiah says that the religious practice God wants is
“to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”
He says, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house,
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
The religious practice God wants is
“…a daily fast from domination, blaming others, evil speech,
self-satisfaction, entitlement and blindness to one's privilege.”
The religious practice God wants is
our wasteful love given to everyone we meet.
Everyone is in need of justice and freedom,
everyone is hungry and thirsty for something,
everyone is naked and vulnerable—so go love them.
My Mormon friends tell me the practice in their churches is
for every member to have a job, a calling.
You move to a new town, you show up at your new church,
and you’re given a job to help the community
—both worship and outreach!—
to run smoothly.
They are to live out their worship in their relationships.
These same friends will also tell me that
the process of receiving your calling is flawed,
to say the least
—but isn’t that a bit of what Isaiah is pleading?
That we don’t simply show up for worship
and consider ourselves done.
That we don’t just put a dollar in a panhandler’s cup
and consider ourselves righteous.
That we live out our worship,
that we worship God with our lives, no matter what it costs us.
Through folks at the Edge campus ministry house at UC,
I know a woman who used to be homeless.
Truth be told, in some ways, she and her family
are still living as though they’re homeless.
They move from one crisis to the next, always on the verge of ruin.
Her 18-year-old son wants to go to college
—he’d be the first in several generations—
and some of my students and I are helping him apply.
To some, this is a small thing—fill out some paperwork, no big deal—
but to him, it’s everything.
And to me
—Alice Connor who can’t say no to anything
and who struggles to have enough time
to even hang out with her husband—
it’s a sacrifice.
But Lord knows, Isaiah and God didn’t say it would be easy.
To fall in love with Jesus,
to delight in Christian community is to sacrifice.
And when we’re practicing regularly, that sacrifice is a delight.
Seems to me that Isaiah has something else to say to us in the 21st century,
2600 years later.
Seems to me that when Isaiah says Israel needs to practice righteousness,
when he says “you,”
he’s not talking about a specific individual but about all of us.
When we give the $20 bill instead of the $1,
when we help a grown woman learn to read,
we’re not doing it for our own,
individual blessedness but as part of the body of Christ.
We are a deep spring whose waters never fail.
In doing as God asks, in taking risks,
we are fountains of divine love,
we are more deeply alive than if we were stagnant pools
concerned only with ourselves.
It’s about community.
We don’t do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God
and our neighbors because that will save us
—we are saved by grace alone.
And we don’t do them simply because they’re difficult
—we do them because of the joy we have in offering ourselves to others.
We do these things because we’ve received God’s grace,
not in order to receive it.
Our choices matter to God
because God doesn’t act in isolation any more than we do.
God expects us to participate in God’s life
of justice and creativity and delight.
God is, if you’ll go with the metaphor, the fountain
and we’re the drops of water.
Or God is the flashlight
and we are the photons of light, breaking forth like the dawn
This place, this building, this people, this table
—all are food for the journey.
Our worship at a particular moment in the week
fills us for our worship in every other moment.
So, be filled here,
so that y’all may be a fertile garden for your neighbors’ lives,
so that y’all may be a deep, cool, unfailing spring for the world.

sing “you shall be like a garden, like a deep spring whose waters never fail”