Playing By Ear

I’m off to Tennessee again this weekend.  I mean, after church on Sunday.  Well, after church and after the Church Council meeting.  Then I’m off to Tennessee this weekend.  Just for a couple of days.  Things have changed down there again.  Now dad is in care, rehab at the moment, but we have to go and figure out what is next.  Prayers would be appreciated.  There are decisions about dad and decisions about mom and then decisions about all the concomitant issues that rise from those.  And, frankly, I’m not up to it.  None of us are.  We’d rather not have to.  We just want things to be like they were.  Or like we’d hoped they’d be.  It’s not always easy to look forward to what is coming.  

Concomitant?  Associated.  Knock on.  You know, you decide one thing and then have to do six other things in order the make that decision become action.  Something has to be done with the house, for example.  And all the stuff.  All.  The.  Stuff.  And the light a match solution was tried by others in the past and it didn’t turn out well.  So, that door is closed.  Some of the stuff we’ll keep, some of it we’ll give away, some of it will stay for now just in case, some of it we’ll try to sell maybe, some of it we’ll leave on the side of road and see what happens.  For example, there is this great honking shiny black piano sitting in the master bedroom, because that was the only space for it.  Actually it belongs to my younger brother, Jason.  The one who lives and works in New York City.  In an apartment that Maddie and I crashed in one Spring Break a couple of years ago and we had to take turns stretching, just sayin’.  What’s he gonna do with a big old piano?  Well, he says it is going to the workshop, and will become a prop for Elmo perhaps.  (I did mention he is head of the workshop out of which Sesame Street comes, didn’t I?)  But it isn’t going to roll there, and it would stick out of my trunk.  Maybe Hank, my older brother, could take it there on his Harley.  That would be a sight.

He needs a piano, though.  His piano.  The one mom and dad bought for him years ago when they had money.  Because he could play.  Oh, my, could he play.  I was given the gift of appreciation of musical ability.  Yeah, that means I can’t play anything.  But I can listen.  And he could play, my little brother.  I know he would say he hasn’t kept up with it and isn’t as good as he was, and I wouldn’t argue with him.  I know it takes practice to be good.  But I never saw him practice before.  I just saw him play.  I mean, it never seemed like it was hard, like he was straining or struggling or working at it - though I know he was.  But it never looked like it, and rarely sounded like it.  He just played.  He practiced playing and I practiced listening.  

Listening doesn’t get you many admirers, not like playing does, and yet it is essential for the life or the Spirit.  This third week of the series we get to hear the story of a professional listener.  A man who dedicated his life to listening.  And then when the time came he played.  He sang the song he’d been listening for.  He sat down to play the tune he learned by ear.

Luke 2:21-40 NRS After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.  22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

  33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed-- and a sword will pierce your own soul too."

36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

Long story, sorry.  But we needed to listen for a while.  We needed to catch the tune, we needed to follow the rhythms.  Simeon learned how to listen.  His name means “heard”, believe it or not.  It was what he was born to do.  So he did.  He listened, day and night he listened.  He was listening for the future.  He was listening for hope, the consolation of Israel, Luke tells us.  He was listening for that which would bring peace, that which would bring light.  He listened.  Day after day he went to the temple, to listen.  He heard the cries of the people.  He heard the songs of the prayers, the loud happy celebratory ones that seemed so loud and brash but good hearted anyway.  He heard the ritual ones, spoken sometimes as though they had lost their meaning, and sometimes as though the meaning was so deep it resonated through the souls of those who prayed.  He heard the wordless prayers that were wept from swollen and reddened eyes, wrung out of twisted scraps of cloth between hands gnarled with pain and fear.  He heard the proud and grateful prayers of people who knew how blessed they were.  He heard them and wept and laughed with them.  He heard them all.

But he heard more, because he listened deeper.  He heard the responses.  He heard the sighs of the Spirit as it flowed like wisps of comfort into the hearts of the hopeless and broken. He heard the soothing song of blessing as it played on hearts less in tune than his, but aware nonetheless somehow.  He heard the invitation of the God he loved, to follow, to obey, to keep close and stay awake, to watch and listen, he heard the commandment not as a hammer on a cymbal, but as a finger plucking a string.  He heard, somehow he heard.  Then, that day. he heard the music shift into a higher key, a note of anticipation fulfilled, a baton pointed, a new singer taking the stage.  And he followed the Director’s gaze.  And welcomed the One who comes.

Then Simeon, who lived a life of listening, became a teacher of the song he knew.  He sang into the hearts of those who came carrying more than they knew.  His song was a gift to the church.  Called the “Nunc Dimittis” from the first words of the song in Latin, “Now let” your servant depart in peace.  We’ve always thought that he was saying it was time to die.  Because Luke told us that he was promised that he wouldn’t die until he heard what he was listening for.  But maybe he is simply saying, I’m done listening.  I’ve heard all I need to hear.  I’ve heard the voice of the one who sings a song of salvation, who chants the chorus of redemption.  My ears are full.  

He may be done listening, but he isn’t done singing.  He has to teach the song to those who will sing it.  And his colleague Anna teaches it to any and all who are around them, running from one to another to make sure they sing.  You can’t stand silent in this worship service, you can’t have closed lips for this hymn.  Doesn’t matter whether you think you can sing or not.  We need to learn the tune.  The falling and the rising, the major and the minor key, that which makes us smile and that which evokes a tear.  We need to sing. Might as well, our inner thoughts are revealed anyway, Simeon says so.  And he ought to know.  He’s been listening to those inner thoughts his whole life.  And now he sings the song he learned by ear.

It takes time to learn to listen, but it is worth the effort.  The Spirit rested on Simeon, Luke says, rested.  Not stirred up, not agitated or poked or prodded, but rested.  Maybe if we listen more, to the Spirit, the voice of God, then we might know rest like Jesus promised.  But we can also learn to sing, to play by ear.

Shalom,

Derek 

Catching Your Second Wind

It’s Saturday again.  Which means it is almost Sunday again.  Seems to happen regularly.  Like, you know, every week.  Just rolls around again.  It’s like didn’t we just have one of these?  I was still looking back on the last one, what was good, what was not as good, what could have been better, when here it is again.  Looming on the horizon like a storm about the blow through.  It’s Saturday again.  Which means it is almost Sunday again.  Again.

You need to understand, for a preacher there is both an “oh boy!” about that and an equally powerful “oh no!”  There is a wonderful anticipation of the gathering of the community to do what it is we are in existence to do - worship God, oh boy!  At the same time there is the weight of responsibility and performance, a justifying of one’s existence as the leader, the proclaimer on a weekly basis, prove your worth kind of feel to it.  Oh no!

I remember speaking with some of my musician friends at choir school some years ago, they were talking about the energy and effort it took to compose an original piece to sing or to play.  And I said, I have to do that every week.  They said they never thought about it that way. Maybe it isn’t a work of art, certainly some weeks it isn’t.  But the weight is there, opportunity is there, pressure is there to produce something of value, something that makes folks not think they wasted a morning by showing up when there were so many other things they could have been doing.  

Not that the sermon is what it is all about.  A tiny piece, to be honest, that’s my job.  A moment in a full morning of gathering and praising and confessing and sharing and submitting and listening and growing.  A brief, often forgettable moment, where I invite them to reflect, to experience something of the grace of God, something of the challenge of God, something of the discipline of God.  A weekly rehearsal of faith, that’s what it’s all about.  Basing the value of the morning on a sermon, or an anthem, or a hymn selection, would be like judging the value of a marathon on whether you tied your shoes right.  Whether your participant’s number was upside down or not.  Surely it’s about the running, isn’t it?

Daniel 6:1-5 NRS It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred twenty satraps, stationed throughout the whole kingdom, 2 and over them three presidents, including Daniel; to these the satraps gave account, so that the king might suffer no loss.  3 Soon Daniel distinguished himself above all the other presidents and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king planned to appoint him over the whole kingdom. 4 So the presidents and the satraps tried to find grounds for complaint against Daniel in connection with the kingdom. But they could find no grounds for complaint or any corruption, because he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption could be found in him. 5 The men said, "We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God." 

We know Daniel as the guy who survived a night with hungry lions without a scratch.  We know Daniel as the friend of the three who got tossed into a fiery furnace and somehow walked out without a scorch.  But we don’t know Daniel, do we?, as the disciplined exile who kept the faith in difficult circumstances, even at the risk of his life.   

Our passage today says that Daniel distinguished himself above all the other leaders, because an “excellent spirit” was in him.  An excellent spirit?  Ruach.  That’s the word.  He distinguished himself because he could breathe better?  Or because he had help?  Or maybe something of both.  

In chapter one of Daniel, we find the first challenge facing him and his friends.  He is chosen for leadership, but he needs to pass a test, he needs to be cultivated.  He was head hunted, but he had to submit to a training exercise.  He was put in a boot camp of sorts, and executive boot camp to see if he had the right stuff.  To see if he could fit in, be made fit for royalty.  And one of the components of the camp was that they ate well.  Or well according to their standards.  Royal food it says, like he was being fattened up for his cushy job or something.  The problem was the royal food did not fit the menu that God had given God’s people way back in the wilderness.  The Babylonian diet was not kosher.  Daniel would have had to betray his God to eat from it.  Now, we might think he would have staged a protest, refused to cooperate, stood his ground and called himself a martyr for the cause, a victim of religious discrimination and called the press and the other candidates to come and stand in solidarity with him.  But he didn’t.  He didn’t make a big show of it, actually.  He simply struck a deal.  He said let me and my friends try our diet for thirty days and the rest of the executives in training try their diet and lets see who comes out better for it.  In other words he spoke their language.  He didn’t say this is all about me and my God and my faith and my rights.  He used terms they could understand.  He fit into their mind set, their system.  And he beat their system with his own obedience to his God.

So, now, years later, under a new king, here he is again.  Being tested.  But now he is known.  There is a spirit, an excellent spirit in him.  There is just something about Daniel, they grumble.  There is something powerful, something noticeable, something that makes him stand out from everyone else.  Doesn’t mean everyone likes him.  Our last few verses and then the rest of the story is one of executive jealousy and devious plots and duped leaders and it all ends up in a den of starving lions, ready to tear into their next meal.  But the opponents have to resort to underhanded means because of something about Daniel.  Did you catch it?  They don’t complain about the spirit in him, excellent or not.  Because that is the result, not the cause.  This presence, whether self-generated or divinely implanted in Daniel (and really, how would these guys know either way?) was not the problem.  The problem was more basic than that.  Take a look: “they could find no grounds for complaint or any corruption, because he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption could be found in him.”  

He was faithful.  That was their complaint against him.  That was the sign that they couldn’t win against him in a fair fight.  He was faithful.  By which they didn’t mean that he believed the right things.  Or even the wrong things they didn’t believe in.  They weren’t concerned about his beliefs.  They were concerned about his behaviors.  They were concerned about his maddening consistency.  They were concerned about his frustrating attention to detail.  Most of all they were concerned about they way he treated everyone as equals, as somehow precious in the eyes of his god, even those who were clearly his superiors, even those, like themselves, to whom he should be bowing.  But somehow, even this most offensive of traits, was carried off with humility and friendliness so that even the kings, Darius who succeeded Belshazzar and his father Nebuchadnezzar before him, seemed to see in Daniel something to trust, something to follow, something, though it felt wrong to say so, something to love.  

That what made them so angry.  That’s what made them want to destroy him, to remove him from office.  Not any arrogance, not the imposition of his beliefs on them, but the fact that his faithfulness, his discipline and his consistency made him a favorite, made him loved by leaders and servants alike.  That was the excellent spirit that they saw in him.  

Daniel tells us that the Spirit comes as the result of attention to detail.  The Spirit fills us when we consistently open ourselves through practiced behavior, through ritual acts, through obedience to the call of God.  Wesley spoke of Christian disciplines as finding our way to God.  Acts of piety - like worship and bible study and prayer and meditation - coupled with acts of charity - like visiting the sick and giving to the poor and feeding the hungry - shape our spirits to reflect God’s Spirit in our very being.  Actually, Wesley didn’t talk so much about disciplines, he called them “means of grace” - the way of encountering the grace of God, through the presence of the Spirit.  

When runners talk about running, they talk about a moment when they feel like the weariness they were feeling is wiped away by a new burst of energy, the breathing they were laboring to maintain suddenly becomes easier and they feel like they could run forever.  It’s called catching your second wind.  There is science behind it, oxygen levels counteract the build up of lactic acid in the muscles and there is a lessening of pain and strain on those muscles, and endorphins are released to counter the weariness.  That’s why breathing right is so important for runners.  But there is also theology behind it.  We expend the effort of a disciplined faith, straining to love the unlovable - which is often ourselves - pretty sure it is beyond our abilities, only to find our faith growing as we surrender our selves.  Able to do far more than we think or imagine, says Paul, because we catch a second wind of the Spirit.  It’s Saturday again.  Sunday again.  Thanks be to God.

Shalom,

Derek 

Every Breath You Take

I am so excited I can hardly stand myself.  I’ve just got to stop, to tell myself to stop, every now and then.  Just stop.  Slow down there, sparky.  Take it easy.  Just breathe.  Just ... breathe.  Funny how that’s the way we calm down, or help people calm down.  Just breathe.  In and out, breathe deep, take it in, hold it, and out, Ahhh.

Wow, thanks, that helped.  Funny, no, ironic that breathing is what we do to calm down.  Ironic because the source of my excitement this morning is that we begin our worship series on the Holy Spirit this weekend.  I’ve been waiting for this one.  Getting more excited as it drew near.  It was postponed from earlier in the year for a variety of reasons.  And it turns out one of those reasons was that I picked the wrong book.  Last fall I took my annual planning retreat and decided that we needed a series on the Holy Spirit, and found a book titled The Forgotten God all about the third person of the Trinity.  It was a good book and I want to recommend it.  But I wasn’t blown away by it (heh, see what I did there?) 

So, earlier as we discovered changes I didn’t foresee underway, and I had to rearrange the plan I had worked out, another book came to my attention.  Published by Paraclete Press (!), written by Jack Levison, it is titled Fresh Air: The Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life.  And I was caught up in it right away.  Spirited away you might say.  Blown away, maybe.  So, I began to invite the whole congregation to read this book, we ordered a couple of cases of the book and got them into people’s hands.  If you are not a part of Aldersgate (or even if you are but haven’t purchased your book) let me recommend it.  Read along with us over these next few weeks, you won’t be sorry.  Trust me.

Each chapter takes a dimension of the activity of Holy Spirit from a biblical point of view.  The author’s goal is to help us understand and claim that activity in our own lives.  To help us live an inspired life, hence the subtitle of the book.

In the introduction, Levison points out that both the Greek and the Hebrew words for spirit are multilayered and sometimes with meanings hard to nail down.  The Hebrew word is ruach and the Greek word is pneuma.  Both words translate as spirit, but also as wind and as breath. And you can’t tell, even from context whether, the ruach or the pneuma refers to God or the human spirit, the natural wind or the winds of the spirit, the breath we breathe or the breath of life.  And Levison argues that this confusion is by design.  All are woven together, all are part of the whole.  That the spirit of God is a part of our spirit, a part of our breath.  That the wind we feel when we walk in the world, is not just the movement of air but the very presence of God pressing against our skin.  We are surrounded by the spirit, a part of the spirit, made alive by the spirit, with every breath.

Confused yet?  I know I am.  Just breathe.  For a moment.  Just breathe.  We’ll make this journey together.  Understanding will be a process.  After we follow the leading of the spirit we might be able to look back with an “aha” kind of experience.  Or maybe not.  But understanding isn’t that important. Living into it is more important.  Breathing it is more important.  Being alive to it is more important.  Being alive is more important.  Breathe.  Just breathe.  Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).  Breathe.  Live.

Understanding may come later.  Breath comes first.  So, let’s walk this path together over the next couple of months.  We begin with Job.  Wait, what?  We begin with Job?  No one begins with Job.  Especially when we want to talk about the life of the Spirit.  The spirit is about ... enthusiasm.  Right?  About passion, about energy.  That’s what we’re trying to do here aren’t we?  Trying to get folks enthused about their faith again?  Isn’t this just an eight week revival that you’re running here?  Can’t fool us.  We know this spirit stuff.  We’re sitting here with arms crossed, daring you to get us to jump around, to speak in tongues or whatever other wild and crazy stuff you think we are supposed to be doing.  I mean, really, what’s wrong with the faith we have?  We keep it in check, use it when we need it, let it be background to our daily lives, it’s there. I mean, come on, we don’t want to go crazy here, we don’t want to be these fanatics, Jesus people, who are really into God.  We like God at arm’s length, we like a little distance.  We like to pick and choose, keep faith on a back burner, in a closet somewhere and only let it out when things get desperate.  Which doesn’t happen all that often.  Thankfully.  But that’s how we like it.  You’re trying to get us all hyped up.  Trying to turn us into something we aren’t.  And we don’t like it!  We won’t stand for it!!  

Breathe.  Just take a breath.  In and then out.  Deep breaths, calming breaths.  It will be OK.  Really.  The spirit filled life never takes away our will, our ability to choose.  So, relax.  Breathe.  Better?  So, Job.  Not really the place we go to find the joy of living a life of faith.  Not really the mountain top experience that we usually associate with life in the spirit.  And maybe that’s exactly why Levison decided to start there.  

Because we don’t live on mountain tops.  Oh, they’re fun to climb once in a while and we can live in the memory of one for really long time.  But our everyday isn’t like that.  In fact, if we were honest, our everyday seems as far from that as could be.  A struggle.  A depth.  A breath taken in pain and doubt and fear more often than not.  When we feel like victims, subject to the winds of fate., blown here and there like a leaf in the fall breeze.  So, Job, whose life was the opposite of a mountain top.  To say the least.  But what could he tell us about the life of the spirit?  What indeed?  Take a quick look.

Job 27:1-6 NRS  Job again took up his discourse and said:  2 "As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, 3 as long as my breath is in me and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, 4 my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit. 5 Far be it from me to say that you are right; until I die I will not put away my integrity from me. 6 I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days. 

He took up his discourse.  Job had to refute his “comforters” who wanted him to see a simple cause and effect in his suffering.  To admit the fault that brought him down.  To confess that he had been far from God.  Job didn’t understand why what had happened to him happened.  But he knew something.  He knew that he was not far from God.  Even in the midst of the personal pain, he was not far from God.  Even in the midst of economic collapse, he was not far from God.  Even in the midst of the most profound grief any could imagine, he was not far from God.  Even, and this is the tricky one, in his uncertainty and doubt, in his feeling wronged, he was not far from God.

And what was even more stunning, is that he knew, he knew you understand, that God was not far from him.  He knew even though his experience screamed the opposite.  He knew even though everyone told him the opposite.  He knew that God was as close as God has ever been in his whole life.  From the moment he saw light, from the moment he drew breath.  Even though at this moment in his life he had reason to regret that inhalation.  Even though, he knew.  Not just hoped.  He knew.  “As long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.”  Ruach.  Both words.  Both.  The translator could have had Job say, as long as my spirit is in me and the breath of God is in my nostrils.  

How did he know?  In the face of all that he endured, how did he know?  He was still breathing.  Every breath was a ragged one, searing pain as he moved his body to let air in and then, aching, his muscles moved again to let it out.  He was still breathing.  That’s how he knew God was still close.  Job knew, somehow, held on somehow, to the notion that God was breath, and breath was Spirit, and spirit was wind that blew across his fevered brow.  He knew.

How did he know?  How do we know?  We breathe.  All the time, without thinking, we breathe.  It’s just air, right, just a function of this body.  We breathe.  Again, and then again.  We breathe, take in .. air, spirit, breath.  Every breath you take is a prayer.  It is communion with God.  Every breath is saying yes to life, and an opportunity to say yes to a life in the spirit.  Just breathe.  Every breath you take.  Keep breathing.  God is close.  That close. Breathe.

Shalom,

Derek

Laborers for the Harvest

The lawn needs mowing.  Desperately.  I’m planning to get to it, soon.  Got other things on my mind right now.  But I’ll get to it.  Promise.  That is if I can remember how.  My dad always said “that’s why I have sons!” when he was asked if he mowed his own grass.  I sent my mowing crew off to college.  But the grass didn’t get the memo.  Or the weeds didn’t.  They’re growing with abandon.  Like ... weeds, I guess you could say.  And it’s time, past time the neighbors are thinking, I’m sure.  We got a complaint about the trash cans being outside the garage while we were still moving in, so I imagine the grass really bugs them too.  But ... the laborers are few.

There is nothing we like to complain about more than our work, it seems to me.  And yet there is nothing more defining than what we do.  It’s how we introduce ourselves.  How we understand ourselves.  We measure ourselves by the jobs we have.  I remember when I was shepherding dad around to more doctors than I could count, I sat and listened as he answered the questions they asked over and over.  There was one time when it came to that question - what do you do? = that he seemed to have gotten tired of talking about what he used to do, or that he was retired, and he said, “I’m a woodworker!”  True, he has a garage full of tools and stacks and stacks of wood (more than he could use up even if he churned out folk art birdhouses from now until Jesus came back), true he sometimes puttered around out there, true he had plans, half finished projects all over.  So, I guess he worked in wood.  It was how he wanted to define himself.  It was how he saw himself now.  Fifty years of pastoring didn’t matter to him anymore.  “I’m a woodworker” he declared in that doctor’s office.

What is the work that you do that defines you?  Labor Day weekend seems an appropriate time to contemplate our work.  And in particular the work our faith demands from us.  I know it gets tricky there.  Faith, we think, is supposed to help us in our lives, help us be better at whatever we do, whoever we are.  It isn’t supposed to define us, isn’t supposed to add responsibilities to our already overfull plates.  To add burdens to our already laden backs.  “Come and I’ll give you rest.”  That’s the labor day message we want to hear.  We look forward to heaven as a place we’ll finally be able to get the sleep we need.  Rest in peace.  

Besides, a few hundred years of Christian theology tried to separate the ideas of works and faith.  The fear was that an emphasis on work, on our effort, would cause us to think we were responsible to earning our salvation.  That our actions, our choices, our work either brought us closer to the Kingdom or took us farther from it.  So, to avoid confusion we taught that what you do doesn’t matter.  You can’t earn your place in God’s house.  Which is a truth that gives birth to a misunderstanding that brought about a people of faith who don’t know how to be a community, or how to be laborers in the harvest of the Lord.

Matt. 9:35-38 NRS Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.  36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  37 Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;  38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." 

So, I decided to not work on Labor Day Sunday, but to play instead.  Don’t worry, I’m going to play at church, in worship.  But, perhaps warped by the question series we just finished, I’m not going to do a sermon, but a bible study in worship.  And the above verses are only the beginning.  I intend to walk us through as much of Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew as I can get through.  Because those are, I believe, our marching orders as followers.  Our work, the labor we are called to do, not in order to be saved, but because we are saved.  

Back up a few verses in chapter 9, you’ll find Jesus working.  He heals two blind men.  Then he tells them not to tell anyone about it.  But they go and tell everyone about it.  And word spreads and Jesus’ fame grows, as does the opposition.  Verse 34 has the Pharisees complaining that he is consorting with demons.  The rest of chapter 9 is his response to that accusation.  He doesn’t argue the logic of their complaint like he does a couple of chapters later when they really start getting on his nerves.  No, for now he just works.  He labors in the harvest of the Lord.  

And then Matthew tells us why.  We are given the clue not only to the labors of Jesus but to the motivation for our working as followers of Jesus.  Jesus worked, Matthew tells us, because Jesus saw.  Jesus sees us.  Sees what is really going on in our lives.  Sees what burdens we bear, what fears we harbor.  Jesus sees us.  Really sees us.  And, even though that scares us, it shouldn’t.  Because he sees and he cares.  He has compassion, Matthew says.  His heart goes out.  He sees us, in our lostness, in our emptiness, under attack by enemies within and without, and he loves us.  Harassed and helpless, he loves us.  He doesn’t say, well they should have known better.  He doesn’t say you’d think that by now they would have figured it out.  He doesn’t say what a bunch of losers.  He has compassion on them.

The labor of the kingdom becomes possible when the motivation is right.  Church growth programs for the sake of church growth - or institutional survival these days - don’t work.  Mission work done to enhance the reputation or the status of the worker, doesn’t help or heal.

When Jesus saw the crowd he had compassion.  So, he turned to his disciples.  Or, he saw the crowd and then he turned to the community.  What’s the difference between a crowd and a community?  This is a crucial issue for the church today.  We’ve been a crowd, we think like a crowd and we act like a crowd.  We’ve done some good work as a crowd, that’s for sure.  We can be proud of our crowdness.  We’re not, for the most part, an unruly crowd.  There’s no danger of becoming a mob, which is crowd nature gone wild.  But we are mostly in the crowd mindset.  When what Jesus wants is for us to be a community.  The laborers that Jesus asks us to pray for come from a community, they won’t come from a crowd.

What’s the difference?  A crowd is a collection of individuals, who have come together with common hungers, with felt needs.  They occupy the same space, but each is there to meet individual needs, to satisfy their own hungers.  They might share, or they might not, that doesn’t matter that much.  They come in and they go out and the value they place on their gathering was on whether their needs were met or at least acknowledged.  The crowd is acutely aware of the struggle of their lives, they are harassed on a constant basis, burdened by living, and they don’t know what to do about it.  They are looking for a leader who will bring them some comfort, some solace and are likely to follow any shepherd that comes along, like hungry sheep who hope this one knows where the food is and can bring some light into their personal darkness.

A community exists for each others and is open to those who haven’t yet found they way in.  It isn’t about meeting needs or satisfying hungers, the community is about building relationships.  It is about belonging and about serving.  The secret that each member of the community knows is that individual hungers are more than satisfied in service to others, in hospitality that puts others before self, in setting aside personal preferences in favor of the attempt to see the other and to see the world through the other’s eyes.  The members of the community don’t starve themselves, don’t deny their own neediness, but discover themselves surprisingly satisfied by the labor in the lord’s harvest.  This is in part because the needs and the hungers change when we are taken out of ourselves long enough to love someone else.  And in part because the deeper needs to connect and to love and to know and be known are sometimes redefined as something more surface, like happiness or recognition.  

Jesus knows that the crowd needs workers to be among them. He also knows that those workers won’t come from the crowd, but from the community.  So, he turns to us and asks us both to pray and to be the answer to our prayers. 

Shalom,

Derek

How Can I Give You Up?

A slow start this week.  Forgive me.  Just too many things, too many images, too many ideas, too many questions spinning around in my head this week.  Not just me, though.  Someone came out of first service last Sunday morning and said “are we done with questions yet?”  I know the feeling.  I’ve been living with them for months now, preaching them for weeks.  It gets to you, all these questions.  Makes you wonder if it was a good idea in the first place.  Sometimes it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.  Most of the time it is better.  But something’s bound to come along and rile them up again.  Barking, barking, barking at nothing.  Neighbors in the yard, traffic, low flying planes, bunnies invading their personal space.  Stirring up those sleeping dogs seems awfully easy.

Sorry, got distracted there.  Had to go rescue the neighborhood from no longer sleeping dogs.  Where was I?  Questions.  For some reason that made sense at the time, I saved the hardest ones for the end.  The questions that have no answer.  At least no answer that will satisfy all the hurting hearts in this life.  They are the “why” questions.  Why did this happen, why did God let that go on, why, why, why.  Hard questions.  Ones that I used to think I could answer.  See, I know stuff.  I’ve studied, I’ve read, I’ve thought about all of this and have answers that make logical sense, theological sense.  Answers that are true to the nature of God, at least as I perceive it.  All sewn up in neat little packages.  

Except that when I used to trot out these answers, hand over these neatly wrapped packages, they were invariably received as the proverbial lump of coal.  They didn’t fit.  They didn’t make sense.  They didn’t heal the hurt behind the question.  They were unsatisfactory to the moment.  No matter how logical, how biblically sound, how theologically tested and tried these answers were, they were not the answers that were needed.  Most of the time.  In a classroom, a small group discussion, a disconnected intellectual inquiry, they were great answers.  But the why questions don’t usually come in those dispassionate moments.  They are ripped from broken hearts, they are wept out of red and swollen eyes, they reverberate from souls shaken, echo out of spirits emptied of meaning.  And logical answers don’t wipe away tears in my experience, they don’t bandage wounds, or bring light to personal darkness.  Only love can do that.

Hosea 11:1-9   When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  2 The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.  3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.  4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.  5 They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.  6 The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes.  7 My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.  8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.  9 I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. 

Lat weekend I took both kids back to college; Rhys for the first semester of his final year, Maddie for the beginning of her junior year.  Where did the time go?  How did we get to this stage?  Where they are almost unrecognizable sometimes, becoming something that was only hinted at for all those years when they were in our care.  When we lifted them to our cheek, when we held their hands as they tested the strength in their legs, when we held them as they hurt and healed.  I know this is what is supposed to happen.  I know they aren’t really running away from me and from my love.  But it feels that way sometimes.

But there are some who know the deeper pain of losing that child.  That is where some of the questions for this section have come from.  Why did God allow this?  If Hosea is right, if God is so loving, if God would set aside judgement, would not execute wrath, but only want to embrace the child, then why?  Why?

I sat feeding my mom like the babies I raised.  She can’t hold a fork any more, doesn’t know how to grip it, how to use it.  She wants to feed herself at times, picking up beans one by one, a finger full of mashed potatoes, a piece of the chicken patty I cut apart for her.  Other times she let me feed her.  She did ok, got more in her than on her usually.  Single-minded focus moving each morsel to her mouth, no dinner table conversation, no asking about my day or hers.  One afternoon when I was with her, the daughter of another resident came to visit her mom.  There was a lot of in and out, I didn’t pay much attention at first focused on the task of caring for mom.  But she asked me, “are you Mizz Weber’s son?”  When I told her I was, she said, “I had her in school.  She was my favorite teacher, she was so smart, but kind and helpful.  I loved Mizz Weber’s math class and I didn’t particularly like math!”  We laughed about that, and she told me a bit more before she turned back to her own mother seated at another table waiting for her supper.

She was smart, and kind, kinder than anyone I ever knew.  Every now and then she breaks into tears and try as we might we can’t seem to figure out why, or do anything to make her better.  We just tell her we love her while the sobs shake her shoulders.  Maybe there is some physical reason, something happening in her that scares her or hurts her.  But I tend to think that every now and then she realizes what she has lost and she mourns that loss in the only way left to her.  

Why?  Why do such things happen?  Personal things, family things?  Loss and pain, disease and injury, why?  Why do such world things happen?  Disasters and tragedies, wars and rumors of war?  If God is really God, couldn’t it all be stopped, couldn’t the world be designed in such a way that terrible things didn’t happen?  If God loves us like Hosea says, like Jesus says, why do we hurt?  Why do we weep?  

Because we do.  Because things happen.  I know, horribly satisfactory, right?  Things happen because things happen.  Not a lot of comfort there, I know.  We live in a world where things happen.  Terrible things, unspeakable things.  But also wonderful things.  We live in a world where love can happen.  That’s the gift.  That the promise and the presence.  Love can happen.

It doesn’t always, that’s the tragedy.  Even those who are supposed to love us, don’t love us the way we need all the time.  Don’t recognize us for who we are and hurt us unthinkingly.  But then we don’t always love like we should either.  We’re shaky lovers at best.  But how wonderful even that shaky love can be.  How healing, how sustaining, how enriching.  That’s the gift, that’s the possibility in this risky world, that we can love and be loved.  That we can know what it is to love and can revel in it, even if it is only temporary, momentary.  It’s still a gift.  It is still a glimpse of heaven.

See, the why questions aren’t really why questions.  They are, deep down, who questions.  Who will love us now?  Who will see us worth loving?  Who will love us when we are broken, when those we love are broken?  Who will be with us when we feel so alone?  Who will see us as having value when we are told we are worthless?  Who will gather up the ones that the world loses through accident or neglect or willful disobedience?  Who will speak for those who have no voice?  Who will stand firm and say there is hope still.  There is possibility still.  The sun will rise, the world will turn and you will find love again.  It rings hollow in our ears at times.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.  We will find love again.  We will be reunited with those we’ve lost.  The wounded will be made whole, the broken will be mended, the lost will be found.  Maybe now, maybe today.  Or maybe in God’s great Someday.  Until then, as Steve Curtis Chapman wrote, “while we’re waiting for that day to come  / We’ve got a little more time to love.”

There’s a day that is coming / When all the last will be first / Every orphan will be home / And all will be filled who hunger and thirst / It’s gonna be a celebration / All of creation longs for / And while we’re waiting for that day to come / We’ve got a little more time // To do justly and love mercy / And show the love we’ve been shown / For we can only be the hands and feet of Jesus ‘til / He leads us home / He will lead us home

Shalom,

Derek

Departed and Hid

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe it really was a question as general as was presented.  Maybe it wasn’t a statement of dissatisfaction, or complaint, or contempt hidden behind a supposedly generic query about the thinking of preachers in general.  Maybe.  But it felt like an attack.  Like a finger pointed.  “Are preachers afraid...?”  That was the question.  “Why don’t we hear the church’s position on social issues of the day?”  That was the context.  “Are preachers afraid of upsetting people?”

We’re asking questions this month.  All sorts of questions, if you’ve been following along.  Bible questions, church questions, faith questions.  I suppose if you’re going to open the door to questions you have to be prepared for questions that just might bother you some.  Might get under your skin a little bit.  “Are preachers afraid?”  Well, maybe, if we’re thinking.  Or maybe we know something about time and place.  Maybe we know something about  how people think and learn and grow and come to understanding of how faith works in their lives and that just handing out answers isn’t really going to accomplish the task of making disciples, but instead is bound to launch an opinion based response that will only cause people to react out of their prejudice instead of digging down into their relationship with Jesus to come up with a way that allows them follow the great commandment and still live in a complex society.  Maybe.

Huh?  What was that you said?  Not sure, really.  Kinda was ducking the question.  Running for cover, as it were.  Hiding.  Taking a powder and keeping my head down.  Cowardly?  Maybe.  But it has great biblical precedent.  Take a look.

John 12:35-47  Jesus said to them, "The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going.  36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light." After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.  37 Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.  38 This was to fulfill the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah: "Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"  39 And so they could not believe, because Isaiah also said,  40 "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they might not look with their eyes, and understand with their heart and turn-- and I would heal them."  41 Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him.  42 Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue;  43 for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.  44 Then Jesus cried aloud: "Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me.  45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.  46 I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.  47 I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. 

I picked this passage for our second week dealing with Christian Living Questions because of the last verse. “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”  But once I started reading, it was latter part of verse thirty-six that jumped out at me.  “After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.”  Wait, what?  He left and hid?  Was he afraid of offending?  That doesn’t seem like a very Jesus thing to do, does it?  

And to make it worse, it sounds an awful lot like John thinks that God enjoys making sure we don’t get it.  That God goes out the way to make us dumb.  Or thick.  Or opinion laden and unable to listen or see or understand anything that really matters.  Isaiah claimed this outrageous behavior on God’s part and John shouts an “Amen!” from his corner of the New Testament.  

So, let me get this straight, God doesn’t want us to understand, God doesn’t want us to turn to God and be healed, God likes us messed up.  And Jesus drops a sort of zen bomb and then ducks and covers.  Have I got that right?  John?  Is that what you’re saying here?

Yep, he grumbles.  See, here’s the deal, he tells us, Jesus keeps trying and folks just won’t get it.  “Although he performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.”  He gives us every opportunity and we just don’t get it.  

“Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believe in him.  But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it.”  OK, John, which is it?  Do we not believe because God won’t let us.  Or do we believe but don’t act on it because we’re afraid?  Yes, says John.  Exactly.  You got it!  

No, I don’t get it.  I don’t get anything.  I feel as though someone is being consciously obscure.  As though someone wants me to be confused.  As though God is slamming the door on understanding, or Jesus is hiding from me and my prayer, my need for Him.  As though ... oh.  Oh.  I get it.  My goodness.  

See what I did there?  Maybe what John and Isaiah are doing is telling us what our experience is and not what the plan is.  Maybe they are describing the human experience that says I don’t get it and God isn’t giving it to me for some reason, must be because God doesn’t want me to have it.  And when Isaiah asks God, rather plaintively, how long is this going to go on?  As long as there are humans, is the response, it seems like.  

God indeed wants us to turn and be healed, don’t think that isn’t true.  Jesus does want us to walk in the light, to become children of light.  But the how and the where and the when we have to puzzle out on our own.  On our own, not my own and your own.  We are supposed to work together.  We are supposed to share and teach and learn and mentor and cheer-lead and lift up and turn around one another all the time.  That’s the Christian Living that we are looking for.  A living that is guided by the Spirit (a plug for our fall series beginning Sept 13th!) and surrounded by the cloud of witnesses we have around us all the time.  A living that has to deal with the experienced hiddenness of Christ and the experienced opposition of God.

In the end, John says, our worst enemies are ourselves –  our egos (“they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God”), our fear (“for fear that they would be put out” of the community they loved and that gave them their identity) and our confused sense of checks and balances and being proved right and others wrong and we want Jesus to take our side and not their side (“I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”)

God seems against us, Jesus seems hidden because we don’t always speak the language of salvation.  We speak of us and them, of sinners and saints, of included and outcast.  And that makes God hard to understand.  Jesus seems hidden from us because we want right more than we want relationship.  We want a convenient faith, a no demands  follow Him when it fits in our schedules, in between the dog eat dog and climbing to the top of the heap and the just getting by.  And Jesus seems to hide behind our busyness.  Hide from our self-centeredness.  Our faith journey seems less like training for an Olympic marathon and more like a game of hide and seek in the twilight, with an elusive Jesus who defies our best attempts to nail him down.

Which, come to think of it, is sort of his modus operandi.  Don’t you think?

Or do you?

Shalom,

Derek

He Bent Down

I’m back.  A long awaited family vacation, at least in part, is what took me away.  I also took some time to go to Tennessee to see my mom and dad.  Then a week of doing family things, eating out, playing games, taking short trips and then an overnight to Pokagon State Park.  Just simple stuff, fun stuff, not too stressed stuff.  Even though there were stressers aplenty.  After getting back from a few days with my mom and struggling with her continued decline but trusting that she is getting the care she needs in a difficult situation; I then learn that my dad was rushed to the hospital there in Paris with some sort of heart incident.  He is still there and we are waiting for information as to the exact nature of his condition.

While that was going on, we also got news that my uncle, my mom’s younger brother, suffered a massive heart attack and died Wednesday night.  Uncle Bill was my mom’s only sibling, and a retired United Methodist pastor.  Like mom he had diabetes pretty severely, and lately had had a number of amputations as a result.  Yet, it seemed like nothing would slow him down, until now I guess.  No slowing down, just a full stop.  My brothers are there or on their way to represent the family for us.

Whew, almost makes you wonder if getting away is worth it.  Well, yes, of course.  I had a chance to be with family, with La Donna and the kids, with mom and dad, and my older brother who drove down to Tennessee on his Harley while I was there too.  Even though I suggested he wait and go another time, so we can spread out our visits.  He didn’t take my suggestion, but went anyway.  And I was glad he was there.  Being with people is better than we realize it, every time.  Even in difficult times.  Even when there is trouble and disagreement and brokenness, being with is better than we know.

At least Jesus seemed to think so.  Take a look at this event in Jesus’ life that got stuck here in the Gospel of John.  Scholars have pointed out how this passage interrupts the flow of the narrative in chapters seven and eight, and how some manuscripts of the Gospel don’t include this story, and how it seems like a later addition.  Yet, it seems so quintessentially Jesus, I can’t believe it shouldn’t be there.  I can’t believe it was made up by John or the community he formed who wrote down all the stories he used to tell them.  Anyway, it may be out of place, but it must be a real moment in Jesus’ life and ministry.  It must be.

John 8:2-12 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.  3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them,  4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"  6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."  8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.  9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.  10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"  11 She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."  12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." 

We are still in our Questions series in the month of August.  We started with Bible Questions the first week, and then last week while I was away, Chuck Scott and Ellen Rhoades helped us reflect on Church Questions.  Now, for two weeks we’ll be looking at some difficult questions under the category of Christian Living Questions.  These are the sticky ones that make us think about how our faith gets lived out.  These questions are not just about what to think, but about what to do.  How then should we live?  These questions include those ethical stumpers that seem to have no easy answer, no clear always right and always wrong kind of responses.  Next week we’ll turn to the big picture kinds of things, those social issue kinds of topics that seem to divide even close friends.  So, stay tuned for that.

This week I want to talk methodology.  Yawn.  No, seriously.  I can’t anticipate every question, every issue, every incident and give a step by step response on how we should act each time.  So, instead it makes sense to look at some general principles.  It makes sense to find a model by which we can shape our actions, our responses.  Right?  And what better model than that of Jesus?  

So, we have this story, suspect as it might be, it still seems to give us some handles on how to follow Christ.  Even when things get sticky.  What can we learn about how Jesus approaches complicated ethical issues from this story?  

First of all Jesus rarely approaches issues as issues.  He is much more concerned about people and about relationships.  He is much more concerned about how we live together in community than he is about making issue oriented statements.  The Pharisees came to him wanting a ruling on adultery, No, that’s not right.  They wanted to challenge his popularity, his authority.  They wanted to take him down a peg or two in the eyes and hearts of those who came to follow him.  They were using the woman as an object to get at Jesus.  She didn’t matter so much to them.  She was only a means, not an end.

Jesus refused to play their game.  Instead of letting the woman be the object standing in the middle, he drew attention to himself.  He bent down, he drew on the ground.  No doubt this was frustrating to the accusers, they kept hurling questions at him.  But he kept drawing.  Drawing their attention to him, away from her.  When they wouldn’t relent, he says “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”  

They wandered off, unsatisfied, but also unable to respond.  He didn’t resolve the issue to their satisfaction.  He changed the focus from issues to people.  So, one by one, they left not wanting to deal with people, with themselves and their own sin or with the woman they dragged there and her sin.

So, Jesus then turns to the woman and says “Where are they, has no one condemned you?”  And she says “No one, sir.”  Because in Jesus she didn’t find condemnation.  But acceptance and freedom, forgiveness and a challenge to live differently.  First of all Jesus doesn’t deal with issues, he deals with people.  Secondly, he stands with people and does not condemn.  

Be careful here, however.  Not condemning is not the same as not caring.  Or not wanting change in behavior.  Jesus asks her to sin no more. Meaning that there are things that keep us from communion with God.  There are behaviors, there are decisions, there are choices that keep us from living in relationship with God and with others in a way that is healing and whole.  There is still such a thing as sin, Jesus says.

But we attack sin and sinful behaviors not with condemnation, not with accusations, but by standing with.  By standing with.  This is what the world is asking us.  Not whether we have standards or values.  They want to know will we stand with those who have fallen?  Will we approach those who are accused, not with further condemnation but with love and with hope and with the possibility of redemption?  Will we make them jump through hoops in order to be forgiven, or will we forgive in order that they might be transformed?

The methodology for walking in this world is to do what Jesus did.  He bent down, all the way down, to where we are, and he didn’t make us feel smaller for it.  Rather we felt lifted up, we felt bigger because of his bending down.  Did the woman change her life after meeting Jesus?  We don’t really know, John doesn’t tell us.  Instead he asks did we change after meeting Jesus?  That’s the question before us.  Are we different because of Him, or not?  What does the world see when it looks at us?  Accusers?  Or sinners who know what forgiveness means?  He bent down.  How can we do less? 

Shalom, 

Derek