Honoring our sacred and vulnerable bodies for Lent

Last Sunday I started a short Lenten series concerning “honoring our bodies” – and let me tell you that it has opened up a host of important questions for our faith community. Whenever you gather four generations of women and men – and their children – and start talking about living in ways that honor the image of God within and among us, sparks start flying. Some of us have been trained to neglect our bodies, others have been encouraged to indulge them and all of us have learned to hate our bodies when they fail to look like the latest sexy models – and this includes men as well as women. Think the FX-TV show, “Nip and Tuck.” Think of young women cutting themselves just to know they are alive. Think of women perpetually dieting and men regularly ignoring their wounds and stress only to die the day after they retire of a heart attack.

And just to make life more complicated, we Christians have to wrestle with our twisted spiritual legacy that on one hand celebrates the flesh – we are made in God’s image, Christ is God incarnated in the flesh whose body was resurrected – and on the other fears and denies it. Dear St. Bruce of Asbury Park, NJ captured this dilemma between flesh and spirit – to say nothing of the battle between the spirit of Jerusalem and the spirit of Antioch – best in his song, “Pink Cadillac.”

Well now way back in the Bible

Temptations always come along

There's always somebody tempting

Somebody into doing something they know is wrong

Well they tempt you, man, with silver

And they tempt you, sir, with gold

And they tempt you with the pleasures

That the flesh does surely hold

They say Eve tempted Adam with an apple

But man I ain't going for that

I know it was her pink Cadillac

Crushed velvet seats

Riding in the back

Oozing down the street

Waving to the girls

Feeling out of sight

Spending all my money on a Saturday night

Honey I just wonder what it feels like in the back of your pink Cadillac?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD5Vythvxig

(NOTE: you may recall that Elvis bought his momma a Pink Cadillac after hitting number one. Springsteen loves to play with Elvis iconography as he explores life, faith, sexuality and politics in America. Also see "Johnny Bye Bye" on Tracks.)

So what’s a congregation to do? Stephanie Paulsell suggests three healing and hopeful alternatives to the status quo in her book, Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice. First she reminds us that no matter how hard we try to be strong, our bodies are fundamentally vulnerable: we know pain, we are wounded easily, and we can be broken in body and soul. Second, in order to truly care for our vulnerable bodies, we need others. “Fragile bodies require communal care… Young people encountering the pleasures and pains of sexual desire for the first time need a village just like small children. They need guidance and support from communities that openly articulate sexuality is a good gift. People who are so sick that they feel their bodies have betrayed them need to be touched by those who believe deeply in the goodness of the body.” And third, as we embrace our own vulnerability, we are called into solidarity with others – especially the poor and those suffering injustice.

I concluded my Sunday message with a homework assignment (as I am want to do): take a meditative bath sometime this week and see what you discover. Well, I actually said, “Here’s what I want you to do as this week’s Lenten discipline: take a bath! Not because you are dirty or need additional personal hygiene. But rather take a bath as a prayer – a body prayer – that invites you to be sensually in touch with God’s temple of the Holy Spirit for you.” Well, after the laughter, people told me what a great prayer that might be (we’ll see how many really do it) because, young and old alike said, mostly they have been too busy to take a bath. One woman even said, “I haven’t used my bath tub in 30 years!”

In a culture obsessed with body image and sexuality, the Christian community has a great opportunity to restore some balance and health if we can relearn to honor our bodies. There is so much body pain in our time – so much abuse and conflict and self-hatred, too. While in New York at an arts conference last week I came across this poem by Julianna Baggott that made me weep. It is called, “Ethel Water’s Mother, Louise – Raped at Twelve – Cannot Listen to her Daughter Sing ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow.’”

Lord, I know that the hem of your robe
could fill a temple – a flood of ribbon,
and now your hem pours from her mouth?
It is you, Lord, called up from her,
a song to teach me a lesson
for not raising my own girl.
I would rather listen to barking dogs,
the gagged utterances of the mute,
my own mother crying
over dirt, a grave.
It is my sadness that Ethel sings, Lord,
my grief riding your hem.
(This hem will not cure me.)
She may think it is her own sorrow,
but each note, so whole, so unbroken –
so lush it is from your robe, born
of your hem that could fill a temple,
that once filled me
(temples can be destroyed)
and that hem
has always been made of song,
the kind too tender for the world,
the kind only a little pregnant raped girl
can call back into her mouth
and swallow,
and Ethel was the baby inside
who, there, within my slender ribs – a cage –
first pursed her lips learning
to suckle and sing my grief.

I give thanks to the women and men and children of this congregation – and the artists among us, too – who with fear and courage are willing to find new/old ways of honoring our bodies. It may be one of the only ways to make the hope of the Lord flesh in our time.

Quick thoughts on a New York excursion

I was in the wonderful town of New York last week for the International Arts Movement annual conference. It was a full and blessed time of intellectual stimulation, making connection with other folk concerned with spirituality and the arts and critical reflection on transforming our culture. The central theme of the encounter was restoring the place of beauty: there are three fundamental truths that have always inspired and guided social transformation -- truth, justice and beauty. During the time of postmodern relativism, there was not a foundation for thinking about these realities in any objective way; but since September 11th that has changed. I will have more to say about all of this -- as well as some ideas stirring in my local congregation -- at a later time. For now, let me call your attention to the art and writing of IAM founder, Makoto Fugimura: http://makotofujimura.blogspot.com/

Let me also call your attention to an experiment in liturgy and the arts a few artists and I are working on for this Good Friday: March 21st at 7 PM at First Church on Park Square in Pittsfield, MA. We will be taking some of the ancient readings for Good Friday and blending them with a variety of contemporary songs - from Cat Power and George Harrison to Over the Rhine and U2 - to reclaim the power and challenge of Good Friday. The goal is clear: mixing contemporary art and music with traditional liturgy with the hope that both the old and the new illumine one another. Hearing Cat Power sing the Rolling Stone's, "Satisfaction" in the context of the conflict of Judas is wild - and makes great sense to me. We shall see if it resonates with others. And when U2 implores religious zealots to "please... get up of your knees" that, too,speaks to me in these weird electoral times of war and peace and religious scape goating. More soon.

these are a few of my favorite things

After visiting with my sweet community members tonight - and watching/ discussing clips from our Lenten discipline movie, "Chocolat," - I went looking for a few old blogger friends that have nourished me over the years. Like Coltrane's version of "Favorite Things," these blogs just get better over time... and I thought it kind to share them with you. And joy upon joy, I found some copies of some of Robert Lentz's radical icons, too. So, in no particular order, but all a delight I invite you to check out: Velveteen Rabbi, One Hand Clapping, the Dude Abides, Refractions, Gregory Wolfe, the Painted Prayerbook, the Arts Abbey and Soulforce. (These are all listed on the side bar with links so you can go right to the good stuff!) I am heading to NYC later this week for my second International Arts Movement Conference/Encounter. Last year at this time we travelled to Manhattan from Tucson to check it out - and that trip eventually led us to a new call in the Berkshires. Who knows what wild blessings this trip will bring, but one will surely be visiting with children in Brooklyn and maybe actually getting to MOMA!

Tonight at our Lenten conversation we talked about having fun as an essential spiritual discipline - laughing at ourselves and taking time to be conscious of an other's needs, too. The blessing is that we are finding new and even tender ways to claim God's presence for us in the ordinary events of everyday life. In that light, dig this poem by James McAuley: "In the Twentieth Century."

Christ, you walked on the sea

But cannot walk in a poem,

Not in our century.

There's something deeply wrong

Either with us or with you.

Our bright loud world is strong

And better i some ways

Than the old haunting kingdoms:

I don't reject our days.

But in you I taste bread,

Freshness, the honey of being,

And rising from the dead:

Like yolk in a warm shell -

Simplicities of power,

And water from a well.

We live like diagrams

Moving on a screen.

Somewhere a door slams

Shut, and emptiness spreads.

Our loves are processes

Upon foam-rubber beds.

Our speech is chemical waste;

The words have a plastic feel,

An antibiotic taste.

And yet we dream of song

Like parables of joy.

There's something deeply wrong.

Like shades we must drink blood

To find the living voice

That flesh once understood.

The spirit of the scripture brings life or death

Introduction

Last night I watched Julie Taymor's beautiful and moving film, All Across the Universe, which retells the story of America in the late 60s through the music of the Beatles. It was a brilliant, tender and visually arresting exploration of what a passionate commitment to art and social justice once meant and might mean again! In the commentary portion of the DVD, director, Julie Taymor, speaks of the importance of our words and actions - an argument we have recently heard in the context of the Obama/Clinton debates - and one I take very seriously as a preacher and musician.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AcrossThUniverse

It brought to mind this insight of Frederick Beuchner's concerning art and spiritualiy: Literature, painting, music - the most basic lesson that all art teaches is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the ime it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble aong from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idead of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things. Is it too much to say that 'Stop, Look and Listen' is also the basic lesson that the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us? Listen to history is the cry of the ancient prophets of Israel. Listen to social injustice, says Amos; to head-in-the sand religiousity, says Jeremiah; to international treacheries and power-plays, says Isaiah... And when Jesus comes along saying that the greatest command is to love God and to love our neighbor, he too is asking us to pay attention. If we are to love God, we must first stop, look and listen for God in what is happening around us and inside us. (Beuchner, Listening to Your Life, pp. 51-52)

Taymor also observes that in an era of social amnesia, it is vitally important for artists to show contemporary young people what it might mean for them to catch a glimpse of the connections between art, spirituality and social transformation. This week's sermon found me wrestling with both the words we embrace and how the spirit of the scriptures we honor with authority have life and death implications. (Take a look at the "Let It Be" section of this movie if you have any doubts! It is BRILLIANT!)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQNpEET9WqQ

Insights from the sermon
Many people are hungry to know how to really identify God’s will for their lives: liberals, fundamentalists, seekers, doubters, scientists, skeptics and everybody in-between have at one time or another asked, “How can I really know what God wants me to do?” Does that ring true to you? Have you ever asked: “Lord, show me the way? Help me know what to do next?” It could be about your career – or your loved ones – an ethical conflict at work – how to use your money – or even how to best enter the realm of politics: it seems to be part of the human condition to wrestle with understanding God’s will for our lives.

Certainly that was at the heart of this morning’s gospel reading where John the Baptist – who had baptized and anointed Jesus as Messiah – had second thoughts and doubts after he was locked away in prison. “Are you the one who is to come, Jesus, or must we wait for another? Tell me what is going on?” (Matthew 11: 1-6) So let’s talk about this dilemma – let’s try to be clear about the time-tested insights our tradition has come up with over the years for honestly discerning the will of the Lord for our lives – and let’s also try to be clear about what is not helpful, ok? Specifically I want to call your attention to 4 clues that can help you grow closer to hearing God’s call for your life. I have come to think of them as touch stones that are safe – and, indeed, I use the acrostic SAFE to help me remember.

I don’t know if you find it necessary, but sometimes I need a little help remembering important things: that’s why I always hang up my car keys in the same place and keep important phone numbers listed on both my cell phone and an address book. And the way I have come to summarize the 4 clues is the acrostic – SAFE – which stands for scripture, alternatives, following and elders: SAFE. So let’s talk about each of them and see where they take us. The first is scripture – which over the years I have come to modify into the spirit of the scriptures because I’ve seen people do some pretty weird and mean-spirited things with just scripture plain and simple, right?

The recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the on-going brutality between Palestine and Israel, the bigotry and cruelty in Northern Ireland as well as the horrors of September 11th are all the result of people twisting scripture into vicious and violent action. The same is often true when it comes to homophobia, sexism and race hatred in 21st century America: the naked word of scripture can easily be manipulated and deformed. This is why scholars and people of good will urge us to consult the spirit of the scriptures in addition to the specific words on a page.

Walter Wink, one of the finest biblical interpreters of our day, reminds us that there are three or perhaps four distinctive spirits that shape and inform our holy scriptures: did you know that? I think he is right because very different conclusions can be reached depending upon which spirit of the scriptures you choose to follow. And let me give you an example of how I have applied this from my own life: during the early 1980s, when the culture wars were really starting to heat up, I sensed a calling from God to try to better ground myself in the spirit of Jesus – to go deeper as a follower, not an admirer to use Kierkegaard’s words – which led me into serious Bible study. You may recall that one of the hot button issues of that time – which still has some juice today – has to do with homosexuality. Specifically, some people of faith were calling gay folk an abomination to the Lord, others were advocating an “open and affirming” perspective and lot of us in the middle were confused.

Now here’s where it gets interesting and holds some very real and serious implications for each of us: when I reread and studied the simple words of scripture in my new found zeal – without interpretation or consideration of the spirit of the scriptures – I found myself coming to the conclusion that God’s love had been withheld from those in the GLBT community. Let’s face it: there are parts of Leviticus 18 and 20 as well as St. Paul’s words in Romans 1: 26-27 that are unambiguous.

So for a few years – in the spirit of Romans 12 I tried not to be “conformed to the spirit of this world, but rather to be transformed by the renewal of my mind” – especially concerning the words of scripture – so that I might “discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” for my life. And that caused me to oppose homosexuality as an acceptable way of living for those in the church. I am not happy to confess this to you out loud – I am not proud of the pain it caused my gay sisters and brothers in the day – but it is a fact. What changed my thinking – and what led me to pastor the first Open and Affirming congregation in the state of Arizona – was also my wrestling with scripture. But now I was trying to discern the spirit of the scripture and that spirit will lead you in very different directions. When it comes to sexuality, the Bible has three very different spirits. First there is the spirit of the law – articulated most clearly in the morality codes of Leviticus but also in some of the words of St. Paul and the epistles – and this spirit strictly prohibits homosexuality. “If a man lies with a male as with a woman,” says Leviticus 20, “then both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."

What the spirit of the morality codes also forbids, however, are certain activities which we now think of as normative while encouraging other sexual practices which have become problematic to contemporary folk. For example the spirit of the law forbids intercourse during menstruation and teaches that violators should be cast out of the community and even stoned to death. It encourages polygamy, capital punishment for adultery, the prohibition of all forms of public nudity – which would include locker rooms and the privacy of our own homes – it grounds the sanctity of marriage in a woman’s fertility, mandates endogamy – marriage only within the 12 tribes of Israel – and supports prostitution as a way of safe-guarding the property rights of a husband whose wife must be virginal prior to the wedding ceremony.

Do you see where this is going? Our society values love, fidelity and equality when it comes to an ethic of sexuality – not patriarchal property rights – which makes a simple or even an uncritical allegiance to the spirit of the law in scripture problematic if not destructive. Yes, there is a spirit of the law in the scriptures, but there is also is a spirit of nature in the scriptures – something St. Paul tends uses from time to time – which draws analogies for human behavior from the realm of animals and plant life. Now far be it from me to question nature; I love it and find great beauty in God’s creation. So without belaboring the point, let me simply say that we have learned a great deal about human and animal nature over the past 2,000 years that have rendered a simplistic 1st century reading of natural law as deadly and wrong in 2008.

And that brings me to the spirit of love and justice in the scriptures – the way of Jesus whom we trust to best show us what a love ethic looks like – and when we consider Christ on this matter not only are there no references to homosexuality – ever – but he gives us the permission to use our own minds and hearts and context. In Luke 12: 57, during an argument with the legalists of his day, Jesus said: “Why do you not learn to judge for yourselves what is right?”

My mentor in discerning the spirit of the scriptures, Walter Wink, goes on to say: If now new evidence is in on the phenomenon of homosexuality, are we not obligated – no, free – to re-evaluate the whole issue in the light of all the available data and decide what is right, under God, for ourselves? Is this not the radical freedom for obedience in which the gospel establishes us? What most saddens me in this whole raucous debate in the churches is how sub-Christian most of it has been. It is characteristic of our time that the issues most difficult to assess, and which have generated the greatest degree of animosity, are issues on which the Bible can be interpreted as supporting either side. I am referring to abortion and homosexuality. We need to take a few steps back and be honest with ourselves. I am deeply convinced of the rightness of what I have said in this essay. But I must acknowledge that it is not an air tight case. You can find weaknesses in it, just as I can in others'. The truth is, we are not given unequivocal guidance in either area, abortion or homosexuality. Rather than tearing at each other’s throats, therefore, we should humbly admit our limitations. How do I know I am correct interpreting God's word for us today? How do you? Wouldn't it be wiser for Christians to lower the decibels by 95 percent and quietly present our beliefs, knowing full well that we might be wrong? (http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink)

I know that was a pretty long-winded overview concerning the spirit of the scriptures, but it is important: one step in trying to discern the will of God’s call for our lives has to do with seeing if our lives line up with scripture – and the spirit of the scripture will make a huge difference in how we hear the voice of the Lord. Ok, if first we consult the scriptures and their spirit, second we are called to consider the alternatives involved in our choice. And by alternatives I mean at least these two things: what would happen if I didn’t act, and, is there a realistic possibility or opportunity to make something happen? Does that make sense? When trying to discern God’s calling, we have to consider both what would happen if we did nothing as well as if there is the realistic opportunity to make our ideas flesh. Sometimes doing nothing is of the Lord – can you think of a time when inactivity would be sacred? What about assessing the opportunity for action: what does that say to you?

First we consult the spirit of the scriptures – S – then we consider the alternatives – A – third we find out if others will follow our lead: F? I can’t over emphasize how important it is to test you calling among others: if you can’t get a following, then something is up. Maybe the time isn’t right or it could be that you have more work to do on the issue. Jesus always had his disciples test out their calling by finding followers: he sent them out two by two to invite folk to follow and we should not shy away from this practical tool either because it will save us a lot of wasted work and heart break. The German mystic, Meister Eckhart, liked to say: “Reality is the will of God, it can always become better, but we must start with what is real.” Step number three has to do with finding a following.

And that brings me to – E – our elders, specifically the wisdom of our elders. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time we have a major life decision, right? If we talk to 3 or 4 wise and experienced souls, they can tell us what life has taught them so that we don’t go off half-cocked. Yes, yes, I know that we all have to make our own mistakes – and each generation has to learn this for itself – but we don’t have to be foolish and arrogant about it when God has given us elders to help us discern what is truly possible, good and holy.

Do you have wise advisors to talk with? Who are they? If not, it would be good to find some – that’s one of the reasons we have a church community – so that the wisdom of real life might be shared and passed on from one generation to another. But let me be clear that not every old person is wise, right? I know some really nutty and unhealthy old coots I would NEVER consult with no matter what.

But there are some wise old souls who have aged well and embody some of the grace and wisdom we need and they can save your life. One old Jewish rabbi back in Saginaw told me at the start of my ministry to always carry two scraps of paper in my pocket. On one write the words of Psalm 8: “when I look at your heavens, O Lord, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? And yet you have made us just a little lower than the angels and have crowned us with glory and honor.”And on the other put these words from Ecclesiastes 3: “All of us go to the same place: from dust we came and to dust we shall return.”

We are the Lord’s beloved, to be sure; and not all that special at the same time. And so it is that the Lord speaks to us if we have ears to hear. It takes work to discern God’s will for our lives – sifting through the spirit of the scriptures, carefully weighing the alternatives before us, sharing our concerns with others to see if they might follow and consulting the wisdom of time-tested elders – all are essential.

And then please know this: even with all our work we might still get it wrong, right? So Paul, in a flash of inspiration, reminds us that God can take even our mistakes and failures and turn them into blessings if our hearts are filled with love. And he ought to know having made mistake upon colossal mistake throughout his ministry. He writes:

There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for we know that God works ALL things for good when we love the Lord our God… that is why we say we are certain that neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, things present nor things to come, powers, height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8: 26-28/35-39

And that sounds like the good news for today to me – so let those who have ears to hear, hear.

My city of ruins: New Orleans and Habitat

To be with 27 sisters and brothers from the Berkshires last week in New Orleans was another sign of God’s grace in a broken world. When we left Hartford at 6:00 am ten days ago, we were young and old, male and female, rich and poor and in-between, gay and straight, Democrat and Republican, Christian and Jew, skilled and klutzy, committed to a week of building houses together in one of our nation’s dearest and most wounded cities. To be sure, there were friendships among us – some had travelled and worked together before – but as a group we began this mission as a collection of individuals but ended as a team – and that was the blessing for me.

Coming together across division and difference is not something we Americans do very well anymore. There was a time when Americans pulled together: think “the Greatest Generation,” the Civil Rights movement or even “Woodstock Nation.” Today, however, we value our “space” more than community. We celebrate our individuality as something sacred. And God knows we cop an attitude – or worse – when another challenges our bias or privilege. How did the President put it? “Either you are with us or against us!”

Thankfully Habitat for Humanity has an alternative vision for how life might be lived and we were given a chance to embrace that alternative last week. You may know that Habitat grew out of the work of Clarence Jordan and the Koinonia Community in Americus, Georgia in the late 60s. Jordan, a renegade Baptist preacher, had organized a racially integrated community in the heart of the segregated South after WWII to be a parable of hope. In time, a local business man, Millard Fuller, caught a glimpse of Christ’s alternative world at Koinonia and gave up his million dollar publishing work to advance the housing ministry we now call Habitat for Humanity.

Sometimes it is minimized – or even forgotten – but two key Christian principles guide this ministry: the economics of Jesus and the absolute integrity of the body of Christ. Jordan used to describe the “economics of Jesus” like this: everything in life is a gift –including wealth – so the key to living according to God’s will is to share our gifts with one another as freely as God has shared with us. When it came to building houses that meant gathering money from the wealthy so that it could be lent without interest to those in need; this loan would still be paid back, of course, but would go into a revolving fund to be lent out again so that both rich and poor would help one another build a more just society one house at a time.

Two scripture references are essential: Luke 4 – in which Jesus reclaims the Jubilee goals of ancient Israel – and Matthew 25 – where Christ makes it clear that we meet God in our treatment of the least of our sisters and brothers. And intimately connected to these two scriptural insights are the words of St. Paul in I Corinthians 12 concerning the Body of Christ: this metaphor reminds us that as a part of a body we hold different gifts and abilities – indeed there are a variety of strengths and weaknesses as well as unique and very different organs – but all work together for the common good. “For just as the body is one and has many members… so, too, the body of Christ. If the foot would say, ‘because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part… Indeed, God has so arranged the body… so that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one suffers, all suffer with it; if one member is honored, we all rejoice together.”

Slowly – and imperfectly and not without some hurt feelings – as we opened ourselves to the Habitat ethos, we found ourselves living into the truths of these texts: the unskilled learned from the experienced, women builders were just as valued as men, the weak found important ways to help the strong and those on top found opportunities to share compassion. What’s more, the impatient among us had plenty of chances to get over themselves, too, so that by week’s end – in concert with our sisters and brothers from New Orleans who will one day live in these new homes – hope took root in the 9th Ward. Dignity and justice were restored for four families in a wasteland, and, those of us from the North found we had given some of our heart and soul to the South. We experienced the blessing Jesus promised when we discern God within and among the least of our sisters and brothers. Beyond race and class, we became one as the body of Christ.

I don’t think we should be shy with these words: they are transformative, counter cultural and at the heart of this ministry. One of my favorite popular musicians, Bruce Springsteen, used them in a song that continues to move Americans: “My City of Ruins” When he debuted it shortly after September 11th it spoke to the world – and it continues to hold meaning for us in New Orleans today. (Check out the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zld2cSIVUO4.) As Bruce leads, the band responds – it is classic African-American gospel music in a contemporary integrated setting – so that what is old becomes new and each individual creates something as an essential part of the whole. When we left New Orleans, our Berkshire team was like Springsteen’s song – and it was a taste of what could be if we were open to God’s invitation.

For another take on the integrity of body of Christ moving beyond limits, genres, class, race and all the rest, check out what U2 and Green Day did as a way to raise funds for rebuilding New Olreans at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdvtO6R1MDY. Come on, rise up!

A lenten wilderness in New Orleans

We arrived in New Orleans on the first Sunday of Lent – a day often associated with the temptation Jesus faced in the desert (see Matthew 4: 1-11) – and there was a real sense of wilderness in the city as we ventured into the 9th Ward. You may recall that this was the poorest area of town and the most devastated by the failed levees. Two and a half years later there are still block after city block of mostly abandoned homes and businesses. For some this is because their homes have been rendered uninhabitable by water damage, mud and disease. For others there simply is not enough money or energy left to repair things. Wounds and crime have kept others from returning and some have made a fresh start in Mississippi, Michigan or even Massachusetts.

Whatever the reason people have not returned, it is obvious that half the pre-Katrina residents are missing from New Orleans and in the most damaged areas of town their absence breeds a quiet sadness and fear everywhere you look: random fishing boats lie discarded in vacant fields, former three story apartment buildings are not only empty but still caked in mud and garbage and countless homes and business continue to bear the rescue efforts “street markings” of spray paint telling when a building was visited, who did the inspection and how many dead humans or animals need to be removed. Like scar tissue after a wound, the pain of New Orleans is not far from the surface in this paradoxical place.

We went to the French Quarter on our free day – the historic “crazy” party center of New Orleans – where great food and fine jazz was in ample supply. The “Quarter” was only minimally damaged by Katrina and is working hard at recovering its tourist business: Bourbon Street balcony apartments were listed for $250K for Mardi Gras weekend, luxury French Quarter condos are selling for $2.5 million and most of the restaurants and clubs were reasonably full with out of towners on an off night. Shop keepers told me that every month more and more of the tourist trade is returning and even the NBA did their part by bringing the “All Star Game” to town. (Some of basketball’s greats even joined us for a few hours building houses for Habitat for Humanity!)
Curiously, the vibrancy of the French Quarter and the agony of the 9th Ward are bringing the challenge of a Lenten spirituality into greater focus for me this year partly because both are real, but also because both have claims on my heart. Two songs by U2 come to mind: “Vertigo” and “Please.” In U2 BY U2 Bono speaks of contemporary life as vertigo – it feels like a blur of drunken sensations that almost make you sick –and when you try to get some air all of a sudden you’re staring at some sexy girl with a crucifix around her neck – or maybe it is Satan – who whispers seductively: All of this… all of this can be yours if you just give me what I want no one will get hurt! Hello, Hello! Hola!I'm at a place called Vertigo (¿Dónde está?) [Where is it?]It's everything I wish I didn't know but you give me something I can feel! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5T0WLJpbdU&feature=related)
But it is not just out there – beyond us – it is also within and among us, too. “Please” puts it like this: So you never knew love until you crossed the line of grace - and you never felt wanted' til someone slapped your face - so you never felt alive until you'd almost wasted away - you had to win, you couldn't just pass, the smartest ass, at the top of the class - your flying colors, your family tree and all your lessons in history. Please... please... please... get up off your knees. Please... please... please...please... So you never knew how low you'd stoop to make that call - and you never knew what was on the ground until they made you crawl - so you never knew that the heaven you keep, you stole! Your catholic blues, your convent shoes, your stick-on tattoos, now they're making the news, your holy war, your northern star, your sermon on the mount, from the boot of your car. Please... please... please... get up off your knees. Please-yeah... please... please... leave it out!?! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3INwn7zp7nQ)

I love the jazz of this city – we went back Monday night to listen to more – and it was a blessing. And we ate some more of the good Creole food and wandered through the beauty of some art galleries, too. But the naked pain so close by kept haunting me – and well it should! No matter that the city has existed for centuries within this tension. Sure, it is where black, white, red and brown have lived, worked and played together in relative peace for generations – indeed, it was the city where all the major whore houses were registered and published for “the sporting life” tourists of the day with the acceptance and blessing of the city fathers and mothers – and it was a haven for bohemian artists like Faulkner and Capote and the birthplace of jazz. Beyond a doubt, New Orleans embraces paradox – and I think it is even fair to say that the events before, during and after Katrina simply exposed the complexities of these paradoxes – but they come with a price.

Which leads me to Job who, after ranting at the One who is Holy about the cost of being faithful, is answered from out of the whirlwind: “Where you there when I laid out the foundation of the earth? Have you commanded the morning since your days began…?” (Job 38-41) In other words, do you have any idea what the vision of the Lord encompasses? It is complex - paradoxical - and spans life and death, justice and shame, joy and despair and everything in between. To which Job, humbled by his mystical encounter can only say: “Before I uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know… but now my eye sees… and I shall repent.” Before it was all in my head; now that it is a part of my life everything is different.

There is enough blame, shame and pain to go around in New Orleans – no one has clean hands – so what strikes me as a blessing this Lent is the simple fact that healing can happen in a broken place. Everywhere we went, when shop owners or people in the grocery store found out we were down for a week from Massachusetts to work on rebuilding some houses with Habitat for Humanity, everyone said: “Thank you… you are a sign of hope for us.” It was humbling and joyful – ugly and sad – complicated and very, very simple all at the same time this work of reconciliation and compassion. It was “Vertigo” with the plea to “get up off my knees” and own what it is like to have to crawl. In one of my readings for this Lenten sojourn I came across these words from Thomas Merton: "The Christian must not only accept suffering: he/she must make it holy. Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration."

Rather, Lent is a journey into the beautiful mystery of compassionate solidarity with those in the most ordinary and broken places; it is the commitment to discern the living presence of Christ within and among us; and it rests on the faith that sharing by all means scarcity for none. Frankly, it would have been easier to have stayed home and sometimes when my hands ached from driving nails or carrying wood - or simply being baked by the New Orleans sun - I really wanted to be home. And yet today I return thanks for those who helped me go into the places I would rather not go and meet my God. Like Jesus told his old friend, Peter, after the shame of the cross: “Brother, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt around yourself and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will lead you to where you do not wish to go… so come: follow me!” (John 21) "Please, Lord, get me OFF my knees!"

(Thanks to Di for the pictures!)

Ash Wednesday Lavender

I have been doing a lot of thinking in anticipation of this year’s Ash Wednesday. For some in our new church it is a way to reconnect with the faith of our past – our youth – our tradition. Some of us grew up Catholic – or Lutheran – or Episcopalian… and now after a few – or maybe many – years we sense something calling us back to worship. For others Ash Wednesday is something new – we never did it as a child – it was never a part of our worship tradition but this year we want to go deeper on the spiritual journey and so we, too, find ourselves back in worship. And there may be those who never had any formal spiritual tradition but find something is going on deep within this year.

A poem I just discovered by Anja Sladek, “I Am Not,” puts it like this: I am not a pessimist but this world is dark and I do not see the dawn. I am not a traitor but I cannot love my country whilst friends are being killed. I am not optimistic but I cannot help but feel there must be something better. I am not a believer but I find myself praying to god in the evenings. I am not a poet but I must write this down and make somebody read. I am not a coward but I am very afraid of what will happen next.

It is my growing conviction that for whatever reason we find ourselves yearning for something deeper this Lent – from longing and fear to a thirst for refreshment -- as my beloved United Church of Christ likes to say: whoever you are – or where ever you are on the journey of life – there is a place – even a spiritual home – for you on Ash Wednesday. It is a time to acknowledge that all of us get it wrong more often than we get it right – that all of us are wounded – and that all of us ache for a God whose grace is bigger than our hurts. Ash Wednesday – and really all of Lent – is a journey more than a destination – a way of discerning and searching for the holy in the ordinary events of our human lives – and as you know if you have ever travelled, some journeys are wonderful and rich, some are messed up and filled with trouble, and some never get off the ground and seem empty or DOA. I love how U2 puts it on “Some Days:”

Some days are dry – some days are leaky - some days come clean - other days are sneaky -some days take less but most days take more - some slip through your fingers and onto the floor - some days your quick but most days you're speedy - some days you use more force than is necessary - some days just drop in on us - some days are better than others - some days it all adds up and what you've got is enough - some days are better than others.

In other words, as Paul Simon sings, "These are the days of miracle and wonder, this is the long distance call - the way the camera follows us in slo-mo - the way we look to us all - the way we look to a distant constellation that's dying in a corner of the sky: these are the days of miracle and wonder and don't cry baby, don't cry, don't cry." Let’s take this Lent slow, in other words, and see what happens. Let’s also go the extra mile by sharing some of the ups and downs of our Lenten experience with another because one of the only ways to make it through any difficult or troubling journey is with the help of others. My boys U2 once again remind us that “Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own.” Bono said (shortly after his dad died of cancer): "My father worked in the post office by day and sang opera by night. We lived on the north side of Dublin in a place called Cedarwood Road. He had a lot of attitude. He gave some to me - and a voice. I wish I'd known him better."

Tough, you think you’ve got the stuff - you’re telling me and anyone you’re hard enough - you don’t have to put up a fight you don’t have to always be right - let me take some of the punches for you tonight. Listen to me now, I need to let you know, you don’t have to go it alone. And it’s you when I look in the mirror and it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone: sometimes you can’t make it on your own.

So let’s be clear: for Lent to be rich and deep, we have to make some connections with the people who have joined us on the journey. Every trip requires helpers, right? If you are driving on a trip, who helps you make the trip happen? What about air travel? Ever stay in a hotel… ok you get my point: part of the Lenten journey is recognizing – and embracing – our connections. It even has something to do with reaching out of our comfort zone so that we make new connections. You see, the traditional scripture readings for Ash Wednesday tell us something crucial about both the journey of Lent and our relationship with those who are travelling with us: Left to ourselves, most of us invert an important teaching from Jesus – we have him saying that “where your heart is there will be your treasure also” – but that is biblical dyslexia. In reality the text tells us that wherever you put your treasure that is where your heart will end up. Do you see the difference?

The United Church of Christ posted a blog for today that notes that in a world defined by the market place and bottom lines, much of the time our dollars follow our heart’s lead: Jesus seems to be saying something more profound and more hopeful than that, affirming that wherever you put your treasure that is where your heart will end up. To be sure, how we spend our money reveals something about the kind of people we are. But Jesus seems to affirm that how we spend our money determines the sort of people we become. "Give from the heart," people say. But Jesus speaks of a different dynamic: Give where you want your heart to be, and then let your heart catch up. If you want to care more about the kind of car you drive, buy an expensive one. If you want to care more about property values, remodel your house. If you want to grow in your relationship with God, bring an offering to God. Wherever your treasure is, your heart is bound to follow.

One of my favorite author’s, Kathleen Norris, likes to say that one of the reasons Jesus tells us to learn from children is so that we pay attention to the basics. Once, when she was working as an artist in residence at an elementary school she began to notice that some children had the capacity to rework the ancient Psalms into their own life experiences. For example:

Children who are picked on by their big brothers or sisters can be remarkably adept when it comes to cursing psalms, and I believe that the writing process offers them a safe haven in which to work through their desires for vengeance in a healthy way. Once a little boy wrote a poem called, “The Monster Who Was Sorry.” He began by admitting that he hates when his father yells at him: his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. The poem concludes: “Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.’”

“My messy house” says it all (when it comes to the Lenten journey): with more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for him that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave him a way out. If that boy had been a novice in the fourth-century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on his way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human. If the house is messy, they might have said, why not clean it up, why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?

Part of what I’ll be doing this Lent is cleaning up my messy house – and I hope to be doing some of the cleaning with others so that they can help keep me on track when I get lazy or cranky or just too tired or afraid to care. Too often this religion stuff is just busy work – and I need a clean house for the Lord – a house built on a love that satisfies like the poet Gerald Stern suggests in “Blue Like That," rather than misplaced intentions:
She was a darling with her roses, though what I like is lavender for I can dry it and nothing is blue like that, so here I am, in my arms a bouquet of tragic lavender, the whole history of Southern France against my chest, the fields stretching out, the armies killing each other, horses falling, Frenchmen dying by the thousands, though none for love.

Wandering Through the Beauty of Ordinary Things

Took a trip into the wonderful city of Boston this week to explore – it was my hope that we would see some music and theatre in addition to a museum or two – and while some of that happened, it was also just a lovely two days of wandering and exploring. Used to be that I needed to PLAN my time away and work-out all the details so that I could clearly say: I am not wasting time! But ever since a sabbatical trip to New Mexico about 15 years ago with Dianne, I am learning the value of wasting time and simply wandering wherever the Spirit leads.

And the blessings of this way of travelling never cease to delight: first, as we were entering a rest stop just outside the city, who should I see buying coffee but one of my favorite painters, Makoto Fujimura (see Refractions for his website) from NYC. He was on his way to Gordon College to talk about his new book and the on-going dialogue between the creative process and God’s call to “transform and heal” our culture. (I will be with Mako and other artists at the end of this month at the IAM – International Arts Movement annual conference in TriBeca.) We had a brief and lovely conversation before we both moved on – made me think of one of my favorite hymns: “we are pilgrims on a journey, we are strangers on the road, we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.” Then, as we schlepped through the North End towards Faneuil Hall, in front of a row of Irish Pubs there was a simple but moving sculpture commemorating the Holocaust. And I kept thinking “how many other wonders and signs have I missed in my hurry from one important place to the next?” We took time to walk slowly in the cold through this invitation to remember both the incomprehensible evil of the Nazis and how it keeps happening in new forms.

Later we took in Old South Church – and Trinity Cathedral and an organ recital featuring “Peter and the Wolf” (which brought back memories of watching Leonard Bernstein on TV sharing this work of Prokofiev with America’s children.) We ate some incredible sea food, stood perplexed and in awe of an opulent shopping mall for the elite and wandered through the Museum of Fine Art until I had sensory overload and needed a nap. We ended the mini-sabbatical with a trip to Durgin Park – a very New England eatery – where my parents and grandparents used to go for baked beans and brown bread in another era. As we headed back to Pittsfield – through an enchanted glaze of an evening ice storm that left the Turnpike coated in diamond-like reflections – I found myself returning thanks to God for all the beauty we had wandered into over these past two days.

Ash Wednesday will soon be here – and then our trip with Habitat to New Orleans for a Lenten build in post-Katrina carnage – and then into what is often the hard work of the Lenten journey but I am thinking that this year’s Lenten wandering will be even less about denial and more about discovering beauty in even the most unlikely places. Because, as Gregory Wolfe of IMAGE Journal recently noted:

Strange as it may seem, beauty still needs to be defended. In the history of the West, beauty has played the role of Cinderella to her sisters, goodness and truth. I don’t mean to say that beauty in art or nature hasn’t been appreciated throughout history—though there have been times when beauty has been the subject of frontal assaults—but simply that when we start getting official, when we get theological or philosophical, beauty becomes a hot potato. The ambivalence about beauty at the heart of western culture begins at the beginning. In Jerusalem, proscriptions against idols and graven images coexist with paeans to the craftsmanship of God and Bezalel, the artificer (described in Exodus) of the desert tabernacle. In Athens, Plato celebrates the divine madness that the poet experiences when the muse descends, but he also kicks the poets out of his ideal republic as unreliable, disruptive sorts.

In theory, goodness, truth, and beauty—traditionally known as the “transcendentals,” because they are the three qualities that God has in infinite abundance—are equal in dignity and worth. Indeed, in Christian thought there has always been a sense that the transcendentals exist in something of a trinitarian relationship to one another. But in practice it rarely seems to work out that way. The funny thing is that secular and religious attacks on beauty are nearly identical. Beauty is seen as an anesthetizing force that distracts us from the moral imperatives of justice and the quest for truth. There isn’t much difference between a stern proponent of Iconoclasm in the eighth century and a modern Marxist attacking beauty as nothing but an opiate to lull us into acquiescence to the powers that be. Both critics abhor what Wendy Steiner has called “the scandal of pleasure.” The time has come to bring beauty back, to give it the glass slipper and invite it to the prom…

When you remove beauty from the human equation, it is going to come back in some other form, even as anti-beauty. A good deal of modern art can be understood in this light. In modernity, beauty has been seen as an appearance—ornamentation, sugar coating. Secularists and believers alike have either rejected beauty altogether or argued that beauty should make the pills of truth and goodness go down easier. Beauty must serve some other end; it is not an end in itself. But the transcendentals were always understood as infinitely valuable, as ends in themselves. When it comes to beauty, however, we are afraid to assert that much. We feel the need to harness it, because beauty is unpredictable, wild. Here’s how I have tried to comprehend these deep matters. If you think about these three transcendentals in relationship to our human capacities, what are the faculties that correspond to these three transcendentals? Goodness, I would say, has to do with faith, the desire for holiness. Truth is pursued by reason. We are all familiar with that pairing: faith and reason. That’s standard-issue language in the western tradition. But what about the third element? What faculty does beauty correspond to? I would suggest that it is the imagination. The imagination is the faculty honed to apprehend beauty and unfold its meaning.

How often do we say the Judeo-Christian tradition is a tradition of faith, reason, and imagination? This is what I mean by saying that we treat beauty as the Cinderella. “Go make pretty pictures,” we say to beauty, “but don’t start acting like you are a pathway to knowing the universe.” Yet this is precisely what the definition of a transcendental means. That’s easy to see when it comes to truth. But the same applies to goodness: when we act justly, we come to know more about reality. And so it is with beauty. Beauty allows us to penetrate reality through the imagination, through the capacity of the imagination to perceive the world intuitively. The intuitive perception of meaning that art provides helps us to see that imagination is akin to reason: both seek truth through the apprehension of order and pattern.

Art employs beautiful forms to generate objects that penetrate reality. Beauty tends to elicit in us a type of shock. We draw a breath in. Why? If beauty tells us about the eternal verities, whence the surprise? Ezra Pound once said that the artist’s task is to “make it new.” The “it” is the truth of the world. A work of art doesn’t invent truth, but it does make it accessible to us in ways that are not normally available because words and images have been tarnished by overuse or neglect. Art fails when it merely tells us what we already know in the ways that we already know it.

That is why art is so deeply related to the prophetic dimension and the place where it connects to truth. That prophetic shock, that challenge to complacency, that revelatory reconfigura- tion of the way things are, gives us a truer picture of the way that the world is. Truth without beauty is fleshless abstraction, a set of propositions. Only beauty can incarnate truth in concrete, believable, human flesh. Beauty also has the capacity to help us to value the good, especially the goodness of the most ordinary things. The greatest epics, the most terrible tragedies, all have one goal: to bring us back to the ordinary and help us to love and to cherish it. Odysseus encounters Circe, Cyclops, the sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, but his real destination is home and the marital bed that makes it his place in the world.

The Boston folk singer, Bob Franke, puts it like this in a tune I have been singing with my loved ones for almost 25 years: "It's so easy to dream of the days gone by, it's a hard thing to think of the time to come. But the grace to accept every moment as a gift is a gift that is given to some. What can you do with your days but work and hope, let your dreams bind your work to play; what can you do with each moment of your life but love 'til you've loved it way: love 'til you've loved it way."

Lord, may it be so.

Saying YES and NO with Humilty

This week’s “reflection” immediately brought to mind U2’s break-through single, “With or Without You” from The Joshua Tree: See the stone set in your eye, see the thorn twist in your side: I wait for you. Sleight of hand and twist of fate, on a bed of nails she makes me wait: and I wait without you – with or without you, with or without you… I can’t live with or without you.

Some have seen St. Paul’s words of humility from II Corinthians 12:7 here: To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. I think Peterson’s The Message offers added depth to the way humility helps us both discern God’s presence in our everyday lives and trust it: Because of the extravagance of the revelation (given to me), and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, my grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

No wonder Reinhold Niebuhr wrote what has become known as the Serenity Prayer back in those pre-WW II days when hubris, fear, humility and potential met in a paradoxical way: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Perhaps we face a similar kairos moment as Barak Obama ignites both the optimism of JFK and the ideology-bending success of the One Campaign (my paraphrase of NY Times’ columnist David Brooks) among more and more Americans. I know that an old and cynical friend from Tucson, who lived through events from Nasser’s nationalization of the banks in Egypt to doing business in apartheid in South Africa, tells me that something new is happening right now.

Could it be shades of Bob Dylan: “Something is going on all around you and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” Or the Eels: “God damn right it is a beautiful day?” Or dare I invoke U2 again where they claim Noah’s vision after the flood in “Beautiful Day” despite the wounds of this moment in time: You're on the road but you've got no destination – you’re in the mud, in the maze of her imagination; you love this town even if that doesn't ring true – you’ve been all over and it's been all over you. It's a beautiful day – don’t let it get away… Touch me, take me to that other place; teach me, Lord, I know I'm not a hopeless case. See the world in green and blue, see China right in front of you, see the canyons broken by clouds see the tuna fleets clearing the sea out, see the Bedouin fires at night, see the oil fields at first light – and see the bird with a leaf in her mouth after the flood all the colors came out! It is a beautiful day…?

Seems that way to me… here’s Sunday’s message:

When I was a young man – fresh out of seminary and serving my first church, I used to get tied up in knots about what people said about me – and I was especially wigged-out when church members would want me to fit my life into their emergencies. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not talking about authentic pastoral care – acts of compassion, calls in the middle of the night to the hospital or carefully talking someone through a midnight attempted suicide – that work is among the nearest and dearest to my heart and a real privilege. No, what I mean are those phone calls – or complaints after the fact – that come when you are already with someone else and the caller demands that you drop everything and come right away… to their parent’s hospital room or nursing home – their child’s drug rehabilitation or juvenile detention center – the waiting room of the local hospice or even the city jail or morgue. Sometimes people act like they are the center of the universe when they are anxious – and they get really angry when you don’t or can’t respond to them right away.

And I have to tell you that in my early days, these complaints used to make me crazy. Let’s face it, most ministers are people pleasers, right? We like to help and want others to be happy – we hate to see another in pain – so in my early days, if I couldn’t respond to even the most unreasonable demand, it cut me to the heart and made me physically ill. What’s worse, I was certain that I was failing both God and my congregation. That’s the reason why most young clergy leave the ministry within the first five years, you know? They can’t deal with the fact that they can’t solve everybody’s problems… so they leave. As one of my counselors told me after about 12 years of this: ok, we’ve now determined the wrong reason that called you into ministry; let’s see if we can figure out the right reasons for you to stay because pleasing people ain’t working any more, right?

So I began the hard work of personally learning how to say “yes” and “no” with humility – and it has saved my marriage, brought me closer to my children and God and restored my sense of humor. Not without lots of struggle and ugly mistakes – oh my god I am such slow learner – and not without my fair share of relapses. But with time, practice, lots of prayer and grace, I have begun to live into God’s “yes” for my life by telling some people “no.” This morning’s scripture puts it like this in Christ’s teaching to those who wanted to become disciples:

Don’t say anything you don’t mean: this counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you’ and never doing it; or saying ‘God be with you’ when you don’t really mean it. And please remember this: you don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say “yes” and “no” for when you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.

Martin Copenhaver, of our sister congregation in Wellesley, has written that if we were to summarize the Christian gospel into one word it would have to be: YES! “The gospel is about God’s YES to us, first through creation – “Yes, it is good.” – then through covenant – “Yes I will walk with you: I will be your God and you will be my people.” – and then through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – “Yes I have come to you so that you may have joy and your joy may be full… even to the end of the age.” He concludes by saying that “implied within this affirmation, however, is another word – the word NO – and one of the most important truths a Christian can learn is how and when to say YES and how and when to say NO.”

I would add… “with humility” because this side of glory, my friends, all of us only see as through a glass darkly as St. Paul told us. “Later we shall see face to face, but for now… we’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist…so until our completeness we have three things to keep us on track: trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly and love extravagantly.” As I get it, humility is one of the ways we can make those commitments real, so let’s talk about practicing yes and no with humility, ok?

Paul tells us that there are three commitments – or practices – that will help us mature into humility: trusting God, cultivating hope and loving others extravagantly. And the prayer that has helped me most in my quest to trust God is the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.

It is no wonder that AA and other 12 Step groups have found such solace and wisdom in this prayer: it states in the clearest language possible that we can’t fix other people, we can only attend to ourselves and there are always aspects of our lives and the world that we can never make right so we have to learn how to accept them. Acceptance, it would seem, is key to trusting God; indeed, acceptance of life as it is, in all its joys and sorrows, seems to be part of how we say YES and NO with humility. Yes, I love my parents and can never cure them of their addictions no matter how hard I try all at the same time. Yes, I am a brother in faith to the President, united in Christian love with him even though I profoundly disagree with many of his decisions and yearn for a new commitment to peace and justice. Yes I weep and mourn over those I have lost through death while at the same time rejoicing that their suffering has now ended and they have gone home to the Lord.

Are you with me here? Embracing the reality that I cannot change some things no matter how broken they are – and at the same time owning that with courage there are changes I can make – is the pathway to serenity. Peace. Sanity – for at least one day at a time – for this is what it means to trust God: not affirming this or that doctrinal truth, but choosing to live each day as if God were in control and we were not. That is, saying YES and NO to reality with humility.

Now I don’t know about you, but this was something I had to learn – and practice over and over again – because it just didn’t come naturally to me. What do you mean ACCEPT that there are things I cannot change? I work in a church where people constantly ask me to help them change their lives? Or rescue them from their suffering or help them avoid the consequences of their mistakes? I live in America, for God’s sake, where my television is constantly advising me that if I just buy this cereal – or that deodorant – or this one special car not only will I change into a sexy, attractive man – with a younger and sexier wife – but I will have a happier and sexier family in a better and sexier America. What do you mean ACCEPT that there are things I cannot change?

The second insight into saying YES and NO with humility is practice – discipline – learning to trust that God is big enough and loving enough to handle and manage our mistakes, because if we are ever going to mature in acceptance, we are going to make mistakes. William Willimon, once the Dean of the Duke University Chapel and now a Bishop for the United Methodist Church, once met with a group of incoming students who wanted to talk about premarital sex.

In a word, they wanted to know why he advised them against being sexually active before marriage. So he told them, ‘In the grand scheme of things, having sex before marriage is not the most important ethical issue you will ever face. But it will give you practice in saying NO. You may make some mistakes in this realm – and they will hurt you – so we in the church teach that if you can learn to say NO to something like sex, then maybe you’ll be better prepared to say NO when you are asked to sacrifice your integrity for some corporation’s profits or when you are asked to fight in some unjust war. It takes practice to learn how to say NO – and sex seems as good a place as any to start.

I think those are good words. No judgment, right? No condemnation for those of us who have made some sexual mistakes in our time – and let’s face it – we have. Just the testimony of a humble elder who has learned from his own mistakes who wants to share the value of learning how to say YES and NO: the second insight is that this trust and humility takes practice. Do you remember what the old guy said to the young violinist who was lost in NYC and asked, “Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?” Practice, my dear, practice.

Which leads me to the third insight: humor – it is an integral part of humility – especially the ability to laugh at ourselves. I can’t imagine how many times St. Paul had to laugh at himself and his life – and how hard it was for him at first – before he didn’t take himself too seriously. I know it has taken me all my life and I’ve still got a ways to go, too. Nevertheless, I am coming to see how valuable it is to growing in Christ’s spirit to be able to laugh at myself so that I can learn from my mistakes.

So let me leave you with this – and I ask your forgiveness in advance – because it is the story of a pastor who was just too full of himself. Struggling to make ends meet on the salary of his small church, this pastor became livid one day when he confronted his wife with the receipt for a $250 dress she had bought. "How could you do this?!" he shouted in self-righteous indignation. “You know we have to pinch every penny! What were you thinking?” "Well,” his wife said, “I was outside the store looking at the dress in the window when all of a sudden I found myself trying it on," she explained. "It was like Satan was whispering in my ear, 'You look fabulous in that dress. Buy it!'" "Well," the pastor snorted as only a person of the cloth can, "You know how I deal with that kind of temptation? I say, 'Get thee behind me, Satan!'" To which his wife replied: "I did. Really! But then he said, 'It looks fabulous from back here, too, so… I bought it!'"

This is the good news for today for those who have ears to hear.

A Different Kind of King

The late French mystic, Simone Weil, once observed that, “grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it…” Bono, the lead singer of the Irish rock band, U2, said that,“grace finds beauty in ugly things and travels outside of karma.” And Jesus, according to Eugene Peterson’s retelling of the text, said that if you are depleted and alone – tired, run down and burned out on religion – he would fill your emptiness with God’s love so that you might live in the unforced rhythms of grace.

There is, it would seem, a connection between God’s grace and our emptiness. This is one of the counter-cultural trutths of the whole church calendar: from Advent and Christmas through Lent, Easter and Pentecost there is a proclamation that grace comes to us in the form of Jesus not only to fill what is empty, alone and wounded, but to actively seek out and strengthen those people and places where this void causes the most oppression. Anthony Bartlett writes in Cross Purposes: Challenging the Violent Grammar of Christian Atonement:

"(The challenge for us is) to change the governing metaphor of theology from height to depth. God enters the depth of our situation, deeper than we can imagine, deeper than we want, deep enough to change it beyond our imagining. That is why (God) is not understood or seen only by his back parts as Luther had it; not because of an impossible transcendence, less still because of an incandescent wrath, but because (God) is facing into a depth we turn from, a world-and-humanity-changing depth of love… If Christians were ready to dwell as Jesus did in the Hebrew depths of our world, rather than always planning their Greek exit strategy (by good works, private salvation, Armageddon) faith would look extremely different. Depths or the abyss are not just a convenient metaphor to return us to history… they change the very constitution of the self and world and God in relation to these. It is the work of creation at its seventh day climax. As Jesus said one Sabbath day: "My Father is still working and so am I …."

In other words, Jesus is a king with a crown of thorns: the Lord of compassion not conquest. And people all over the world – including those in the Church – are uncomfortable with this kind of king. To speak of the Word of God become flesh as grace entering the void means… we have to own our wounds – acknowledge our brokenness – accept the empty places within and among us.

Professor James Cone of Union Theological Seminary in New York City made this clear recently in his conversation concerning the Cross and the lynching tree at Harvard: until we can name and own our wounds about racism, he observed, they will continue to haunt and exert an unholy power over us time and again. And if any should think he exaggerates recall the recent rash of empty nooses left on the desks and doors of prominent African American leaders – or the twisted rhetoric about Barack Obama’s “blackness” – or the scandalous behavior of the Clintons in South Carolina re: race - and it will become only too clear that while grace fills the empty spaces with God’s liberating love, it can only enter where there is a void to receive it.

Which brings me back to the question: what kind of King is Christ? Now Americans don’t know much about royalty – and we have an almost pathological commitment to social amnesia and political naiveté – so some have urged us to start speaking of the culture of Christ rather than his kingdom. What kind of culture resonates with God’s grace and honesty? What values deepen our ability to live into Christ’s sacrificial love? What context promotes and even encourages us to live into the unforced rhythms of grace? Do you appreciate how this change from kingdom to culture clarifies the challenge?

To speak of a culture of Christ gives us the chance to compare the world as it is with the world as it could be, yes? It gives us the tools to see how we tend to create God in our image rather than risk ripening into the unforced rhythms of grace. And it invites each and all of us – personally and politically – to wonder what gets in the way of embracing Christ’s beloved community of social justice, racial and sexual equality and risk taking for love. You see, people like life to be clean: we want our emotions tidy, our religion structured, our civil society to play by the rules and everything that is messy and broken to be kept well out of sight.

I’m reminded of the story of the old Southern Pentecostal woman who happened to wander into one of our traditional, tall steeple Congregational churches in Boston: as the organ prelude began to swell, she started swaying rhythmically to the sounds of the music. During the first hymn, she held up her hand and sometimes flapped her hanky in joy. And when the preacher started his sermon, she just joined right in shouting: Amen, preach it brother or sometimes help him, Holy Spirit. Which, as you might imagine, was the final straw for the head usher who rushed over to the woman and said, “Madam, what in God’s name are you doing?” Without missing a beat, she said, “I’m just getting religion, brother.” To which the usher snorted, “Well, my dear, please, don’t get it here!”

Americans ache for the illusion of order and innocence – we hunger for life to be clean and tidy – which is why that damned Church calendar is so important; it rubs our nose in the fact that whether we want some messy, Jesus inspired grace and mystery or not, at least ONCE a year we are going to have to consider what kind of king and culture this Christ calls for!

So let me frame the challenge by reminding you of how Jesus responded to two very different people in their time of need: the rich young ruler of Luke 18 and the thief next to him on the cross in Luke 23. Let me summarize the biblical stories before teasing out a few observations about grace, emptiness and the counter-cultural kingdom of God because they have profound implications for our ministry together. First, in the story of the rich, young ruler we are told that while Jesus was teaching an influential young stock broker – or maybe it was a lawyer or even a rock star – came to him and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Which is not a question about how do I get into heaven – although it has often been talked about in such manner – but an inquiry into that which gives life meaning? Ok? He is not talking about life after death but life in all of its blessed fullness before death, right?

After Jesus asks if the young man follows the rules – do you cheat on your wife, pay your taxes fairly, do your fair share with the United Way – he says: “There is still one thing lacking; you must sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor and follow me… then you will have a life of meaning” And those who know how the story ends recall that the young lawyer or stock broker or rock star just shakes his head in sadness and leaves because he was very rich.

Now be clear: Jesus is NOT telling us that money is bad nor is he teaching that we must all give away everything we own and become itinerant street ministers in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus didn’t ask Zacchaeus to give away his fortune, right? What is at stake here is control: are we ready to let God into the void of our souls and existence, or, do we want to keep trying to do it ourselves? If we choose to act like God, then our emptiness will remain. Period. End of story. If, however, to use the words of Reinhold Niebuhr we let God into the void then we will be given the “grace to accept with serenity the things in life that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that must be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

Story number one suggests that as long as we resist, fight, challenge or question God’s desire to enter the void by living like we’ve got it all together, meaning and joy will elude us. Story number two, while very different, proposes that when we allow God into our hearts to fill the void we entertain the very promise of Paradise. The story of the thief on the cross is simple but profound: Jesus has been executed as a common criminal. On either side of him are two revolutionaries who had robbed a local Roman garrison of weapons in the hopes of starting an insurrection. They have been crucified. They are baking in the sun and suffocating to death when one of the criminals taunts Jesus saying, “What kind of Messiah are you who can’t save himself in this horrible mess? You claimed to save others, do something, you idiot!” The soldiers also mocked and poked Jesus to increase his pain and shame. The other thief, however, said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” To which Jesus replied, “I tell you truly: today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Very different stories with very different results, yes? And the fundamental distinction is that one soul refused to acknowledge his wound and emptiness while the other owned it boldly. So one went away dejected, sad and perplexed about what brings meaning into life while the other was embraced by Paradise even upon on a cross. “Grace fills empty spaces, grace finds beauty in ugly things but can only enter where there is a void to receive it.”

This is counter cultural wisdom where Jesus is the king who comes down into the muck of our lives – who is not afraid of the dirt and shame of real humanity – who has no interest in punishing us for our failures – and who even brings Paradise to the cross of our broken existence. As this kind of king Jesus says we’re all in this together and I promise to be with you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. "If you are tired and burned out on religion I am going to fill you with the unforced rhythms of grace. If you are alone and afraid, I am going to meet you and bring you peace." If you are wounded and oppressed, I am going to be with you every step of the way in the struggle for hope, dignity, justice and peace… and I will never, ever let you go. I am the light in the darkness and the darkness – no matter how real – cannot overcome it.

In our generation, to be disciples of Christ, this is the king and culture we must reclaim and embody: … the king who comes out of the Victorian pulpit and refuses to get trapped in the trappings of power and illusion… the king who embraces the wounded thief on the cross and tenderly but clearly corrects the rich young lawyer or rock star whenever they insist on playing God… the king who shows us his wounds – and teaches that there is wisdom in these wounds – even grace, serenity and courage if we learn the path of acceptance.

The good news is paradoxical: the blessings of grace are waiting to bring us hope, a measure of healing, community and solace once we own the wound... and many of us would rather walk away