ash wednesday sermon on dirt

Dirt

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,

the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while the breath of God swept over the face of the waters.

Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.

And later on, the Lord God said, “Let there be dirt”; and there was dirt.

And then the Lord God sculpted a person from the dirt

—scripture says “dust” but we all know

that’s a pretty way of saying mud—

and the Lord God breathed into the dirt-creature’s nostrils

the breath of life;

and the mud became human.

Every one of us is dirty—that is, made of salt and carbon and bits of things

         We are not so different in our essential makeup from a potato or an earthworm

The dust in our houses is, in fact, dirt.

skin and dirt from our shoes and bits of food and hair.

Sure, we’re made of star-stuff like the astrophysicists say

and that’s beautiful but you know what star-stuff is?

Dirt only dressed up in it’s Sunday-best.

         And this is not meant for you to beat your breast

and cry “I am a worm and no man!” as the Psalmist does

         nor is this about a false sense of humility:

                  you know the old joke of the woman who prays to God,

“I’m nothing, I’m nothing!” and another woman hears

and says “Look who thinks he’s nothing.”

         This essential dirtiness is about recognizing where we come from

                  It’s about knowing that God’s breath in our lungs

is the only thing holding us together:

not our 401Ks or stock options,

not our nice house in the suburbs,

not our kids who mostly meet our expectations for goodness,

not the amount of work we do for pay or not

                  we are, in some literal and poetic way, made entirely of dirt and breath

of course, we all know about our essential dirtiness in the other sense

         not just our sexual appetites but all of our dirtiness

         the Episcopal Ash Wednesday rite includes

an extensive Litany of Penitence and lists those dirty parts of us

we’d rather keep hidden

                  our unfaithfulness, pride, hypocrisy, and impatience

                  our self-indulgent appetites and exploitation

                  our anger at our own frustration, our envy of those more fortunate

                  our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts and our dishonesty

                  our negligence in prayer and worship

                  and my favorite, my most favorite one

                           because it’s about our failure to recognize

our innate blessedness and giftedness

                  we confess our failure to commend the faith that is in us

I don’t really want you to see those parts of me.

I hide behind a sparkling clean wall of competence

so you won’t see those parts.

Have you got that wall, too?

         Every one of us is made of dust and to dust we shall return.

         Every one of us is made of dirt

and we spend a lot of time shellacking it so that we won’t return to dirt.

And we spend a lot of time examining the folks we meet

for chinks in their shellack armor,

looking for their innate dirtiness

—this is called gossip, this is called self-righteousness,

this is called prying

This dirtiness we try to hide is the very same stuff that grows our vegetables.

         The dirt that we’re made of is the very same stuff

that supports our feet and houses.

         The dirt that is us is the very same stuff

that children build forts or make clown makeup with.

         The dirt that we try to sweep out of the living room for the umpteenth time

is a reminder of whose artwork we are.

God chose that dirt,

God scooped it up and mixed it with water and made us

and so we’re both the most humble, dirtiest creatures imaginable

and also the most beloved.

In a bit, we’re going to smear some more dirt on your foreheads.

We’ll call it dust and we’ll tell you to remember your mortality,

remember that it’s only God’s breath holding you together.

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Maybe you’re not really ready for that.

And maybe you’re listening to me now and thinking

“it’s no big deal, just a smudge of ashes”

or maybe you’re thinking “Lord I believe, help my unbelief” as did Thomas

no matter where you are right now,

I invite you to begin releasing your hold on that clean wall

keeping the rest of us out

         sit comfortably in your pew

         maybe close your eyes

         and rest your hands on the tops of your knees, palm up.

Close your eyes and clench your hands up tight.

Imagine all the pressures and worries and tensions

you are carrying as you sit here now.

Then

in your own time

gently turn your hands over so that they are facing down.

Imagine God’s hands underneath yours

and slowly open your hands

so that the things you are carrying

fall into God’s hands.

         Allow your dirt-self to show.

You may wish to repeat this several times.

Then turn your hands face up,

but this time with the palms open

and ask God’s Spirit,

God’s breath,

to fill you afresh.[1]

Be gentle with yourselves.

Remember that your dirt-self is both a blessing and a challenge.

Remember that you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Amen.

---

[1] Stolen from the SOS community and then modified.

retreat address 3: Priscilla and Phoebe, Paul's Church Ladies

Growing up, I always thought of the church ladies in my Dad’s churches like the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey—Maggie Smith at her accomplished, pinched, disapproving best.

After a while, I began to pay more attention; I came to know that they were sweet and caring and committed to the Church. They were the ones crawling around on their knees with brown paper and an iron to get the wax out of the carpet. They were the ones bringing casseroles when someone was sick. They were the ones praying hard every night for me and the other teenagers and for all I know the power of their prayers is why nothing really bad happened to us. They were the ones holding the fragile, conglomeration of broken people we called the church together.

We so often think of the early church as the domain of the 12 male apostles and of Paul. They’re the ones named in the Gospels, they’re the ones asking the often dumb questions, they’re the ones present at the resurrection on the beach or in the upper room. But at the very least, who cooked for them? You know as well as I that Mary Magdalene and others were around Jesus and the 12 constantly. Mary Magdalene is the only one in all four Gospels to consistently be present at the empty tomb. Of course there were women in the early church, we say to ourselves, but what does that mean? Were they getting wax out of folks’ robes or were any of them actively spreading the Gospel like Peter and Paul?

Once upon a time, there were two women named Priscilla and Phoebe. They didn’t meet and probably didn’t even know of each other’s existence. They were two of many women working for the Kingdom of God and loving their neighbors. Priscilla and Phoebe stand in for Junia, Julia, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Mary, Persis, Chloe, Euodia and Synthyche and many others. Priscilla and Phoebe are the Eunices and Carols and Nancyes who I once thought of as terrifying and who hold us together.

Priscilla was married to Aquila and this rhyming couplet traveled with St. Paul around bits of the Mediterranean. They made tents with Paul and shared the Good News of Jesus with the folks they met. We don’t know much more than that about Priscilla and Aquila but I like to imagine them arguing theology with Jews and Gentiles alike right alongside Paul. “Of course we are justified by grace alone,” Priscilla would say, “look at my husband Aquila. He’s a good man, but every time he doesn’t put his dishes in the dishwasher is a point against him. There’s no way to recover from that.” Or arguing with Paul the way I wish I could. “Brother Paul,” she might have said, “What’s this about it being shameful for a woman to speak in church?”

But there are no heroic deeds attributed to Priscilla, no transcendent appearances of God in the desert. She went about her life, praying and cooking, speaking and tentmaking.

Now Phoebe was Paul’s patron—one of those women whose names are written in huge typeface on the banners at fundraising galas. You know, “Angel Donors: Dr. and Mrs. Charles Smitherington” or similar. She and others provided food and lodging to these fascinating, difficult, spiritual men. They found ways to be near them, to hear their parables and arguments. Phoebe used what she had to support these traveling preachers and, by extension, support the men and women who came to hear them.

Phoebe was Paul’s benefactor and, it turns out, was a deacon herself. She held the same office that one of Paul’s closest lieutenants Timothy did—diakonos or servant. The same thing even that Paul called himself. These three were servants of God, servants of the people they preached to, servants in both action and title. Phoebe, it turns out, is the only woman in scripture to bear that title, though I doubt very much that she was the only woman. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he spilled a lot of ink describing the conduct of deacons—their honesty, generosity, sobriety and all—and wrote specifically that women in that role ought follow the same conduct.

Phoebe was one of this company of faithful leaders. She sat with other women and heard their joys and sorrows. She heard their confessions. At their baptisms, Phoebe was there to anoint them with the cross of Christ. Deacon Phoebe had only a brief mention in scripture but was remembered long after her death. Three hundred years later, her name was invoked on another woman deacon’s grave stone.

But there are no heroic deeds attributed to Phoebe, no transcendent appearances of God in the desert. She went about her life, praying and benefacting, speaking and listening.

And maybe there are no heroic deeds attributed to you or me. We go about our lives—taking kids or grandkids to music lessons, doing the laundry, taking out the trash, going to work or ironing the linens at church. We don’t often have burning-bush moments, but maybe that’s not because they don’t happen but because we’re not really present to see them.

Kathleen Norris writes that one of her first experiences in an Episcopal church made her giggle with recognition. She watched as everyone filed up to receive communion and then as the priest took water and washed the dishes in front of everyone. Perhaps this is not a tradition at Prince of Peace—the priest drinks the remaining wine, pours water onto the plate and into the cup and then drinks that as well. It’s not a real dishwashing, of course, but is symbolic. And Kathleen Norris was delighted—that in the midst of something as holy and centering as communion, there was the boring, everydayness.

One of the places I find the most spiritual focus is in hanging laundry out to dry on my clothesline. I have one of those umbrella-dryers that spins in the wind. I take a couple of loads out and stand in the sunlight hanging diapers and shirts and thinking about God. It’s the most prosaic thing in the world and yet the most transcendent.

Priscilla and Phoebe may not have looked like burning bushes, but their hearts and lives were aflame with the Spirit.

*       *       *

Questions for conversation:

·      What stood out for you in Priscilla and Phoebe’s stories?

Share a story about a woman who has given you much, to whom you are greatly indebted.

retreat address 2: Deborah and Jael, Women on Top

Once upon a time, there were judges in Israel. This was before there were kings but after God created the world, you understand, so they were not as domesticated as Solomon or David but were mighty to behold. Sampson was a judge—all raw power and hair he was. And Ehud was a great warrior who stabbed one enemy so that his sword arm was swallowed up by the man’s belly. And Jephthah—ah, Jephthah. He was a soldier’s soldier that one—if only he hadn’t made a fool’s bargain and sacrificed his daughter. But of all these and many more, the greatest was Deborah.

Deborah was married to a man named Lappidoh which means spirited or fierce. Or else Lappidoh was a nickname meaning spirited or fierce. No one really knew. And Deborah, the Wife of Ferocity, sat under a tree at the outskirts of town. She sat there and saw the blue of the sky. She sat there and saw clouds like paste scraped across it. She sat there under the tree and saw the people coming to her with their tribulations and she saw the truth of their hearts. She sat there under the tree—which came to be known as Deborah’s Tree, if you must know—she sat there and saw the breath of God in each person, saw their passions and their flaws. Deborah sat there under her tree and loved the people. She sat, watching, listening, advising. And she heard the voice of God.

And one day she called the general of the army to her. She watched him come, she saw his passions and his flaws. “General Barak” said Deborah the wife of Ferocity, “God has a word to speak to you. God says to get your army in gear and go to Mount Tabor and fight the horde of Sisera. God says you will fight and you will win.”

And General Barak said to Deborah, “Will you come with me?” for he was brave, but not as brave as Deborah the Wife of Ferocity. “If you go with me,” he said, “I will go. But if you do not, I will not go.”

And General Barak hung his head and traced circles in the dirt with his foot like a little boy.

And Deborah looked at Barak and knew his heart and she sighed. Deborah said “I will indeed go with you, General Barak, but you’d better get ready for disappointment. You’ll win, but it won’t be because of you. Triumph will be because of a woman. You got that?”

So they went to the battlefield with their 10,000 soldiers and behold there was Sisera and all his glorious army with 900 iron chariots—think the climactic battle of Lord of the Rings at Pelennor Fields only with fewer trolls and orcs. And the Israelites looked at the army of Sisera and were afraid.

But Deborah the wife of Ferocity said to General Barak, “Get up! God is giving Sisera and all his army into your hand. God is your front line and your rear guard. Go, fight, win!” So they marched forward and saw Sisera’s army and Sisera’s army saw them.

They watched each other, saw how many soldiers were on each side, saw that the God of Israel was indeed with Israel. And Sisera’s army panicked—horses rearing and trampling, soldiers fleeing, and no officers able to form order. The Great and Terrible General Sisera was seen leaping from his own chariot and running away on foot like a scaredy-cat.

Deborah the Wife of Ferocity may or may not have rolled her eyes.

And suddenly General Barak had the courage of his convictions and called to his small army to pursue the great host of Sisera’s army and cut them down. Every last warrior of the enemies of Israel died by the sword of Barak’s army.

Deborah the Wife of Ferocity may or may not have had a gleam in her eyes.

Now you may well think that the glory of this story belongs to Deborah, the warrior woman. But there’s more to the story.

Sisera himself, great and terrible general of the bad guy army, had escaped the wholesale slaughter of his troops. He’d run away with his tail between his legs. And he’d run towards a tent-city that he knew was on his side, hoping to hide himself in their midst.

“Pssst” he heard and he looked and saw a woman gesturing him into her tent. In relief, Sisera snuck into the darkness.

Jael was the woman’s name and she had been sitting at the entrance to her tent, watching and waiting. She sat there and saw the blue of the sky. She sat there and saw clouds like paste scraped across it. She sat there in front of the tent and saw the people coming and she saw the truth of their hearts. Did she hear the voice of God telling her Sisera was coming? Why did she wait for this man and for what? No one knew. Jael was married to a man named Heber. His name might also have meant Ferocity for all we know, because here is what she did. Sisera the Great and Terrible was also Sisera the Fearful and Exhausted so he asked for some water. Jael instead gave him fresh milk to slake his thirst, like your mother might have given you before you went to bed, a soothing gesture. Sisera may or may not have noticed and he drank the milk down. His exhaustion hit him and he thought, “I’ll sort this Barak and Deborah thing out tomorrow when I’m rested” and he lay down to sleep. Just before falling asleep in the tent of this obviously trustworthy and tasteful woman, Sisera told her to lie if anyone asked if he was there. As his eyes drifted closed, Jael, the wife of Heber, picked up a tent-peg. And she picked up a hammer. And she laid the tentpeg against Sisera’s temple and gave it such a mighty blow with the hammer that it lodged in the ground beneath Sisera’s head.

And Jael, the wife of Ferocity went outside her tent to wait for whomever would come. And she may or may not have pondered all the deeds of Sisera which led her to this moment.

Barak, the Newly Great and Terrible came into the camp and Jael rose to meet him. She said, “come into my tent”—a terrifying statement if you know what’s inside—but Barak didn’t and he went and saw his enemy nailed to the ground. And Barak may or may not have marveled at the deeds of women.

He also may or may not have thrown up.

Deborah and Jael, the wives of Ferocity, the wives of Necessity and of Wisdom lived, if not happily ever after, then content, aware of the parts they played in the great story God was telling with Israel.

Deborah and Jael live on in Afghanistan where women teach their children history and faith and how to protect their families. They live on in India where women fight off rapists. They live on in Kenya where women plant trees in defiance of the government’s edict that women aren’t allowed to and the trees won’t make any difference anyway. Deborah and Jael live on in us when we call upon our own Ferocity to see the breath of God in each person, to see their passions and their flaws. When we sit, watching, listening, waiting, we, too, can hear the voice of God.

*       *       *

Questions for conversation:

·      What stood out for you in Deborah’s and Jael’s story?

Share a story about a time you stood up for someone—what happened? How anxious or fierce did you feel? Where was God in that moment? How did you know you needed to confront the situation? What did you learn?

retreat address 1: Hagar, Abraham's Other Woman

Once upon a time,

there were two people named Abraham and Sarah   [pause]

Perhaps you've heard of them.

They were the superstars of their day

—larger than life,

more faithful to God than anyone around,

blessed with a miraculous child in their old age,

the lead actors in the story everyone was in

—think less Brad and Angelina and

more Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

Abraham and Sarah were the patriarch and matriarch of a great nation,

chosen by God,

given not just a promise but The Promise

—their descendants would number as the stars

and they would be remembered unto ages of ages.

But this is not their story.

This is the story of one of their supporting actresses

—not even that, an extra with a couple of lines.

This is the story of Hagar.

Once upon a time,

there was a woman named Hagar.

Hagar was not a newspaper comic strip character,

not a Viking warrior a la "Hagar the Horrible."

Hagar was Sarah's slave.

She was a woman of little consequence

—no money, no family, no status at all

         and like all women of her place and time

                  she was property, like a toaster oven or a family pet

she had no legal existence of her own,

no recourse, no personal bank account

         yet she was happy

                  she was a part of a family, not mistreated but useful and needed

                  she went about her daily life

                           doing the laundry

                           weaving and mending

                           helping with the grocery-ing

shuttling the children of the camp to and from school, lacrosse, and band practice

                  it wasn't a bad life

so we begin with act one:

the first hiccup came when Sarah,

despairing of ever having a child of her own, said to herself:

         "it has ceased to be with me in the way of women"

         at least that's what the King James Bible tell us

"I've got a plan…" she said

         and Sarah went to Abraham and said,

"it has ceased to be with me in the way of women

—so I want you to take my slave Hagar

and get her pregnant and that child will be mine"

         and Abe said, "ok"—what, did you think he'd say no?

         so they went to Hagar and Sarah said,

"it has ceased to be with me in the way of women,

so I want you to get pregnant by my husband

and give me the baby"

         and Hagar, a woman of great poise and wit, said, "what?" [deep Dr. Who]

                  but this kind of arrangement wasn't unheard of in those days

so… Hagar slept with Abraham and conceived a child

                  and even in the midst of a kind of Jerry Springer-like mess

                  Hagar was happy

—she was bringing life and prosperity to her family

she was pleased and proud to be needed and wanted and included

now she was part of The Promise everyone talked about

now she was in with the "in" crowd

                           the first time she felt the baby move it brought her to tears

                                    there was life in this body, joy in this hard life

         and even though Sarah didn't take Hagar's pregnancy as well as she'd hoped

                  and cursed and beat her and drove her away to the desert

                  Hagar didn't give up

                  in the desert, she met God—I mean really met God

                           God spoke to Hagar

                           God saw her misfortune and God saw her

                           and God gave her a promise, too

—her children would one day number as the stars

and she would be the matriarch of a great nation

                           and Hagar, this unknown, inconsequential slave girl, named God

                                    not a title or a description but a name

becoming the only person in the bible to name God

                                    "el-Roi" she called God—"God who sees"

and so Hagar returned to the camp and to her adopted family

rejoicing in the divine knowledge that she was truly a part of the Promise

                  rejoicing in her physical and spiritual wealth

act two:

         Sarah, no longer a spring chicken, felt her age

when strangers came into the camp proclaiming that she would become great with child

                  she laughed—nervously? deeply and heartily?

knowing what she had lost?

         either way, it came to pass that she was again in the way of women

                  and lo, she became great with child

                  and as amazing and wonderful as it was, she was scared

                  she went to Hagar, her slave, and wept and laughed and learned

                  they talked about their aches and pains,

their hunger, their deep connection with their babies

                  they discussed birthing plans and breathing techniques

and prenatal yoga

When Hagar gave birth she named her son Ishmael after the narrator of Moby-Dick

and soon after, Sarah also gave birth

and named her son Isaac after the Ancient Near Eastern fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi

and Sarah looked upon the child of her slave

…and she hated him

         she said, "my Isaac will not grow up playing with the help"

         and she went to Abraham,

who, after a hundred years of wedded bliss,

was used to his wife telling him what to do

                  she said, "Abe, my Isaac will not grow up playing with the help"

                  and Abe looked out into the yard at Ishmael his firstborn son

and at Isaac his miraculous child

                  and he went along with it

         Abraham turned Hagar and his own son out into the desert

with only a single bottle of water

                  and Hagar asked, "where is God and God's Promise now?"

                           out here in the wilderness,

we wander the literal desert and the metaphorical one

out here in the wilderness where there are no street signs

and no restaurants

—not even a trickling stream

Hagar was alone, unmourned, and unloved

a secondary character in a made-for-TV movie

all she could think of was the look of triumph on Sarah's face

even her friends in the camp couldn't look at her in her shame

her family, her group, her clique

         had kicked her out like a dog

         because of who she was, what she'd done or said or seen

         Hagar wandered, carrying her toddler son and the bottle of water

                  the one getting heavier

                  the one getting lighter

                  her heart breaking

                  and her eyes were opened

and behold, she knew they could not survive on their own

                           so she laid Ishmael under a bush

                                    not able to watch her own son die of starvation

                           and she stumbled away, hot tears streaming down her face

                           and she lifted up her voice with her son's

and wailed with no one to hear

                  [pause]

         but God hears

act three:

God hears her cries and joins her there in the wilderness

                  God sits with her, suffers with her

a few hard paces from her squalling baby boy

                  and God mourns with her for all she has lost

         and God reminds her of the Promise she already has

                  you will never be alone

                  I will be with you

                  I will make you the matriarch of a great nation, too,

and you will be remembered unto ages of ages

                  there is light here in the midst of your darkness [gesture to the Table]

there is hope here in the midst of your wilderness

and God shows her a well in the desert

         and she drinks deep

so, Hagar names God el-Roi, "the God who sees"

and God hears her cries in the wilderness, "the God who hears"

and God does not leave Hagar or Ishmael or Sarah or Isaac or us

"God is with us," EmmanuelHagar and Ishmael Sent Away

God sees,

         God hears,

                  God is with us

And we all lived happily ever after.

*       *       *

Questions for conversation:

·      What stood out for you in Hagar’s story?

Share a story about when you felt God’s presence—what happened? How could you tell it was God? What did you learn from the experience? 

introduction to retreat "women in the Bible"

Hello, I’m Alice Connor.

I’m an Episcopal priest working for the ELCA because of our agreement to be in full communion. I work as a campus missioner at UC with college students at the Edge campus ministry house. We drink really good coffee and argue theology. I meet students for lunch because it’s always good to have food and drink around so you have something to do with your hands. I talk with folks about theology and spiritual practice. I make art with students for the Edge House and for the campus. And I hang out with lovely folks like you. It’s really the coolest job ever.

I have been married to my husband for over 13 years and we have two ridiculously adorable children: Abby who’s four and Jackson who’s 7 months. Seriously, at the break just try to stop me from showing you pictures.

        

We love dark, ambiguous TV shows like Battlestar Galactica and Arrested Development. We also love Barbecue and once drove 1700 miles round trip to Kansas City to go to Arthur Bryant’s.

I am a great lover of scripture—which means that I both delight in it and fight it. The stories present in our Bible are messy and challenging and beautiful and I relish the opportunity to converse with y’all about them.

Here’s what I have in mind for our time together. Each of the three addresses tomorrow will consist of: first, a two-minute sitting meditation; second, 12-15 minute storytelling about one or more women from the Bible; third, a 10-minute sitting meditation to consider the story and listen for what God might be telling us; and fourth, a time for questions and discussion. Does this sound acceptable?

For tonight, I’d like to chat a bit about women in scripture first, followed by a more general conversation about our own experiences, then spend a little time in silent meditation.

One summer a few years ago, I was chaplain at our diocesan summer camp for the week of Outdoor Adventure Camp. We set up tents in the woods, made our own food, chopped our own wood, did educational and spiritual exercises based on the natural world and God’s fingerprints on it. This year particular was special because I was enormously pregnant with my daughter. I was staying just over the hill in the retreat center—air-conditioned and mattressed comfort. One afternoon, I was sitting by the campfire watching campers and counselors chopping wood. It’s hard work, chopping wood. Even watching it made me tired. And I observed to the counselor nearby that in the American pioneer days, pregnant women had to chop the wood, start the fires, cook the food, wash the clothes, fight off scavengers, care for the other children, and much more and I could barely stand up to get a cookie from the storage bins. Those pioneer women were fierce. And probably exhausted. We decided to form the Women’s Pioneer League—the only requirement for membership was a deep awe for the women who’d gone before us and all they’d accomplished, pregnant or not.

Women are all over our scriptures—not a controversial statement, really. But so many of our stories are, for lack of a better term, less than those of our brothers. Their stories are about conquest and seeing God face-to-face and “let my people go” and “Mortal, can these bones live?” Our stories are predominantly about childbirth or the lack thereof or about rape or about something other than us. Or at least they seem to be.

Friends, I don’t know where you are on the spectrum of feminism. In the conversations around feminism we have in the church, in the workplace, in our families, we talk about equality and a woman’s place and no matter where you fall on the spectrum, these conversations are all about power: who has it, who doesn’t have it, what it’s used for. These are good questions to ask, don’t get me wrong. But as Christians we are called to something different. The God we worship, the God made human, seems to be all about the powerless. And so often in our scripture God calls us not to success but to faithfulness. God calls us not to power but to presence.

Tamar had married three brothers in succession and each died. Her father-in-law was horrified and refused to marry her to another brother, sent her away in disgrace. So she dressed up like a prostitute and put herself in his path. He didn’t recognize her, slept with her, gave her his staff as his promise that he’d pay her a goat later, then was enraged when his daughter-in-law came up pregnant. When she presented him his staff as proof of the baby’s paternity, he said “this woman is more righteous than I.”

Tamar’s story is about going after justice in whatever way you have at your disposal and about calling the ones in power to account. Tamar’s story is about being present to her own life.

Ruth had married and then buried a foreigner, an Israelite, and had nothing left. She followed her mother-in-law back to Israel where they again had nothing. She met, wooed, and was married by a wealthy man named Boaz and bore him a son who would be King David’s granddaddy.

Ruth’s story is about God choosing outsiders to be part of the divine family and about love crossing human-made boundaries. Ruth’s story is about being present to how God is working in less-than-ideal situations.

Mary the mother of Jesus was meek and mild. And young. And maybe a little freaked-out by the annunciation and pregnancy. Or maybe not. She was not sent away by Joseph as an adulterer but birthed her baby Jesus in a dirty cow stable. And he grew up to be a good Jewish boy, studied Torah, healed the sick, and died for the sins of the world. Her story is about him. But she also sang a song about the mighty being brought low and the poor raised up. She sang the Magnificat which is a great example of prophetic literature.

Mary the mother of Jesus’ story is about bearing the Word of God to the world no matter how hard it might be. Mary’s story is about being present to how God is working in each of us.

In a number of places in the Hebrew Scriptures, righteous men are said to pull down the symbols of pagan worship including the “Asherah’s”. Asherah was an ancient Near Eastern goddess of fertility and home. And many scholars write that in a very early form of Judaism, she was Yahweh’s wife.

The Asherah’s story is about being on the same footing as men and having that footing taken away. Maybe the Asherah’s story is about absence rather than presence.

Eve, for goodness sake, was created as an equal partner to Adam in both creation narratives and has an extensive theological discussion with the serpent. Eve’s story is about disobedience and growing up. Eve’s story is about being present to our mistakes.

What happened to these stories? What happened to these women with their stories of neglect or celebration, anger or mercy? What, for that matter, has happened to the stories of our mothers and grandmothers and greatgrandmothers? My great aunts—there were 6 of them, though I only met 2—lived in a house that used to be a speakeasy. For years after they moved in, men would come to the backdoor asking for bathtub liquor. They worked during World War II in a factory that made sanitary napkins. And that’s all I know about them. There are stories there. There are stories here in this room, because we are all part of the story that God is telling.

I want to invite us now to take [_____] minutes to share some stories with one another. Let’s break into groups and each person share the oldest story about a woman in your family you can remember, even if it’s only a few words.

[break for storytelling]

What was that like? What did you notice?

Before we break for the night, I want to introduce the concept of sitting meditation. How many of you have done sitting meditation before?

[explain about not clearing mind, candle focus, breath focus, word focus, uncrossing body, being present in this room]

[practice for three minutes]

Sisters, I look forward to being with you tomorrow. Enjoy your evening.

sermon on Isaiah 62

When I’m driving around town, 

maybe on my way to the Edge campus ministry house or running errands, 

I like to play a little game with the radio. 

I turn on the top 40 pop music station and then assume that, 

whatever song is on, it’s about Jesus. 

Either that someone wants Jesus to see them and love them 

or that Jesus is singing about wanting us to see and love him. 

It works 9 times out of 10.

See, most popular music is, forgive me, not written very well. 

Of course there are gems in there, but like movies or fiction, 

much of it is forgettable. 

Popular music, specifically of the “romantic” genre, is vague 

and filled with clichés about how great the other person is

—you’re so beautiful, so awesome, I just want to be with you.

So much of what is on is kind of hilarious if you put Jesus in place 

of the boyfriend or girlfriend being sung about. 

This is how I amuse myself.

Interestingly, a lot of Christian pop music is kind of the same. 

Vague, clichéd statements about how beautiful and awesome God is

and how we just want to be with him.

These are what I often call “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs.

Innocuous examples might be 

“Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your Name…” by M. Redman 

or “Indescribable, uncontainable,

You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name

You are amazing God.” 

Or even some Taize chants like “Jesus, your light is shining within us.

Let my heart always welcome your love.”

Then you’ve got more obvious examples

like Elvis Presley’s “He Touched Me:” 

“He touched me, oh he touched me

And oh the joy that floods my soul

Something happened and now I know

He touched me and made me whole”

or the song popularized by Josh Groban “You Raise Me Up”. 

It’s a great example, 

a Christian praise song very akin to “Wind Beneath My Wings” (“You raise me up so I can stand on mountains/You raise me up to walk on stormy seas/I am strong when I am on your shoulders/You raise me up to more than I can be”)

—is it about Jesus? Or a lover? Or both?

There’s even a whole subculture 

that some of our evangelical sisters connect with 

like in this quote from a book called Love Letters From Your Prince:

“When a royal princess is rescued by a brave prince, every girl’s heart pitter-patters at the thought. But women of all ages can easily miss the glorious truth that Jesus is the Prince who has already chosen her and is waiting at her door.”

Now, I am poking a little bit of fun at 

one of the many bizarre things we Christians do. 

Of course it’s true that God raises us up and is indescribable 

and to be loved beyond all things. 

The problem here is that we end up with a simplistic theology 

for something we all know is vast and complex and mysterious. 

And I think we all know it’s not just our music 

that gives us this surface understanding of God’s presence with us. 

Lots of “Christian” art is only about being nice or pretty. 

Maybe you remember last year’s Lenten Journey 

about understanding scripture more deeply

—we talked a lot about truth not being only literal 

but also metaphorical, 

—we talked about truth hitting us on a deeper, difficult, 

protected place within us, 

a place that can be transformed but we don’t want it to be 

because we like who we are thank you very much.

I’m poking fun at some of our church music 

because it is often a symptom of surface-level faith.

Now, let’s pause for a moment, 

because the Isaiah passage for today seems to contradict what I’m saying. 

Isaiah says that Israel (and we) marry God. 

And it’s not just here, 

but many times in the Hebrew and Christian Testaments

—Jesus is the bridegroom and we, by implication, 

are the blushing bride. 

It’s here in our scripture—Jesus is our collective boyfriend. 

If you think of it literally, it’s a bit creepy. 

But also beautiful—this metaphor is called bridal mysticism

and has a long history in the church. 

We see married people all the time

—certainly we see broken marriages, 

but also connectedness and reliance and mutual giving. 

Of course we’d use it as a metaphor for our relationship with God. 

Look at the Song of Songs, if you don’t believe me.

Bridal mysticism takes Jesus as the boyfriend to its logical extreme 

and puts the mystic or the reader in the place of the bride

—when we read these passages, when we pray, 

we can experience the great hope a bride feels, 

the anticipation of new life, 

the excitement of being with the one our heart most desires

—you know this feeling. 

Not just the heart palpitations of a crush, 

but the deep connectedness to someone we truly love 

and who loves us back. 

For some of you, that might be a married partner, 

for others it might be a deep, soulfriend, 

for others it could be the relationship you have with a parent or sibling. This is the experience of having our name changed, 

as the bride often does, from one thing to another. 

For Israel, Isaiah says her name changes from “Forsaken” and “Desolate” 

to “My Delight is In Her.”

There is intimacy and tenderness in this new relationship, 

in this partnership with God. 

Consider these deeper relationships you have, whether romantic or not

—what feelings do you have there? 

Connectedness? Safety? Willingness to take other risks? 

Challenge to become a better person?

Being accepted and balanced by another?

These are beautiful experiences and we ought to want them

—but they require a certain vulnerability on our end. 

We have to be able to be vulnerable to God

—no more posturing, no more 

“look how great I am, God, and all the stuff I’ve done for you”, 

no more “look how humble I am, how little I think of myself 

so that you can come and walk all over me.” 

No, bridal mysticism requires us to present ourselves 

exactly as we are to our bridegroom Jesus.

There’s a song by Lady Antebellum

—one of those pop songs I mentioned at the beginning that I think 

is hilarious when you put Jesus in the place of the boyfriend or girlfriend. 

(and we’ll hear it in a bit from the praise band)

It’s called “I need you now” and the chorus is 

“It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk and I need you now

Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now

And I don't know how I can do without
I just need you now
”

We’re all drunk or angry or ashamed or confused or broken in some way 

and we all want to call on God—this is what it means to be vulnerable. 

It’s to be that broken person and not hide it and call God anyway. 

A sort of spiritual drunk-dial. 

Let’s be clear—bridal mysticism is not triumphalism. 

It’s not about our comfortable state in this life 

being a sign of God’s favor on us. 

This good news of being God’s beloved means nothing 

if we are content in our own blessedness, 

means nothing if we’re comfortable in our wealth 

and perceived happiness

—this is the gospel of wealth and it is no gospel at all.

Good news means nothing if it doesn’t speak into some bad news

Isaiah is speaking to a people who have returned from exile 

in a foreign land, people who have been ripped from their homes, 

who have concluded from the experience that God is in fact dead, 

people who are returning to those homes changed 

and find that other people have moved in 

and have taken over the exiles’ lives. 

Isaiah is speaking to a people who are desolate and forsaken, 

who could have easily changed their names, as brides often do, 

to Mrs. Desolate and Mr. Forsaken, it’s that bad. 

And Isaiah is saying, 

in the midst of this emptiness and confusion and drunkenness, 

God is alive and delights in them. 

God is, in fact, bringing them to a new home, 

calling them by a new name 

“Mr and Mrs You’re So Darned Amazing”, 

God is giving them hope, God is showing them a new way to be. 

God is showing us a new way to be.

And it’s not just the surface level of how pretty God is 

or how God makes our hearts go pitter-patter

—those can be true—

this is the gut-instinct moment of knowing who we are 

and what ought to be done that we often ignore. 

The moment of seeing someone being hurt 

when we could speak up for them. 

The moment of loss when someone we love dies or leaves us 

and the little we have left is God. 

The moment of sudden understanding. 

That moment is the truth, 

that moment is what Jesus was talking about in the Kingdom, 

that moment is what it’s like to be married to God.

So, these praise songs we sometimes sing—in church or on the radio—

could speak of a shallow faith.

And they could speak to something much deeper. 

How aware you are of what you’re singing is the key. 

And how you respond to it as well. 

Do you hear “I’m okay, you’re ok?” 

Or do you hear, “I love you, you know that’s not good for you, right?” 

Or even, “I love you, let’s go fix the world.”

I leave you with the words of a bridal mystic from the 1200s, Hadewijch. 

Her poems refer to God as Love:

This is a marvel difficult to understand

Love’s robberies and her gifts

I pray and invite Love

that she may incite noble hearts to sing in tune 

the true melody of Love

In humble anxiety and high hope.

sermon on Luke 21

[Watch Pixar's Boundin' short--it's before The Incredibles or somewhere on the interwebs.]

That jackelope, my friends, is Jesus. Not that Pixar is a Christian filmmaking company being stealthy about putting Jesus in front of millions if theatre-goers...As far as I know, they’re not. No, the jackelope’s essence is that of Jesus—he sees the miserable sheep and stops, mid bound, to see what can be done. 

Think of the children that the disciples wouldn't let near Jesus or the blind man they told to keep quiet—for all of whom Jesus stopped, mid-bound, as it were, to see what could be done. And, while Jesus doesn’t speak in rhyme, as far as we know, he did speak wisely and apocalyptically. 

Now, let me break that down for you. We assume that "apocalypse" means the end if the world in fire with a beast and signs and blood and just weirdness happening, right? Think a surface reading of Revelation. 

Or of a Hieronymous Bosch painting.

And we make “apocalypse” synonymous with “rapture” and “eschaton” (fancy word for the time of the end).

That would be wrong.

Apocalypse certainly looks like that stuff to start with, like the reading from Luke today: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,” he says, “and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” But if we stop there, we miss the point. Apocalypse is literally “uncovering” or “revealing,”  It’s a drawing back of the curtain--think of The Wizard of Oz and Toto revealing the dude behind the curtain.

Apocalypse is poetry written to oppressed people to give them hope that a better day is coming and even that that better day could be here now, if we just see differently. And it is a change, a change of perception and of life. Things aren't as they seem, God’s hand is in the mix, and we can live into that revealed world. Jesus talked about this all the time. It was his primary message. Sometimes he spoke in the poetry of apocalypse and sometimes he spoke about it more straightforwardly. 

And that is exactly what the jackelope did. The sheep was lost in the misery of his nekkidness,

the jackelope stopped,

really saw what the story was, and revealed a different way to look at it.

Instead if his nekkidness being a shame, it was an opportunity for bounding. Fun! Delight! Silliness! The Jesus jackelope called the sheep into a new, deeper life of bounding in love. So too, in his letter to the folks in Thessalonika, Paul tells us to respond to God’s call to abound in love. (See what I did there?)

What does that mean, though, to “abound in love”? I suppose a true but snarky answer would be “everything Jesus says in the Gospels." Abounding in love means that your default setting is love, is patience, is understanding, is care and concern for others rather than ourselves. Abounding in love means we don’t just give ourselves and our stuff away 

once a year at the holidays, but every moment of every day. Abounding in love means knowing in the front of our brains

that we are loved so deeply by God that God became human and moved in next door to us. Abounding in love means knowing in the pit of our stomachs that our new next door neighbor knows what we’re doing behind closed doors 

and loves us anyway. All of this learning to abound in love is an apocalypse. It is an uncovering of our “made in the image of God” natures and of our own nekkidness, our sin and our shame. It is a revealing of what we were made for in the first place. Rather than stewing in our own nekkidness and misery like the sheep, Jesus comes bounding in and teaches us to see in a new way.

This new Advent season is time to get excited about lil baby Jesus, but it’s also time to prepare for the discomfort of wise, incisive adult Jesus who will help us change the world if we just let him in. His presence with us, Emmanuel, 

wonderful counselor, mighty god, everlasting father, prince of peace, holy jackelope, is an apocalypse. Jesus reveals to us...love. Which is Fun! Delight! Silliness! And which also draws us out of ourselves and shows us the world and God’s presence in every bit of it. In a way, this baby that are preparing for is the end of the world. Or the end of the world we’ve become accustomed to.

We all have a story one of being the oppressor, one of being the oppressed, one of being the lover, one of being the loved. We all need apocalypse one where God stops, really sees what the story is, and reveals a different way to look at it. This is what Advent is about. Welcome to the end of the world.