Reflections: peace, unity and the bombing in boston...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, April 21, 2013.  They use the Common Lectionary readings for this week and are grounded in my reflections after the bombing in Boston.

Introduction

Like many of you, I have been thinking a great deal about the bombing in Boston that took place on Patriot’s Day.  Or perhaps it would be more proper to say:  I’ve been thinking and FEELING and wrestling and weeping and praying about what to say to you this morning about this offensive and ugly act of violence that makes any difference.

·       Like some of you, I am angry and afraid and ask the Lord’s wisdom and patience in the face of this carnage.  Fundamentally, as a matter of my faith, I believe that until there is more information and truth available to us, the best way I can love my neighbors, my enemies and myself is to mostly keep silent knowing that “to everything there is a season… a time to be born, a time to die, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time for love and a time for hate…”

·       Like others here today, I am grateful that those we know and love who were in Boston for the Marathon are safe and surrounded by loving family.  As Monday afternoon unfolded, I gave thanks to God for – of all things – Facebook because it helped me track down the welfare of Dave Milligan and his family and then share his safety with you.  I also learned from others how your families and friends were doing, too and was able to spread the good news.

·      And like most of us, I am sick in my heart with grief for the families whose loved one was killed or maimed.  Words cannot communicate our sorrow and solidarity with these families – only silence is sufficient – and even that feels incomplete.  Yet still we hold them in our silent prayers and share a measure of their agony.

And so we sit – mostly in silence – to wait and wonder and worry.  The poetic prophet of

Israel, Isaiah, once wrote:  The Lord our God has told us that in repentance and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and trust we shall find our strength.  Today’s Psalm is equally instructive:  the LORD is my shepherd – I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides still waters, he restores my soul.  Yea, thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Even Jesus speaking through the gospel of St. John embraces this truth by calling himself the Good Shepherd who leads the faithful into eternal life:  My sheep hear my voice and I know them as they follow me.  I give them eternal life and they shall not perish.  What’s more, no one shall snatch them from out of my hand because what the Father has given to me is forever… because I am united with God by my love forever.

This does not mean, of course, that we shall not face suffering or sorrow.  Nor does it mean that God’s way will keep us safe and free from danger.  Every day there are too many agonies and trials to endure that make any such claim a lie.   So Christ’s promise and vow to embrace us forever with God’s peace that passes understanding must mean something more nuanced – healing and salvific to be sure – but deeper than any simplistic or even childish reading of this affords, don’t you think?

 

So try this on with me:  Christ’s promise of peace has to do with living our lives in unity with God.   When the Lord is our shepherd… what?  Then we shall not want.  It is almost like an equation in mathematics or chemistry:  on one side we’re told that when the Lord is our shepherd – the one we follow and trust – then we shall not want.   The equation, you see, is about being intimate and connected with the way of the Lord.   

Insights

That’s what I think Jesus meant when announced that “the Father and I are one.”  Scholars are clear that Jesus was telling his followers something important in these words.  Gail O’Day of Emory University puts it like this in the New Interpreter’s Bible explication of John:

 

The Greek word "one" (hen in this passage) is neuter, not masculine, so that Jesus is not saying that he and God are one person, nor even of one nature or essence. Rather, he is saying that he and God are united in the work that they do. It is impossible to distinguish Jesus' work from God's work, because Jesus shares fully in God's work.  

In this, John 10:30 presents a summary of what Jesus has been saying at length about his relationship with God in other places:

·       John 5, for example, Jesus explains his healing on the Sabbath by saying:  My Father is still working in the world – and so am I… and the Son can do nothing apart from the Father.

·       In John 9, after healing a man born blind, Jesus speaks to those who question his interpretation and authority by saying:  I don’t know about this man’s sins… but just as God judges… ‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’

Are you still with me?  What Jesus is saying here – that the Father and I are one – means Jesus is intimately connected with living into God’s love in the flesh.  He is united with the Lord in thought, word and deed.  I think it is the same truth expressed in the Psalm:  When the Lord is my shepherd, then I shall not want, right?  When I follow the way of God, then we are united in purpose and deed, one, don’t you think?

And this is where we get into trouble – and actually lose intimacy with the promise of peace – because it is so damn easy to exchange the Lord for some other shepherd or lesser god.  We get distracted by work, we get overwhelmed by fear, we get obsessed with the challenges of living.  We get addicted to our pain.  We get confused by all the messages flying around the media.  We get wounded in love.  There are a million other shepherds or gods to worship – the Bible calls them idols – and when we follow idols the truth of the matter is we become lost.

That’s why two other details from today’s lessons are critical especially now that so many of us are on edge.  Consider what we’re being told through the details of the first part of today’s gospel story:

Jesus is walking through Solomon’s Porch during the festival of lights or Hanukkah (verse 22-23). This place is important; it was the porch or portico on the east side of the Temple and was called the “Porch of Judgment.” From this location, the King would make his judgments and exercise justice for those who were brought before him. And here is Jesus strolling through this historic location – physically embodying justice in this place of justice – some-thing that was essential to his life and teachings. (Karyn Wiseman)

Justice – right relations between people and creation – is embodied in Jesus:  he gives shape and form and flesh to what God’s justice looks like.  That tells me that God’s peace – within and among us – is intimately connected to living in right relationship with others and the earth.

So when we’re distracted – following other shepherds or worshipping other idols – it is only right that we experience the consequences of our choices:  when right relationships are violated, people are wounded, lives are destroyed, hatred is nourished and fear multiplies.  By standing in the place of justice for his tradition, Jesus is telling those who were uncomfortable with his message as well as you and me that we must pay attention to the way he lives his life:  the Father and I are one – God’s love and my life are unified – the Lord is my shepherd.

·       How did St. Francis put it?  Preach the gospel always – use words only if you must.

·       I like the story preacher Brian Stoffregen tells about an Amish farmer who was once asked whether he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  To which he said, “Why do you ask me such a thing? I could tell you anything.  Here are the names of my banker, my grocer and the farm workers who work for me:  ask them if I have been saved and live a life of peace?”

·       Am I being clear here?  The evidence of salvation – and justice in our lives – is how we live in right relationship with others.  As John’s gospel says at the outset:  the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us full of truth and grace.

As Christians – those who follow Jesus as the Good Shepherd – our peace is fused to right

relationships and living with others in such a way that their well being is celebrated and linked to our own safety.  If you watched the first responders at the Boston bombing, you saw the way of Christ made flesh.  President Obama made much the same point on Tuesday when he said:

What the world saw yesterday in the aftermath of the explosions were stories of heroism and kindness and generosity and love: Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood, and those who stayed to tend to the wounded, some tearing off their own clothes to make tourniquets. The first responders who ran into the chaos to save lives. The men and women who are still treating the wounded at some of the best hospitals in the world, and the medical students who hurried to help, saying “When we heard, we all came in.” The priests who opened their churches and ministered to the hurt and the fearful. And the good people of Boston who opened their homes to the victims of this attack and those shaken by it.

The other important insight from today’s text comes from the words in Revelation 7 where we are told that in the fullness of God’s love there will be a multitude from every tribe and nation on earth praising the Lord.  Now think about this for a moment:

·        A multitude – a mass of people greater than our ability to count or comprehend – will be honoring the Lord as their shepherd.  Not just Christians, but Jews and Muslims – and not just believers and those like us – but people with very different understandings of God and how the world works will – be singing together.

·       Now let’s be artistic here, ok?  Not just singing (as much as I love music) but what about loving – and sharing justice – and living in right relationship beyond the habits of our tribe or language?  Bringing healing and hope to one another, seeing the face of God beyond nationality and race?

You see, the vision of heaven offered in Scripture is not simply for life after this realm, not at all.  The vision of heaven in the Bible is given to us to remind us that thy kingdom come, thy will be done applies to earth as it is already happening in heaven. 

Clarence Jordan, who was the founder of Koinonia Farms – the birthing center for Habitat for Humanity – used to say back in the days of the civil rights movement:  I wish those old segregationists who are so gung ho about the Bible would READ it every once and a while.  Because right there in the word of God we’re told that at the end of time – and for all eternity – we’ll be gathered around the throne of the Lord singing like nobody’s business with people from every tribe, nation, language and race in all creation.  Right there in the Bible we’re told that God supports integration – so let’s start getting used to it now – because that’s how it is going to be for eternity.

·       And isn’t this poetic, artistic vision of eternity just another picture of God’s justice?  The peace that passes understanding born of right relationship with neighbor, enemy and self? 

·       The Father and I are one – united – making God’s word flesh by living like the Lord is our shepherd is our way to peace.

Conclusion

Now I know that these are trying times and it is easy to be distracted – and angry – and afraid – all the more reason for us to be grounded in Christ’s alternative and counter-cultural promise of peace, yes?  And last Sunday I was twice blessed to see a small vision of why living into this peace matters:

·       First, we had a few guests with us for worship on Holocaust Remembrance Sunday – a couple of friends from the GLBTQ community and a few members of Knesset Israel – they came separately but after worship both embraced me and said in their own way:  thank you, we feel safe here.  Think about that:  people the Christian tradition has persecuted with hatred and death said they feel safe here with you – with this community – in this place in time.

·       I couldn’t help but think of the words of Revelation: there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages… singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

·       Ok, so last Sunday was not a great multitude but… there was love and there was safety and there was peace.  That’s the first blessing – and the second came when Rebecca sang and Carlton played the Hebraic song, “Eli, Eli.”  One of the women from the synagogue said after worship, “That singer… she’s a Jew!”  That is, she is one of us and she is offering her gift here.

·       Did you listen to the words Rebecca sang?  She told me later that she used to sing that song to her grandmother… the lyrics say:  My God, My God, may these things never end – the sand and the sea, the rustle of the water and the lighting of the sky – and our prayers to you.

Beloved, more and more it is becoming clear to me that we have been given a humble and quiet calling in our community:  to be a place of safety – and music – and beauty and peace for all who ache for right relations between people.  All people:  regardless of faith or race or tribe – or artistic temperament or theology or whatever other distinctions might separate us – all people.

Like we say in our Open and Affirming statement:  Following the spirit of Jesus, we embrace the diversity of God’s creation. We welcome people of any sexual orientation, gender identity, family structure, race, ethnic or cultural back ground and ability. Everyone is invited to participate fully in the worship and ministry of First Church.

This week let me invite you who seek God’s peace to find one way to make these words flesh – one act that embraces another in compassion, love and justice – one deed that gives shape and form to advancing the cause of safety.  For in this, we become one with the Lord and one with the Spirit and embody that peace that passes all understanding.  This is the good news for today, let those who have ears to hear, hear.

 

(Thanks to my buddy, Pam, in Brooklyn for the picture at the top of this post.)