Festival of Homiletics 2017 San Antonio, TX Cont'd again

Day Four: Spiritual Borderlands and Drag Queen Bingo  

The theme for the Festival this year is “Preaching On the Borders.”  It has cropped up in various places throughout, many sermons and many lectures pointed toward it.  But today it came rushing to the fore.  Or maybe it is because this event is almost over and I’m about to head back home.  Home to transition.  Home to a border crossing, from one place to another place of service.  To say there are mixed feelings doesn’t adequately describe it.  But a part of the anxiety is the change itself.  Crossing into the unknown is always daunting.  But perhaps that’s where we’re called to go.  Perhaps that’s where God is.  Oh, certainly God is in the safe center too.  No question.  But on the borders, or as the Celts called it, the thin places, God seems more real.

The day began with Bishop William Willimon.  Bishop Willimon is a United Methodist Bishop, long time Dean of Duke University Chapel and pastor in North Carolina, and kindred spirit of mine.  He speaks with a biting sarcasm and talks of biblical characters as though he met them at a bar.  I like that.  He also seems to make up his sermons on the fly.  And is surprised as we are when they end. “The Light of Love Comes Shining Through” was the hopeful title of his sermon this morning.  He talked about his ministry, as pastor and bishop, and concluded that his best times were when Jesus pushed him over a boundary.  Jesus, he says, never met a door He couldn’t kick in, a border He couldn’t cross, or a boundary wall He couldn’t tear down.  

Willimon told of receiving a fill in appointment to a declining church in Raleigh.  He was told it would be a couple of months, he was there for a year.  He decided to try to make it go, to make it relevant to the changed neighborhood where the church was located.  He sought out some folks who knew the area and asked them “Where do we go to find out what is going on in this neighborhood? How do we become relevant to our community.”  The urban expert said “Drag Queen Bingo.” Bishop Willimon said, I’m not sure we are ready for that.  The expert said, “Oh, I thought you were serious about evangelism.  Better go back and prepare to close down.”  The bishop and a few members of the church went to Drag Queen Bingo.

They crossed border into a world they didn’t know existed.  Their eyes were opened and so were their hearts.  Was the church saved?  Did the community find Jesus and give up their wayward life?  The bingo addiction I mean.  Well, he didn’t actually say.  These things take time.  But doors were opened.  And Christ will go through.

After a break the Bishop moved from preaching mode to lecture mode, “Confronting Racism through Preaching” was the title.  Not quite a hopeful, or easy.  He spoke of attending a Methodist camp one summer as a youth, and being asked to room with a “Negro.”  Willimon claimed that when he left that camp he no longer lived in the same world he had occupied before.  His world was wider, deeper. His roommate grew up a few blocks from him, he discovered, but his experience of their home town was different, and a town he never knew was described to him.  This border, what was once called “the color line” is a border in our hearts, but also in the structures of our culture in ways many of us don’t want to or can’t acknowledge.  But one of the things that Jesus can do is open eyes.  And one of the tools He uses to do that is preaching.  So it is on us preachers, and us congregations to raise these issues and open our eyes.  Biblically we can look at the stories of Jews and Samaritans, or later Jews and Gentiles.  These too are racial divides.  And demand proclamation.  Demand salvation from this sin.  The bishop reminded us that God only saves sinners.  Let’s confess our sin.

Grace Imathiu is a Kenyan Methodist preacher now pastoring in the States. Her sermon was called Border Scandal.  Based on the story of the Woman at the Well, Grace is the one who invoked the memory of the thin places.  But thin places while holy and full of Presence, are also dangerous places, she argued.  Dangerous because change happens in those places.  Transformation happens. Be prepared to cross over into a new way of seeing, a new way of being.

The current Dean of the Chapel at Duke University is Dr Luke Powery.  Powery has degrees in theology and preaching but also in music.  He is an advocate of the place of the Spiritual in both the history and theology of Christian proclamation.  And, oh my goodness, can he sing them.  Spiritual Borderlands, Powery says, means not just Spirit, but spiritual.  And the songs shape the experience theologically, even as they shape the singers spiritually.  The spirituals are keys to speaking the truth, too preaching on the borders.

First of all spirituals sound the note of the reality of human suffering.  Not the health, wealth and prosperity of an easy gospel, but the blood and tears and death of a real world.  Proclamation tells the truth.  Spirituals sound the note of divine suffering .. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? We proclaim his death until he comes.  But then Spirituals also sound the note of the ecology of community, the reminder that the only way we live in this world is together.  The only way we make sense, make meaning in this world is as a body together.  And we do it singing, as spirituals sound the note of the practice of singing as a homiletical strategy.  We are a community that proclaims, and sings our faith with confidence and joy.  Luther said Music is the handmaiden of theology.  We sing our way across the borders.

Which is part of what David Lose said, the final speaker of the day.  “Proclaiming Truth in an Alt-Fact World” that was his title.  And he starts by admitting, he didn’t know how to do that.  Shortest lecture of the week.  Actually no.  He raised some questions, gave some pointers and said that we all are sorting our way through this crazy world.  But the point that resonated the most with me was when he pointed out that in this current climate, studies have actually proved that facts presented rationally are the least effective means of changing minds.  We have learned, Lose presented, to seek out information that affirms our opinions and biases.  We don’t seek information to learn or to change, but to be agreed with.  And facts that contradict our opinions are at best ignored and at worst slammed as fake news.  So, if facts don’t work, what does work?  Well, what works better is story. Or what we in our tradition call witness. We tell it from a personal perspective. 

What’s your story?  Where are your borders?  

Shalom,

Derek

Festival of Homiletics 2017 San Antonio, TX Cont'd some more

Day Three: Pharisees and Sleepers

Woke up to rain.  Rain in San Antonio.  Isn’t it supposed to be dry as a desert?  No, apparently not.  It rains in San Antonio in May.  And I didn’t bring an umbrella.  Or rain coat.  Or poncho, or goofy hat.  So, I could either wait it out and miss the opening worship and lecture, or get wet.  It was Brian McLaren preaching and then lecturing.  Brian McLaren has written more about how the church needs to change in the current century, about the revival of evangelism that makes a difference in the lives of those we seek to invite into the body of Christ, about a faith that honors those who are different the way Christ honored those who are different, about worship that is vital and preaching that matters. Brian McLaren was preaching and teaching.  I got wet.

The opening worship was titled “A Service for Organizing Spirituality” and the sermon was “Why People Hate Organized Religion.”  He began with a blessing, no, an absolution.  It’s not your fault, he told us clergy as we sat in that theatre and listened to his litany of what has happened to the church we love and serve.  He took a passage from Luke, chapter 11 verses 37 through 44.  Jesus is telling the Pharisees what has gone wrong with their thinking.  But when McLaren read it, he took out the word Pharisee and substituted Leader of Organized Religion.  “You leaders of organized religion clean the outside of the cup, but inside you are greed and wickedness.  Woe to you leaders of organized religion, you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds but you neglect justice and the love of God....”  Whew, hard to hear.  But it is bigger than any of us.  Bigger than all of us.

Why do people hate organized religion?  Maybe, McLaren argued, it is not that we shouldn’t be organized, but it is that we are organized around the wrong things.  Wrong things?  We are obsessed with trivialities, arguing over sanctuary furniture or instrumentation or service times, and not the things that really matter.  We are driven by greed and by money, bowing to the will of those who give the most who seem to believe they should determine what the programs, the mission of the church ought to be.  We are obsessed with popularity, with numbers and ratings, desperate to be liked.  Jesus compared this way of thinking with a graveyard.  We might look good on the surface, but there death underneath.

The solution, however, is not for organized religion to become unorganized, but to organize for different things. What are those things?  The things Jesus calls for, justice and the love of God.  But then the question arises: How will we do this?  McLaren says that will only become clear when we decide to do something.

A powerful ending to the sermon, which was luckily followed up by a lecture on just this issue.  He began with a poem by Mary Oliver titled “When you finally did what you had to do.”  The lecture was essentially a “just do it” message.  It’s about deciding that there is more to do than maintaining the institution.  But also recognizing that institutions serve a purpose and are necessary for the community.  But they can’t become ends in themselves.  Which is why movements help keep institutions honest.  Keep them on mission.

Part of that mission is what Bishop Yvette Flunder called Radical Inclusivity.  Asking us if we are really ready to see all of God’s children as worthy of inclusion or not.  Asking how we can undo the tools of shame and fear, that celebrates diversity not just puts up with it.  But, she also warns, it is hard work.  Worth it, but hard.  Being the church we are called to be is always hard work.

And it begins, says Father Michael Renninger, by paying attention.  His sermon was titled Awakened Savior, Awakening Church, from the story of Jesus sleeping in the boat during the storm.  Don’t you care, they asked him, when they found him sleeping.  Well, says Fr. Renninger, the Lord is asking us that same question now.  When there are so many storms in our world and we are seemingly sleeping in the boat.  Don’t we care that so many are abused, neglected, refugees and trafficked?  We may not be able to still every storm, Fr. Renninger, but we certainly need to pay attention to something.

A good day.  A heavy day.  But also one that offers hope.  A wake up call to the church.  To each of us in the church.  Each of us as the church.  But nothing will change by each of us.  It will take all of us.  

Together.

Shalom,

Derek

Festival of Homiletics 2017 San Antonio, TX Cont'd

Day Two: Whole Hearts, Fake News & Thresholds

The first full day at the Festival began under a cloud.  Well, there was the fact that I somehow slept through my alarm and had to rush more than I intended.  But I really meant that the skies were overcast, leaden clouds hinted of rain, or maybe just a humidity you could feel in every pore.  But I made my way to the Scottish Rite Theatre for worship with my distant relative from Denver.  Well, actually, I’m pretty sure we aren’t related, though her name is Nadia Boltz-Weber.  She is the pastor of the Church of All Sinners and Saints, a Lutheran Church in downtown Denver that is made up of people who never found a home in the respectable churches in town.  Boltz-Weber is a former stand up comedian who became a Lutheran pastor and founded a church because she never really found a home in the respectable churches in town either.  Tattooed and pierced she often sets people on edge.  But her theology is compelling and Christ centered in a powerful way.  Boltz-Weber said in her lecture later in the day that she is always a pastoral preacher, she holds no designs on being a prophet.  She wants the Word to matter to the people, to her people, people on the edge, people wounded and wounding.  But that’s later, this morning she is preaching.

She decided to bring us an Ash Wednesday text.  Joel - “return to God with all your hearts.”  Even the crappy parts of our hearts, she suggests.  Even the parts we’d rather not acknowledge, the parts we ignore, pretend aren’t there, that embarrass us.  Those parts too.  Return them to God.  But not, she tells us, because it is some kind of test for us, to see if we are strong enough or holy enough.  No, it’s because God can handle it.  Our hearts are safe in God’s hands.  God will receive our heart and bless it and heal it.  Even the part of our hearts we’ve given to those who hurt us the most.  The parts we won’t name.  The parts that are cold and dark, like a root cellar.  The hearts that were broken by a heartless world.  Or the parts we’ve given to a shepherd shaped wolf.  Because, the good news is we have a God who never tires of forgiving.

Which might be a useful skill for all of us to learn, at least according to Dr Alyce McKenzie, who teaches at my alma mater, Perkins School of Theology at SMU in Dallas.  Dr. McKenzie came to speak on “Finding a Way in the Wilderness: Biblical Wisdom’s Good News in a Culture of Fake News.”  McKenzie has long been fascinated by preaching from the Wisdom literature of the Bible.  Do we live, as some propose, in a Post-truth era?  Truth seems to matter less and less all the time.  We live by opinions and biases.  What we look for is not information in order to learn, but that which will confirm our opinions.  We don’t want to understand, we want to be proved right, even if we have to make things up - fake news - to do it.

McKenzie says the antidote is an emphasis on Wisdom.  Biblical Wisdom contrasts Fake News in that Wisdom is about shalom and fake news is about chaos.  Wisdom wants to guide us through life, to the good life, Fake News just wants to upset, throw out the “experts” and drain the swamp.  Wisdom is collaborative and Fake News is conflictual. Fake news presents us the fool that Proverbs speaks of, in contrast with the wise person, who is characterized by living in the fear of the Lord (humility), compassion for others, impulse control and the courage to speak up.

The analysis of the current age continued with a presentation from Dr. Jennifer Lord, who teaches at Austin Presbyterian Seminary.  Her presentation was titled “Way In and a Way Out: Preaching and Liminality in a Culture of Change.  Liminality is the stage of change from one thing to another, usually used to define ritual change like rites of passage.  Lord spoke of her own childhood as she moved from Brownies to Girl Scouts, and Bluebirds to Camp Fire Girls.  Yes, she said, she was both.  And she remembers most vividly the ritual of transfer from Bluebird to Camp Fire girl.  The night of the ritual, they had constructed a little bridge for the cross over.  The appropriate time she and the other bluebirds walked across and became camp fire girls.  She said that bridge was her liminal space.  Moving from separation - through liminal space - to incorporation into something new.  

But, Lord asks, what if she stopped in the middle of that bridge and didn’t keep moving forward?  She would have been neither, or some of both, or ...?  Her thesis is that is where we are in our culture today.  A constant state of liminality.  Moving from one to the other, except no one knows where we are going, and we are losing track of where we have been.  Delayed adolescence, others call it.  The surge of the gaming culture, all kinds of gaming - gambling, electronic games - merges with the event culture to live in a constant state of non-reality.  I know I’m not doing her lecture justice, but here’s the mic drop issue.  The Christian life is a constant state of liminality.  We are always becoming.  But will likely never reach our goal in this life.  

You thought that the preacher was to rage against this not here or there kind of world in which we live.  I know I did.  But instead, Lord suggests that we claim it.  Live into it, embrace it, proclaim it as essential to the Christian life.  But, and this is important, the Christian liminality is different from the world’s liminality.  In many ways, but the most crucial is this, we know where we are going.  We know who we are want to become.  We are to be like Christ.  Unlike the world that embraces the unknown and unknowable, the Christian faith is crossing the bridge with every step.  

There is more.  There was more, but my brain is full and I don’t want to tax yours.  So, I’ll let these three carry the meaning of the day.  Time to rest for another day.  Oh, I also managed to explore a little bit and will post some photos of the Riverwalk and other interesting San Antonio sites.  As soon as I can figure out how to get them off my phone.  I mean they are there but not yet here, kind of in transition, crossing over, at least I hope.  If you see what I mean.  

I need some sleep.

Shalom,

Derek

Festival of Homiletics 2017 San Antonio, TX

Day One: Sibilants and Fire Starting

“God of Grace and God of glory, on thy people pour thy power.”  The familiar hymn resonated in the Lila Cockrell Theatre in the San Antonio Conference Center.  “Crown thine ancient church’s story, bring her bud to glorious flower.”  It was a hymn of invocation from the 1,800 pastors from various churches in various places, some came with enthusiasm and hope, others came from the depths of despair and wondering if the call had run out and maybe God had moved on.  Those buds seemed way past flowering, others were blown and spent and used up.  Yet the story, the church’s story - ancient and yet ever new - still resonates in hearts.  Even hearts weary from traveling all the way to San Antonio, Texas.

“Grant us Wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour, for the facing of this hour.”  The hour didn’t especially need courage, though Walter Brueggemann is a formidable academic force in Old Testament history and interpretation. But there was wisdom aplenty.  Brueggemann’s sermon based on a story in Judges 12.  It’s a story of insiders and outsiders and about boundaries and borders.  And about accents.  The enemy was identified by how they pronounced a certain word.  Or as Brueggemann says, it was about getting your sibilants right.  

But the sermon was not really about an ancient conflict between unpronounceable tribes, but about the world in which we live today.  And the faith we claim to want to live.  Brueggemann’s advice is to watch our pronunciation.  How do we speak?  Do we speak of the foolishness of God that is wiser than human wisdom?  Or are we ready to replace the mystery in our faith with programs and budgets and numbers of butts in the pew week by week?  Do we speak of the weakness of God that is stronger than human strength?  Or do we bow to the powers that be to define what is good in our world today? Remember, Brueggemann said, human power ruled the day from Friday noon until Easter morning. But that was it.  God stepped in and changed everything we know. And do we speak of the poverty of God which is richer than human wealth?  Or do we agree with the wise person who pointed out that we write “In God We Trust” right on the god we trust?  Who knew that self-giving, self-sacrificing would actually enrich others?  Jesus is effecting a change from the economics of the world to the economy of God.

Brueggemann says God chose the foolish, the weak, the poor to show the world the wisdom, the power and the riches of God.  Consider your call.  And watch your language.

Worship concluded with communion, of all things, a logistical nightmare in a theatre not designed for such ritual and eighteen hundred preachers who just might be better at leading such rituals than following directions.   And a closing hymn that reminded us of the source of our strength.  “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.”  But it’s the final verse that always speaks loudly to me, and perfectly set up our next speaker.  “Were the who realm of nature mine, that were an present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

The stage was cleared of the worship setting and a single speaker with laptop walked out after his introduction.  The speaker was Rob Bell, preacher, writer, filmmaker, and celebrity.  His books have been praised and condemned within the Christian community, and Rob Bell’s response has always been “that’s ok, they’re not for you anyway.”  His passion is making faith intelligible to non-church people.  But actually, I would argue, he wants to make faith intelligible to all people.  Insider and outsiders.  His title was fascinating.  “The Whole Thing is On Fire: a few thoughts on cosmology, photography, and the science of homiletic pyrotechnics.”  Whew.  

Actually the lecture was a study on dealing with adversity.  His presentation was very visual, but there was a technical problem and the pictures wouldn’t display.  In the waiting time Bell reminded us why we were in this business.  What we signed up for.  We signed up, he said, to start fires.  When we began we wanted to preach because we had something to say.  But often, he realized, we now preach because we have to say something.  

Bell posits that the enlightenment did a million amazing and useful things.  But it also did some damage to our cosmology, or how everything works in the universe.  Or relates.  Or just is.  The enlightenment told us, Bell argues, that there are subjects and there are objects.  And objects exist in dead space.  Us and them.  But the ancient world saw things differently.  Psalm 19 sees things differently.  The heavens are telling the glory of God.  Everything is alive.  Words are alive, creation is alive.  And we are called to be alive in it.  To pay attention.  That was Bell’s proscription: pay attention to what’s going on around you.  And then use the experience of worship to create space for a new experience of life and living.  To light fires, Bell told us.  Go light fires that stir up the complacent, that inspire the hopeful, that lift up the despairing.  Light fires.  

Fires have been lit.

Shalom,

Derek

Stony the Road

It’s done.  She walked across the stage, shook various hands, tried to get her service dog in training to shake at least one hand (but she wasn’t interested), got the big white envelope and smiled for the camera.  And with that it was done. Of course it was done. Of course.  We planned for this day.  We waiting for this day.  And now it’s here.  No, wait, it’s gone.  Just like that.  Gone.  Hard to believe, frankly.  Hard.  Like a stone.  A stone in the gut, weighing you down.  Sadness in a way, that it’s over. Gone.  In a blink of an eye.  A stone skipping across a quiet pond, making ripples that disappear, even as the stone sinks out of sight.  Gone.

What am I saying?  It was a good day.  A bright sun shiny day.  We were proud to watch her walk across those stones set into the ground forming the platform on which they all stood, they all passed. Built up into something new, something more.  The horizon was clear, the future is bright.  Stand on those stones and launch yourself into a new tomorrow.  I couldn’t be more proud.  

It wasn’t easy, getting this far, crossing this threshold.  It wasn’t easy for her or for us, just like it wasn’t easy for her brother last year.  There were rocks in the road, stones on the path, there were trips that made us fall, stumbles that bruised us.  But we kept walking.  They kept walking forward, over the stones and into ... what?  More stones? 

1 Peter 2:2-10 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation--3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture: "See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." 7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner," 8 and "A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

A nod to Mother’s Day, I guess, Peter starts with milk, with feeding, with infancy and nurture, with tasting and seeing.  What Mother doesn’t remember those struggles and those joys?  Happy Mother’s Day, to all those who help us drink the spiritual milk, who help us grow in faith.  We are grateful.  We are better for it, for you.  Thank you.

But it’s the stones that dominate the thinking in these verses.  Come to the Stone, and be a stone, and live inside those stones.  Peter gets a little carried away, it seems.  Stones on the brain, I guess. Rocks. Rocky, that’s what they called him.  Jesus changed his name from Simon to Peter (Petros - Rock). Maybe he’s trying to return the favor.  Come to the Living Stone.  Come and let Him build you into the house He’s trying to build.  Be a stone, like Him.  A living stone.  Part of the foundation.  Part of the structure.  Be a stone, a temple made of stone.  Be a stone sanctuary, let worship take place in you.  Make worship take place in you.  We’re both the structure and the activity that takes place inside that structure.  We’re the building and the worship that inhabits that building.  It’s makes your head spin a little bit.  Which is it?  What is it?  What are we, who is He, and what in the world is a living stone?  If living water is water that moves, water that bubbles and rushes and flows, what is a living stone?  

Let yourself be built, Peter pleads with us.  Let yourself.  Not decide for yourself.  I’m going here, I’m gonna hold up this wall, I’m going to frame that window, I’m going to lie on this path.  No, let yourself be built.  Go where He wants you, where He can use you.  You’re not in charge, you’re a stone, for heaven’s sake!  You’re not the architect, you’re building material.  Be built into something greater than yourself, something you may not even see right now. Who knows what you will be? He’s not done with you yet.  

Not done.  There was a finality to today in the sun at Wittenberg University.  A door closing, a chapter ending.  It felt done.  But I have to tell you a secret.  A contentious one, at that.  Maddie defied her parents (again), and she a few girl friends went to celebrate finishing their school work by getting a tattoo.  We didn’t want her to.  Told her not to.  That’s a door that closed, I suppose.  What are you going to do?  Let it be the end?  

It’s a tiny thing, tucked behind her ear.  It’s a semi-colon and a plus sign.  It says there’s more.  More to her.  More for her.  There’s more.  That’s why we’re living stones, I suspect, and why He is a Living Stone too.  Just when you think you’ve nailed Him down, He pops up again.  Just when you think you’ve buried Him deep, rolled the dead stone over Him, He lives.  Again.  There is more. More to Him.  More to you.  More to me.  More to her.  

I want to see what’s next. 

Shalom, 

Derek 

The Terrible Grace of Wanting

It’s time for an update, sorry for the public service announcement quality of this bible study.  We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming in just a moment.  But I needed to let you know of what’s ahead for me and for the Late Night Bible Study group, and why you may not see these weekly emails with any regularity for the next month or so.  First, next weekend is Maddie’s graduation from Wittenberg University.  I’m not exactly sure of the schedule, I’ll be preaching here on the 14th, but may be traveling late, so I can’t promise a bible study.  

The following week, I am heading to San Antonio for the Festival of Homiletics, my favorite continuing education event of the year.  I’m am feeling guilty about leaving, with all that needs to be done here, but La Donna is insistent.  Besides I’ve bought tickets and registration and hotel.  So, I’m going.  I hope to send updates from time to time from there, to let you in on some of the insights I’m gaining, but it won’t be the usual Bible Study.  Plus, that Sunday, which would be May 21st, our Director of New Generations Ministry, the newly minted Dr. Lakeya Stewart will be in charge of worship, with youth and graduate recognition.  So, while I’ll be assisting in the service, I won’t be preaching.

Then there should be a couple of weeks of sort of normalcy.  Sort of.  We will be in the last weeks of packing and preparation, there is the small matter of closing and possession of the house (which is anxiety producing to a surprising extreme), and other transitional issues I can’t even imagine at this moment of relative calm.  Then June 7 through 10 will be Annual Conference, ending with a affirming of the appointments, and then home for a final farewell and final Sunday on June 11 and then, last minute packing, trucks arriving and loading, and shutting everything down.  And ending. And starting.  All over again.  And learning to live with the grief of ending, of dreams that didn’t come to fruition, and the weight of failure.  And grasping hope and possibility in a place unknown at present.  A foreign place that will be home.  One day.  Like this place was.  Not exactly, but sort of, kind of.  Like so many other places.

I want to go home.  To be home.  To stay home.  I want what happened to not have happened.  I want what happened to be for the good of us all.  I want to hope, though hoping seems hard some days.  I want to see God in the midst of the mess, in the broken hearts and confused minds.  I want to believe in the irresistible will of God, but I’m afraid we’re too good at resisting.  I’m too good at resisting.  I want to stop resisting.  I want ...

Psalm 23   The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff-- they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

Perhaps the most familiar six verses of the whole Bible.  Variously translated, written into songs of a variety of genres, parodied in more ways than even Google can catalog; the 23rd Psalm holds a place in the canon of scripture that is unparalleled.  And yet, do we listen to it?  Do we examine it’s depths, live into it’s promises?  Or do we simply slip into it like a warm bath, soothing and comforting, but hidden beneath the frothy bubbles of the comfort we seek?

Comfort is important.  Being soothed when we ache, when we are unsettled.  We long for those arms to wrap around us and protect us, to shelter us, to love us when it seems no one else will.  But David was hoping for more, wanting more than simply balm to soothe our troubled souls.  Psalm 23 is about equipping, about building up so that we can walk, so we can live.  Not just exist, but to live.  The shepherd doesn’t just protect us, doesn’t just feed us, but makes us alive.  “He restores my soul.”  A soul, living being, life, self, desire, passion, appetite, emotion - that’s the definition of the Hebrew word that is there: nephesh.  It’s not simply a breathing being, it’s not simply an entity that is content, upright, taking in nourishment.  But one that is enjoying the meal. One that is alive to the greenness of the grass and depth of the still water teeming with life itself.  He makes me alive again.  Again, like I was created to be.  Like I have been in moments, fleeting experiences that make my heart pound and my eyes tear up and the laughter burst from my lips.  I want that again.  I want to walk in the right paths.  Not the paths of self destruction, self satisfaction, self-centered preference driven gluttony; but your paths.  Because only those paths will keep me alive when the darkness comes, when death surrounds, when despair grips so tightly hope slips from our fingers.  Restore my soul.

And then, typical of attention deficit David, we leap from pastures to dining rooms.  Without a warning or commercial break we find ourselves ushered into a luxurious ballroom, convention center, like we’ve stumbled into a wedding reception we aren’t sure we’re invited to.  The table is groaning under the weight of all of our favorites, so we lunge to our seat and dig in before we notice that the guest list includes many we would have left off.  Those we hoped to avoid.  But the waiter keeps filling our cup, we thought to grab and go, but we’re stuck.  We’re there, with them.  Them.  And we’re blessed by it.

I’ve often wondered what David had in mind with that “in the presence of my enemies” line. Probably thought about thumbing his nose at them, behind the velvet rope, kept at bay by the same servers who keep the cup overflowing.  He probably thought it was an in your face kind of taunt, a bit of I’ll show them that they don’t know who they’re messing with.  I wonder if that’s what he thought as he wrote it with a cruel grin on his face, not realizing that the inspiration for that verse was taking him farther than he intended to go.  Than he hoped to go.  Than he wanted to go.

Those right paths, those tables in the presence, they’re not so frothy and bubbly when you think about it.  Not so comforting, not so warm bath-like.  The Lord as shepherd isn’t the walk in the park we might have imagined.  It has an edge, a demand hidden inside.  He gives us a hint.  Gives himself one too, I suspect.  In the word choice at the end of the psalm.  Our translators hid it from us, uncertain how we would respond to it, perhaps, afraid we would be confused by the real message.  We make it a passive, because comfort and ease sounds passive to us.  But there’s nothing passive about the job of a shepherd.  That’s why he’s got a rod and a staff.  The staff was the crook, used to keep sheep on the path, hooking the end around the neck of the wandering sheep and lifting them bodily back into a new, safer direction. The rod was a weapon, a ninja bo staff or bokken, used to fight off the enemies that would make a meal of the poor unsuspecting and defenseless sheep.  The shepherd’s life was at risk all the time.  Not a very passive profession.  So why a passive ending.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.  Like a puppy, a lost lamb, ready for me to turn and take it when I wanted it, and to leave it when it is inconvenient for me, but I’m in charge.  It follows me.  I’ll acknowledge it when there’s time.  When I’m in the mood.  When nothing better comes my way.  Surely it’ll be there.  Waiting.  For me.

Except it isn’t waiting.  The verb is an active verb.  A better translation would be surely goodness and mercy shall purse me, shall chase after me, all the days of my life.  That’s what I want.  Isn’t it?  A love that will not let me go.  That will chase after me, even when I try to run.  Even when I think I’m not worth chasing.  Even when I don’t know what I want.

I have a friend who struggled with the opening verse.  I shall not want.  Doesn’t that say we shouldn’t want?  Anything?  That wanting is bad?  Or anti-faith somehow?  We are made to want.  It is a part of who we are.  Part of the human condition.  A life of faith doesn’t remove the wanting, in some ways it drives it.  We need to long for the Kingdom, to want justice, to work for peace.  And to not settle for anything less.  We need to want to be alive and to rid ourselves of anything that makes us less than all God created us to be.  And want to stop letting anyone tell us we are less than we are in God.  

What David meant was that when he stopped to think about it, he had everything he needed to be alive.  Maybe what should have said The Lord is my Shepherd, I’m going to stop whining when I don’t get my way!  Or better, not my will, but thine be done.  Amen.

Shalom, 

Derek

On That Same Day

I know I’ve told this story before.  That’s one problem with long tenures, you get to repeating yourself.  Our journey toward adoption was long and somewhat convoluted.  I recently discovered that it was all about changing my mind, or preparing me for what was coming.  That La Donna had decided long before I did that adoption was the route we had chosen, I just didn’t know it yet.  She was willing to go through some of the motions in order to convince me.  That’s the new part of the story.  The part I intended to bring out was the day we made the decision, and made the call.  We talked and thought and researched and finally decided yes, we were going to do this, and yes we knew who we were going call, which agency I mean.  And we picked up the phone and started the process.  

That was October 25, 1993.  We got back from Scotland where we had been for five years while I worked on my doctorate and lived and worked in and around Edinburgh.  I completed all the requirements for the degree and needed to stay and complete some tasks at the University while La Donna came home and set up house for us in Elkhart where I had been appointed to work as an associate pastor for youth at Trinity UMC. She came home in August and I came home almost a month later in September.  That, by the way, remains my favorite move all of the moves we have made in our married life! (We’re up to 20 moves, in case you were wondering)

One of the things that brought us home was the adoption process, as foreign nationals in the UK our options were limited.  So, we returned home to begin the search.  So another month had passed and we finally settled on an agency and called to start.  October 25, 1993.  We remember that because on that same day, on the other side of the planet, Kim Myung Hoon was born to parents who couldn’t keep him.  There were complications at his birth, and he received treatment and was given to an orphanage who found him a foster family to raise temporarily.  We learned about him a few months later.  Because we had started on the domestic adoption track, but it didn’t seem to be working for some reason.  Even the workers at the agency said it was odd.  Like all the sources dried up suddenly. But be patient, they counseled.  It’ll happen.  Finally we decided to wait a little differently and asked about international adoption.  We learned it could take even longer, but sure, we could put our names on the lists.  Until someone told us about the “Child of Promise” book.  This was a listing of children already born, who had certain issues, medical or behavioral, that made them “unadoptable” in the normal process.  We asked to see the book.  We studied, and read, and wept a time or two, and we chose.  And Kim Myung Hoon became Rhys Edmund Myung-hoon Weber.  And our lives have never been the same.  Thanks be to God.

OK, so besides the fact that I like telling that story (and you should be grateful that I shortened it considerably) what’s the point?  Why bring this old story up here and now?  Well, I know it is tenuous, but it was one phrase in our text for this week that took me off down this track.  The very beginning of the story.  Take a look.

Luke 24:13-35 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" 19 He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." 25 Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. 

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

On that same day.  That day.  You remember that day.  That day when everything changed.  That day when the possibilities stretched out before like a road to a new reality, a new you.  That day.  On that same day.  Luke seems to be saying that Jesus had an agenda.  You’d think rising from the dead would have been all that was on the list for the day.  That’s a full day, don’t you think?  Rise from the dead, and then take it easy from there.  Relax a bit.  Take a nap, read a book.  But no, rising from the dead was only the first thing on the list that day.  That day.

On the Risen Christ’s to do list was meeting some guys on a road.  They were heading to Emmaus. Why?  No one knows!  Maybe it was home.  They thought the party was over, the curtain had come down, might as well go home and remember.  Maybe that’s what they were doing as they walked, rehearsing their favorite lines.  Remember the bread and fish day?  Of course, who could forget that? Yeah, that was a good day.  Who do you say I am, remember that one.  Good old Peter, he’s the one with all the answers.  I was glad he broke the silence that day.  Yeah, that day, that day was a hard day.  Yeah, not like this one though.  No, not like this one.  There aren’t any harder days than this one.  

Why?  The simple question startled them out of their remembrances.  Why is this such a hard day? They hardly know how to answer.  He must have beamed down from the moon, from another dimension of time and space.  How could he not know?  They told him.  A creed it sounds like, words the church began to use, not the normal conversational answer to an honest question, but a declaration of faith.  Faith that wavered there at the end.  But we had hoped. Here’s where it got real again.  We had hoped.  Strange stories we couldn’t believe.  This day is the worst of all days.  

It was his laughter at this that startled them most.  How foolish, he chuckled.  You had to know.  What did they have to know?  Everything, he told them, everything.  They were enraptured in spite of themselves, their grief forgotten, their despair set aside as they listened to him tell them what they already knew but had forgotten on that terrible day.  He talked on and on, every book, every scroll, every story they thought they knew but now sounded new on that day.  When they got to Emmaus they didn’t want it to end, so they begged him to stay with them, to eat with them.  They opened the door to their lives and He walked in and sat down with them.  Then, He took the bread and broke it.  

Was it the words?  The motion, the gestures?  Was it the bread, tearing, breaking, scattering crumbs here and there and everywhere?  They felt it more than saw it.  Their hearts lit up, they talked about it when they could breathe again.  We’re not our hearts burning?  They ran, who decided?  Which one? Who knows, maybe their feet decided, maybe it was their burning hearts, but they ran.  All the way back to those who would understand how this day had become that day.  That day when everything changed.  When the world ended and started again.  But now it was different.  It was all different. That same day.

They walked in the room and everything was burning.  Hearts were on fire before they got there to light them up.  The Lord has risen indeed.  Yeah, we know, they said with a grin they couldn’t remove.  We know because we saw Him.  He came alongside.  He taught us, then fed us.  He was right there, then He wasn’t, but He is.  He still is.  Because He left something behind.  Call it memory, call it hope, call it the Spirit, a Presence that makes His absence less frightening.  We don’t know, they said, shaking their heads, but we know.  Then they laughed because they knew that made no sense.  We don’t know, but we know.  That same day, hope was made.  A family was made, hungry hearts were satisfied on that day.  You remember that day?  That when the whole world changed?  I do.

Shalom, 

Derek