Earlier today I had the chance to reconnect with a colleague I used to know 30 years ago while in seminary: she is now a successful pastor, mother and mentor in New Haven, CT. What a trip to find that our young seminarian at Yale is doing and internship with my old friend. It is a blessing. What's more, the young person at seminary is SOOOO grounded and wise! It was a treat to visit and get caught up today as we prepare for the next steps in the United Church of Christ "discernment for ministry" process. What a privilege to be with a young person exploring the next steps of ministry.
It was a stunning autumn day in New England: full sun, clear skies with just a hint of fall color in the trees and the promise of winter just around the corner. Driving two hours to New Haven each way gave me a lot of quiet time to reflect on ministry - my own, the ministries of old friends and the new ministries that are still being discerned - and I was grateful for the solitude.
Tomorrow will be a full day of sorting out funding and programming possibilities and problems at church, preparing for a Saturday wedding and taking time to soak in the beauty of the day. We may even have to host the community "street art" program if it rains - which looks likely.
But that is for tomorrow. Today I am simply grateful for old friends, new responsibilities, the privilege of ministry and an awareness that God is in charge, so I don't have to try to be!
NOTE:Here are my notes for this Sunday - September 19, 2010 - a time of worship and reflection shaped by Amos 8: 1-12 and Luke 16: 1-13. I believe this is our third week into our time of rethinking what "the Feast of the Lord" might be saying to our church and era. So, if you are around, please join us at 10:30 am.
Today’s gospel lesson has to be one of the weirdest, most challenging and spiritually perplexing parables to be found ANYWHERE in the Bible. Don’t you think that is true?
• Jesus starts out telling us a story about Bernie Madoff – or maybe it was Goldman Sachs – really celebrating the ruthless and totally aggressive actions of a corrupt financier. Let’s be clear: this man has not only has embezzled from his firm, he has cooked the books, too.
• And as the story unfolds Jesus not only asserts that this high powered, flim flam man has something to teach us about faithful living, but he goes on to say that the time has come for people of faith to get hip.
Streetwise people are so often smarter about how the world works than those in the church. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. So I want you to become smart in the same way—only I want you smart for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you into creative survival, concentrating your attention on the bare essentials, so that you'll live, really live, and not complacently just getting by on good behavior. No, I want you to have life and life in abundance!
Isn’t this a trip – a uniquely disorienting story of faith – yes? Usually scholars and attentive people of faith can come to some consensus about Christ’s parables. Sure, they are explosive as Eugene Peterson likes to say – much more about detonation than explanation – but this parable – unique to Luke’s gospel – leaves the best minds of our tradition bewildered. Theologians are all over the map about what this might really mean. Which prompted one wise soul to write that this passage is proof that we are saved by grace rather than understanding or good works because it is so off the wall.
So let me say right out of the gate that I am not going to make any claims about finally figuring out the definitive meaning of this parable when those far brighter and more creative than me have been perplexed about it for 2,000 years. That would be hubris – and there is nothing attractive or faithful about that. In fact, the older I get the more I find myself taking refuge in Psalm 131:
Oh Lord, I am not proud; I have no haughty looks. I do not occupy myself with great matters nor wrestle with things that are too hard for me. No, I still my soul and make it quiet – quiet like a child upon its mother’s breast – resting my soul in the comfort of your love.
Still, I have a few ideas about what Jesus might have been trying to help us grasp in this odd parable. Frank Ramirez, a Church of the Brethren pastor in Pennsylvania, has been helpful in this regard suggesting that when Jesus does not condemn the con man – but lauds his behavior instead – this is a “backwards template for the way we as children of light ought to be taking care of one another! (AWAKE, Pentecost 2 2010, Year C, p. 14) It is a counter-intuitive example about the way creative people of faith might incarnate God’s compassion.
• You see, Jesus wants us to take care of each other as well as shrewd and calculating entrepreneurs take care of their investors. That is part of what it means to be a member of a faith community – we take care of one another – rather than just looking out for number one.
• Ramirez writes: Why then does it seem as if people of faith have such a hard time putting up with one another? Why are there often such profound tensions in our churches when we ought to be showing the world how to get along?
Now, this isn’t a new question – grumbling and selfishness have often plagued God’s people – and we would do well to keep this in mind. This morning’s word from the prophet Amos, offered to Israel 800 years before Jesus was born, isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to God’s displeasure about the way people of faith often treat one another in community or in society. Amos tells us that the Lord said:
I'm calling it quits with my people Israel. I'm no longer acting as if everything is just fine. The royal singers and choirs will wail when it happens." because Master God has said so. "Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere. Hush! Be still! And listen to this, you who walk all over the weak, you who treat poor people as less than nothing, who say, "When's my next paycheck coming so I can go out and live it up? How long till the weekend when I can go out and get trashed?" And those who give little and take much, and never do an honest day's work. You who exploit the poor, using them— and then, when they're used up, you discard them… watch out because I’m taking stock of your sin!”
We know from the stories of Moses that God’s people often murmur and complain, right? We know from the stories of Jesus that not much had changed in his life some 2,000 years later. And we know from our own experience that some 2,000 after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus faith communities still find it hard to consistently express God’s compassion for the world. And this is where today’s weird parable just might be helpful to us in a totally upside-down kind of way.
First of all, if it is true that our parabolic con man is an inverted – or even backwards template – for what true discipleship looks like, then Jesus is telling us something about the counter-cultural nature of his community. This accountant who cooks the books, you see, is a total slave to the values of his culture: he is manipulative, shrewd, self-serving and almost completely oblivious of the social consequences of his actions. He lives as if he were the center of the universe. So as long as he remains fat and happy, who cares what people or Mother Earth experience in the wake of his selfishness? And this isn’t ancient behavior:
• Think of the political leaders from both Palestine and Israel who are currently trying to find common ground for peace after decades of selfish and violent behavior. Brother Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas need all the help they can get as they try to rewrite history on the back of their shared experience of manipulating the fears of their people for short-term political gain.
• The same might be said for many of our own politicians – or the giants of Wall Street – who have confused avarice for compassion and short-term thinking for the common good. I’m told that it is likely that there will be over 4 million foreclosures in 2010 on top of the 3.9 million from last year.
So what does God’s alternative look like? You see, if our con man is really to be instructive, then he must point towards something healthier and holier – a vision of God’s way – rather than the confines of a bottom line culture obsessed with the market place. Thankfully, scripture is filled with sacred alternatives – and the most counter cultural is the Lord’s feast – a vision for us that fills both the Old and New Testaments. Often theologians speak of this as the “messianic banquet” that simultaneously heals the wounded and shares God’s vision for the fullness of life. In her book, Breaking Bread, Sara Covin Juengst, writes:
The messianic banquet was a familiar image in apocalyptic writings. Jesus used it to remind his disciples of the origins of hope: not only would they receive deliverance from the bondage of sin, but also a sense of joy and gladness because wherever God’s table was found, the Lord was the host. There would be a feast of fat things – no more tears – and no more death. There would be unity and hope because we were now united in God’s grace.
Three passages from the Bible might be instructive for us: First, from the prophet Isaiah in chapter 25: 6-8 we hear that on:
This mountain, God’s abode, the Lord will throw a feast for all the people of the world, a feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines, a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts. And here on this mountain, God will banish the pall of doom hanging over all peoples, the shadow of doom darkening all nations. Yes, God will banish death forever. And God will wipe the tears from every face. The Lord will remove every sign of disgrace from the people, wherever they are for such is the promise of God’s grace forever.
Second, listen for the counter-cultural word of God’s feast in Luke 14:
One time when Jesus went for a Sabbath meal with one of the top leaders of the Pharisees, all the guests had their eyes on him, watching his every move. Right before him there was a man hugely swollen in his joints. So Jesus asked the religion scholars and Pharisees present, "Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath? Yes or no?" They were silent. So he took the man, healed him, and sent him on his way. Then he said, "Is there anyone here who, if a child or animal fell down a well, wouldn't rush to pull him out immediately, not asking whether or not it was the Sabbath?" They were stumped. There was nothing they could say to that… So he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You'll be—and experience—a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God's people.
And third that vision of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb of God in Revelation 19:
At the end of time when God has called together all the people from the four corners of the earth – all the tribes and all the nationalities together – there is a feast with the whole choir of heaven and earth singing “Hallelujah” together in harmony… and the Angel of the Lord will say: “Blessed are those who are invited to the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb of God.”
Now what do these three passages from scripture share in common? What alternative vision do they offer about life lived in the presence of God’s feast?
• Part of the vision is about joy, yes? “The idea of the messianic banquet is sensuous and lovely and filled with joy because it ushers in the end of sorrow.” (Holly Whitcomb, Feasting with God, p. 10) To live into the alternative of God’s love, therefore, is to find ways to celebrate within the midst of everyday and ordinary life.
• There is also something boldly inclusive about this feast, don’t you think? It is for ALL the people – not just Congregationalists or Catholics – nor only for Jews or Christians or Muslims either. How does Isaiah put it? “On God’s holy mountain there is a feast for all the people of the world.”
• And here’s another essential: the messianic banquet shows us that when we break free from the confines of our culture, then “the old order of living is dismantled and a new vision is both proclaimed and embodied… a vision that is more holistic and healthy, more humane and compassionate.” (Whitcomb, p. 11)
All of this from that one weird, perplexing but radically upside-down parable of a con man who worked creatively to take care of himself and his self-centered buddies: if those who are selfish and streetwise can do this, Jesus says, why can’t you who are the children of light? Sometimes it is because we don’t know the alternative to the obsessions of our culture.
And sometimes – and I think this is true for many of us – sometimes we are just too wounded to see beyond our hurt. For whatever reason, when we are profoundly broken or wounded, our vision is restricted – we lose the ability for a while to see anything but the darkness – even when the light is available.
• This means that those of us who can see the light – and the joy and the bounty available to us all at the Lord’s banquet table – need to live into the tender beauty of the feast all the more intentionally.
• How did the old timers used to put it: we need to be witnesses? Witnesses don’t have to proselytize – or become wildly evangelistic – ok? What does a witness in a courtroom do? They simply tell the truth as they have seen it as clearly and honestly as possible. Same for those of us able to live into the feast of the Lord: we have been called to speak of the joy and the inclusivity and the counter-cultural blessings of breaking out of the prison of our self-centered culture simply and honestly.
And when we do that we join Christ in advancing God’s banquet in the world: So here’s what I want you to do right now: we’re going to share a song – and as we do we’re going to distribute a small candle to you – there should be at least one for everybody.
• I want you to take that candle home with you: and sometime during the next week I want you to either light it for yourself if you find overwhelmed with the darkness.
• Or give the candle to someone else who might need a vision of the light. Don’t preach to them or even say a whole lot – maybe just something like, “I’ve been thinking about you this week and thought you might like this” – ok?
Father Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, NM put it like this:
Somewhere each day we have to fall in love, with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase, word, or sight. Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart. Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. We will slowly become cynical without even knowing it—that's where too much of the world is trapped. So create and discover the “parties of your heart,” the places where we can enjoy and taste the moment—the places where we can give of ourselves freely to what is right in front of us. For if you're not involved in giving your thoughts, your emotions to others, "for-giving" reality, as it were, taking will usually take over. One style or the other eventually predominates in almost everybody’s life. So ask God to give you the grace to fall in love with something every day. Then you'll see rightly, because only when we are in love do we understand. Only when we've given ourselves to reality can we in fact receive reality.
I am a few weeks into my "Feasting with God" series and find I am only scratching the surface of all the ideas swirling around my head. Yesterday in worship, we explored why it is essential for us to "taste and see" the goodness of the Lord - an image the feast brings home in spades - and concluded by "praying" with both dates (to mark our unity with Islam) and sweetened apples (to note our unity with Judaism.)
+ At the heart of worship was the awareness that until we "know" God's grace from the inside out, it is very hard to both share peace with others and trust that we are God's beloved. For unless we "taste and see," we are only talking about abstract ideas we are unable to incarnate.
+ I think that is why Jesus not only feasted with many who were on the margins of his society - he gave them an experience of "tasting" so that they might "see" - but invited his opponents to the table, too. It was his hope that his scandalous behavior might awaken those who challenged him - in the fashion of a Zen master - so that they might also experience and celebrate the radical grace of God.
It was not Jesus' goal to shame the scribes and Pharisees. The older I get the more I sense that Jesus loved them as much as he loved those who were regularly locked out of religion. But he challenged each group in unique ways so that each group might be embraced by God. For those who had been marginalized, he created experiences of community and companionship; and for those who were the traditional insiders, sometimes he let them feel what it was like to be shut-out of God's grace, but more often than not he gave them stories and experiences designed to awaken sleepy hearts with a new sense of the Lord's radical grace. As Eugene Peterson has said, the parables of Jesus are more about "detonation" than explanation - he blew their minds!
This week the gospel text is the Prodigal Son - the essence of Christian theology in my experience - and I look forward to wrestling with it again so that I, too, might taste and see. (Here's a lovely prayer/song we'll be working on soon...)
What do the 57% of Americans mean when they claim that "Ground Zero in NYC is sacred ground?" Mostly, I suspect, we don't really know - except to say that many of us have big feelings about the September 11th tragedy that we still can't fully comprehend. A minority of folk might want "sacred ground" to mean a place of historic national significance - like the Lincoln Memorial or the Vietnam Wall of Remembrance - and still fewer might think that something of the Lord was revealed in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
Whatever a majority of Americans think we mean, however, I'll bet it has nothing to do with the fact Muslims consider Ground Zero part of their sacred ground, too. And have since 1999 when the World Trade Center set aside a room for prayer on the 17th floor of the south tower. What's more, Muslims were murdered in the terrorist attack as well as Christians, Jews, Buddhists and those with no faith. The New York Times puts it like this today:
Opponents of the Park 51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition
“We weren’t aliens,” Mr. Abdus-Salaam, 60, said in a telephone interview from Florida, where he moved in retirement. “We had a foothold there. You’d walk into the elevator in the morning and say, ‘Salaam aleikum,’ to one construction worker and five more guys in suits would answer, ‘Aleikum salaam.’ ”
One of those men in suits could have been Zafar Sareshwala, a financial executive for the Parsoli Corporation, who went to the prayer room while on business trips from his London office. He was introduced to it, he recently recalled, by a Manhattan investment banker who happened to be Jewish. “It was so freeing and so calm,” Mr. Sareshwala, 47, said in a phone conversation from Mumbai, where he is now based. “It had the feel of a real mosque. And the best part is that you are in the epicenter of capitalism — New York City, the World Trade Center — and you had this island of spiritualism. I don’t think you could have that combination anywhere in the world.” (www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/nyregion/11religion.html?partner=rss&emc=rss)
So let's get real when it comes to sacred ground. Let's separate out our fuzzy and ill-shaped civil religion from what is truly sacred and get on with being Americans who welcome and encourage one another into our best selves. Let's start searching for the common ground - sacred or secular -because any thing less keeps the wounds open and it is time for some healing.
I think the Imam of the Park 51 Community Center got it right in his NY Times Op Ed piece on Thursday when he wrote: We are proceeding with the community center, Cordoba House. More important, we are doing so with the support of the downtown community, government at all levels and leaders from across the religious spectrum, who will be our partners. I am convinced that it is the right thing to do for many reasons.
Above all, the project will amplify the multifaith approach that the Cordoba Initiative has deployed in concrete ways for years. Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims. Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures.
Our broader mission — to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds and to help counter radical ideology — lies not in skirting the margins of issues that have polarized relations within the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims. It lies in confronting them as a joint multifaith, multinational effort. (www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08mosque.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=BUILDING%20ON%20FAITH&st=cse )
I am with you Imam Rauf - let's get it on and find common ground - together.
My all-time favorite Muslim - Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) - once sang a little tune at the start of his third album called "The Wind." It is one of the best prayer/songs ever...
I was thinking about it yesterday and today when the local paper and TV station interviewed me about our decision to consciously incorporate readings from the Qur'an and Hebrew Bible during worship on Sunday. As my worship notes make clear, not only will we be offering a clear alternative to the hate and fear-mongering of those who are going to burn Qur'ans on September 11th, but we'll also make clear connections as to how the three Abrahamic faith traditions are spiritual cousins - not enemies.
Trevor Jones' story in the Berkshire Eagle put it like this: PITTSFIELD -- Area Muslims and religious leaders of other faiths are denouncing the Rev. Terry Jones' plan to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11 at a small Florida church on Saturday. "What this guy in Florida [Rev. Terry Jones] is doing is an abomination and does not in any way represent the teachings of his religion, or my religion or any other faith that holds sacred the sacred teachings of other religions," said Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser of Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams.
Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center, a Gainesville, Fla.-based church with fewer than 50 members, is garnering international attention for planning to burn the text Muslims consider the word of God. Jones said he will go ahead with his "International Burn-a-Quran Day" on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this Saturday. "It's very upsetting and it's painful for me personally for people to think that [the Quran] is evil and they should burn it," said IrtefaBinte-Farid, a Williams College senior and member of the school's Muslim Student Union. "I would never imagine doing that to any book."
Mark Dupont, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, said in an e-mail that people of faith must respect the beliefs of others, adding the diocese "would echo the sentiments shared by the Vatican and the vast majority of other faith communities, which reject this action as one of religious intolerance and an act of violence in and of itself." Meanwhile, Dove World Outreach Center's activity on Saturday is coinciding with plans at several local synagogues and churches to embrace similarities with the Islamic faith.
Goldwasser, whose congregation will look at similarities between Judaism and Islam during a study session this Saturday, said the spread of images of burning Qurans will also present a danger to American servicemen and women. He called Jones' plan "an act of incitement intended to provoke a reaction, and he'll probably get one."
The First Congregational Church in Williamstown will work to counter that negative sentiment with a reading of a passage from the Quran during the Sunday service. "We need to overpower it with counter-examples," said Carrie Bail, the church's pastor. "We need to say, ‘Look, world, those may be a handful of people in Florida that have this idea, but there's way more than a handful of the rest of out there doing something different."
The Quran, according to Jones, is "evil" because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims. "It's very easy for people of faith to demonize one another," said James Lumsden, pastor at the First Congregational Church in Pittsfield. "It's a lot more complicated to find common ground."
Lumsden plans to read from Hebrew texts and the Koran at his sermon this weekend, acknowledging the start of the Jewish High Holy Days and the end of the Islamic holiday Ramadan. Lumsden said Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all borne out of the same core principals of embracing "God's love," and it's increasingly important for "people of tolerance to offer healthy and healing alternative to some of the craziness that's going on."
For her part, Binte-Farid said she and others plan to partake in a national day of service on Sept. 11. Recently returned from nine months abroad, Binte-Farid said she is surprised by the growing anger toward Muslims, but hopes the added attention will lead to better understanding of her religion.
"At least some people are getting to hear about Islam," said Binte-Farid. "Hopefully they can learn it's a peaceful religion."
These are ugly - and beautiful - times, yes? Made me think of another favorite prayer/song by Mary Chapin Carpenter (maybe I'll do it during worship, too.) God is all around, Buddha's at the gate, Allah hears your prayers it's not too late...
This coming Saturday -September 11th 2010 - my small faith community will gather at a local retreat/conference center for a day of reflection and prayer.Our goal: to discern how we might more fully engage both church and allies in the work of our four mission themes including 1) eco-justice 2) social justice 3) peace and 4) hunger. Already 20 people have registered and committed to reading serious theological reflections about each of these four themes.
On Sunday, as a part of our on-going "spirituality of the feast" series we will not only reference our connection with our spiritual cousins in Islam and Judaism during worship, we will lift up readings from both the Holy Qur'an and the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah. What's more, we will use the sacred food from both of these traditions - the date to break the fast of Ramadan and the apple dipped in honey to open Rosh Hashanah - as part of our morning encounter with prayer.
There has been a MASSIVE outpouring of warnings sent to one wounded and even mean-spirited Florida pastor who has proposed burning the Qur'an as a tribute to those martyred on September 11th. But as I told our local newspaper, "That hasNOTHINGto do with Christianity. It is more akin to the Nazis than Jesus. And what's to follow a book burning? Kristallnacht?"
Tonight I give thanks for our small but faithful group of pilgrims committed to the peace-filled and counter-cultural path of Jesus. Like one old rabbi friend told me, "The more you are like Jesus, the less I have to worry." Amen and amen!
NOTE:Here are my worship notes for Sunday, September 12, 2010. They are grounded in both the Common Lectionary readings for the day as well as our own exploration of what it means to see God's was as a life-long feast (or fast.) I am keenly aware that our Jewish friends begin Rosh Hashanah tomorrow and our Muslim friends end Ramadan on Saturday and these truths have been woven into my own reflection. If you are in town at 10:30 am on Sunday, please join us...
I have a vision for First Church – some might call it a fantasy or even a pipe-dream – but I believe it is a vision. A vision where our number one, primary and preferred way of teaching the faith involves a feast: can you imagine what that could mean?
• Adult classes gathered around a table – a sacred and sumptuous potluck each Monday evening – where the meal both shapes and empowers us to experience something of God’s mercy and joy?
• Sunday School for our children that engages all their senses and nourishes them in body as well as spirit?
• Seasonal, all-church celebrations that help us reclaim the ancient rhythm of feasting and fasting so that from the inside out we came to know what the Psalmist was talking about when she sang: taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Those are interesting words, don’t you think: taste and see? Experience and discover – feel and comprehend – sense and understand the mercy of the Lord. I think of our Jewish spiritual cousins who this week marked Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year – with a feast that includes honey, challah bread and apples. On the first night of the celebration, the challah is dipped into the honey with a blessing followed by apple slices as this prayer for a sweet new year is offered.
Blessed are you, Lord, our God, king of the universe who creates the fruit of the tree. (Amen) May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our ancestors that you renew for us a good and sweet year.
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner of Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco tells of how some small children in his tradition learn both the sweetness of the Lord and the importance of literacy by using their tongues to lick honey from tablets containing the Hebrew alphabet. I know that this would freak-out some of our germ-conscious folk, but still what a bold and embodied way to taste and see the goodness of the Lord, yes?
And our Muslim cousins – also connected to us through Abraham – know something about using food to taste and see the goodness of Allah, too: they just completed the holy fast of Ramadan. During the daylight, all food and drink is avoided in order to nourish patience, humility and spiritual intimacy with the Lord. At sunset, the family gathers to break the fast starting with eating a date – a sweet fruit – just as the Prophet Mohamed did in his day. And at the end of Ramadan, of course, there is a feast for friends and family where a portion of the feast is dedicated and shared with the poorest of the poor.
All of which brings me around to this morning’s gospel text in which tells us that by this point in his ministry…
… a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, "He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends." Their grumbling triggered this story from Jesus."Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!' Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue. Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.
Now I hope you noticed that once again Jesus is eating meals with those who have been both forgotten and excluded. And it is his table fellowship with those considered to be unclean and unsavory that upsets the religious scholars and leaders of his day more than anything else, right?
• So what do they do? What do the scribes and Pharisees – those who know the tradition best – do about this? What does the text tell us is their reaction to the feasts of Jesus and the sinners?
• They grumble. Murmur. Articulate their displeasure in low and mean-spirited words – and what is the Bible telling us in this description? What other people grumbled and murmured and complained in the history of God’s people?
• The children of God with Moses out in the desert, right? Time and again when they grew frightened or confused or simply un-comfortable, they murmured against Moses and his vision of freedom in a land filled with milk and honey. And their murmuring – the grumbling articulation of both their frustrations and ignorance – always led to trouble.
And that is part of what Luke’s gospel is asking us to hold in the back of our memories this morning: the murmuring, mean-spirited complaints of God’s people that always lead to trouble. Sometimes it looks like idolatry – as in today’s Old Testament story – other times it looks like cold and calculating political obstructionism as we see in Washington, DC today. So keep attentive for a bit because it is truly liberating how Jesus addresses and challenges the murmuring, ok?
He tells the grumblers a story – but not just any story – he shares with them two parables. And parables, says Eugene Peterson, are narrative time bombs. I respect the way one pastor put is once while explaining the power and potential of a parable:
Parables and myths (or foundation stories) function in diametrically opposite ways. Myths construct a world in which we can live. They tell us where we come from and who we are. Tribes, nations, religions, and families all have their own foundation stories. Parables, on the other hand, challenge accepted worldviews, expose their inadequacies, and require us to search for more adequate interpretations of who we are and how we ought to live. (David Howell, http://www.goodpreacher.com/)
Peterson takes it one step beyond saying, “We want to explain parables, usually reading them either as analogies to be decoded or puzzles to be solved. Either way, we try to tame them, even domesticate them, when all along parables favor detonation over explanation.”
So what is Jesus trying to detonate – or subvert – or even turn upside down with his parables? Let me suggest at least the following: first the very notion of sin, second the nature of God’s heart and third the importance of table fellowship or feasting in the healing of God’s people.
• Do you recall from this summer’s conversation with St. Paul and the insights he shares with us in the book of Romans how within the Jewish community of first century Palestine sin was under-stood to be actions that broke covenant with God and God’s people?
• Covenant, of course, has to do with the promises made between God and God’s people – vows about how we will live and love one another together in community – including things like: because we love the Lord and God’s people we promise not to steal from one another – or lie – or commit adultery, right?
As best as I can understand it, Jesus was trying to overthrow a narrow or even superficial notion of breaking covenant: he was clear that some actions and attitudes are truly sinful - they wound the Lord as well as the community of faith – but more often than not we confuse our fears and prejudices for the will of God.
Take that misguided and dangerous bible-thumper in Florida who burned copies of the Qur’an on September 11th. When asked what he knew about Islam – of loving his neighbors as himself in God’s grace – he could only reply: “I don’t know anything about it – I just know what it says in the Bible.” He is well-intentioned – probably loves his family and country – but somehow he has confused his fears with God’s will.
It brought to mind what the late Dietrich Bonheoffer said during the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany during the 1930s: “You cannot dare to sing our Gregorian chants if you do not stand with the Jews in their hour of need.” I am certain that he was right then – and is right today – that we who claim Christ as Lord cannot pretend to sing or live our faith if we do not also stand in solidarity and support with our Muslim cousins.
For that’s the first detonation of these parables: our sense of sin is often too self-serving and narrow to be of the Lord. Remember what Jesus told the religious leaders – who were also well-intentioned men who loved their families and country – at the start of his ministry? “Go and learn what this means: the Lord our God desires mercy not sacrifice.”
It’s from the prophet Hosea and Peterson rendition gives it power: I’m after compassion not religion – here to invite outsiders – not coddle insiders – so go figure that out!” First, our notion of sin is usually too self-centered so God calls us to be about compassion rather than the status quo – looking for and joining the outcasts rather than the insiders - ok?
Second, whenever we create the Lord in our image rather than live into God’s true image for us within, we shrink God’s heart. We restrict God’s love until the Lord’s blessings only extend to those who look and act like you and me. No wonder Jesus gave both the outsiders and the insiders – for the story tells us that Jesus shared this parable with both the sinners and the religious leaders – the story in which God was liken to a shepherd searching for a lost sheep or a woman searching for a lost coin.
+ See where this is going? A shepherd – that was bad enough – because a shepherd, while essential in an agricultural economy, was also considered ritually unclean and most often dirty, shiftless and untrustworthy. Can’t you just see the look of loving mischief on Rabbi Jesus’ face when it dawns on the crowd that the Lord is being portrayed as a ritually unclean shepherd who celebrates with a feast in heaven when one of the lost is found?
+ But then to make matters even worse, Rabbi Jesus goes on to say that maybe the Lord is also like a woman sweeping and cleaning and searching for a lost coin? What are you nuts: a woman? Who most likely was searching for part of her lost dowry?
It was bad enough that this coin was lost in the first place – it could have brought shame to the family - but then she goes and tells everyone she has found it – and she is joyful not ashamed. And, that, of course is the second explosion: God is really much more about joy and feasting than judgment and shame. And if that is God’s nature – and we are created in God’s image – how come there isn’t more joy and feasting in church?
• There is an old saying that rings true for me: a parent is only as happy as his/her least happy child. I know that one in my soul…
• And it seems that such wisdom is part of what Jesus evokes in these parables: God rejoices when the broken covenant is healed, feasts and celebrates when a wound is made whole and puts on a party in heaven when a sinner is welcomed home.
No wonder Jesus spends so much time eating and feasting with people rather than scolding or even instructing them: most of us learn best by doing and experiencing. We can’t intellectually embrace the sweetness of the Lord – we have to taste before we can see – the words have to become flesh before we understand.
And for so many of us who are lost, we don’t know what to do, right? One preacher put it like this: “at least according to this parable, there's not much you can do when you are lost. Jesus doesn't set out a formula about repenting first, or set down four spiritual rules, or even compose a "sinner's prayer" for us to recite. I suppose Jesus figures that often you don't even know you're lost in the first place.”
But you do know when you've been found. Sometimes, in fact, it's only when you're found that you realize you were lost at all. Which means, oddly, that while there's nothing to do when you're lost, there's all kinds of things to do once you've been found: like tell, share, shout, give thanks – in a word, rejoice. That’s why the primary character of the Christian life, from this point of view, isn't morality, or repentance, or discipline, or obedience, or any of the other hundred things we might suspect. These things are all good, just not primary. Rather what seems to be primary here is joy, the joy that comes from knowing that though you once were lost, you now are found. (David Lose, http://www.workingpreacher.org/)
I think it is right to say that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day – and maybe our own, too – forgot “how incredibly, unbelievably joyful it is to be sought, found and loved by a devoted, desperate parent. They remember the importance of obedience, discipline and morality… but forget the joy of being found.” (Lose)
Deep in the heart of our biblical tradition there is the wisdom that true joy is born of the Lord feasting in heaven. What’s more, for us to grow into the Lord’s joy here on earth as it is already being realized in heaven, we must come to the feast as well and live like God’s feast for the world:
• The feast of reconciliation – the feast of broken bread – the feast of discipleship where we practice loving one another as God truly loves us.
• And let’s face it: we have to practice. The way of Jesus has been around for 2,000 years – the way of Abraham for 2.000 more before that – and we still haven’t come very far from the grumbling and murmuring of the crowd.
So, we’re going to practice a mini-feast today – a baby taste and see exercise – borrowed from our cousins in Islam and Judaism: as we sing this prayer/song of joy for you, we’re going to distribute some dates and dried apples for you to taste – and maybe even see the goodness and joy of the Lord.
(This all that is available of this tender and beautiful song - so we'll do the whole thing on Sunday...)
In my lifetime there has always been a lot to say - mostly negative - about the American labor movement. I was born in the 50s and lived through the high point of organizing when almost 35% of the workforce paid union dues. Not only did unions set the standard for wages and benefits throughout the manufacturing industry - sometimes without a care as to the long term consequences - but also through a "trickle down" effect in other regions. Walter Reuther's UAW (United Auto Workers) were strong allies of Dr. King in the 60s and helped move labor from the sidelines to the forefront of progressive social policies. And I will always value the way organized labor supported Cesar Chavez and the emerging United Farm Workers movement: they not only kept many strikers families alive, but used their influence and clout during the boycotts of the 60s and 70s.
When my children were small, they learned the union versions of the old spiritual songs - Hallelujah, I'm a Bum instead of Hallelujah Thine the Glory - as well as Union Maid and all the rest. I'll never forget that when daughter number one graduated from high school - and each young woman had to give a senior speech - had the choir sing "Union Maid." And daughter number two's senior theme was Springsteen's "Badlands." Support for the labor movement was an essential part of growing up in our young family: we travelled with 1199 to support health care reform and joined the 20th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" rally with friends in the UAW. We bought and shopped union and made it a point to bank at the Amalgamated Textile Workers co-opt bank while in NYC.
In my experience, things started to go south when American manufacturing jobs plateaued in the 70s and labor started organizing within the public workers realm. Not, of course, that there wasn't a need - think MLK in Memphis with the garbage workers - but there is a big difference between public workers and private industry and that distinction was rarely appreciated. By the 80s, when steel production was disappearing from the USA and the last great recession was upon us, I know a lot of us in urban ministry thought: "Well, ok, but what about the greater good of serving the public?" as teachers and sanitation worker strikes brought our impoverished neighborhoods to a stand still. My first three churches were in strong union, urban communities - NYC, Saginaw and Cleveland - and a lot of my members were solid building tradespeople. But by the time Reagan broke the PATCO strike, it was clear that the once strong and innovative labor movement had become little more than a labor twitch.
What's more, in addition to losing public support, the labor movement was stagnating in its organizing efforts. To be sure, labor laws had changed since the 40s and 50s making it harder for organizers to be successful - or to effectively challenge employer intimidation - but the whole context for organizing had changed. Even the mood of the nation was different. Just watch the movie "Wall Street" for a sense of that era...
I know that by the time I was elected to the Board of Education in Cleveland, OH during the 90s, the unions were one of our biggest problems: archaic and punitive work rules made educational reform almost impossible. Janitors were the ones who determined how a building could be used - not principals and teachers - and the building trade unions had become the center of economic nepotism and graft. Additionally, a sense of entitlement and low expectations thrived among employees at every level while the educational level of the city's poorest children continued to go down the toilet.
"What an irony," I kept thinking. "I used to be an organizer for a union and now they are part of the entrenched enemy." From teachers unions protecting the jobs of their worst members - roughly the bottom 20% who held back not only the top 20% but the middle 60% of schools from embracing real educational excellence - to Board of Education secretaries who spent more time taking naps in the restrooms than supporting children, I experienced first hand the down side of labor's arrogance and myopic vision. Clearly, their status quo was no longer serving the greater good.
And now with labor representing less that 10% of the American workforce, the balance seems to be shifting again, yes? There are bold and creative organizing efforts taking place throughout the United States that are building community-labor coalitions - an especially important change given both the shift in the nature of job creation as well as the massive unemployment of this recession. Labor is articulating a clear need for greater government spending on infrastructure to address the crumbling roads and bridges that local communities can no longer repair. They are working with religious organizations, too to pursue national policies that broaden rather than restrict social justice. And in a time of fear and rising prejudice, labor is often making it clear that social progress is intimately woven into economic well-being of our ordinary citizens.
Today, President Obama announced his commitment for a new initiative that would unleash $50 billion for infrastructure jobs. (www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/us/politics/07obama.html?partner=rss&emc=rss) No doubt the "no nothing" Republicans will not only thwart this effort at economic revival, but will continue to oppose supporting small business creation, too. They are revelling in both political obstructionism at its worst while nourishing a mean-spirited bigotry that they will not be able to contain. Add to it all the dangerous Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin uber-emphasis on a-historic individualism and... there is a real battle brewing. Dr. King got it right AGAIN as he said to the garbage workers of Memphis on the night before he was assassinated...
So I sat down this afternoon - after worship and some errands - and outlined a few thoughts about the next few weeks of worship and before I knew it... I was up to Advent I 2010! Apparently its only 11 weeks away- and 14+ weeks till Christmas Eve! Figures - the floor was freezing this morning when I got up for prayers. Before you know it, there will be snow...
+ For the next five weeks I'll be writing and teaching about "the feast" - an experiential way of becoming a disciple of Christ - that is all about joy and creativity. For most of my life, the way of spiritual discipline has been more about giving up than being filled. One of my favorite resources comes from Holly Whitcomb: Feasting with God. It is really worth looking over - God knows I hope to use it as a foundation for intergenerational spirituality classes next year. Imagine: a full year of feasting - various themes, prayer, songs and meals - shared cooperatively with beauty and grace.
+ This coming Saturday, September 11th we'll be holding a justice/mission retreat at a local camp and retreat center. Some Christian fundamentalists are threatening to burn copies of the Qu'ran on the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attack. What incredible stupidity and arrogance to my way of being faithful. To be sure, I still go to Ground Zero every time I am in Manhattan - spend some time in quiet prayer and drop into Trinity Church, too - because part of my heart is still wounded.
But hatred and fear begets violence and those who claim to follow the Prince of Peace have a calling higher than fanning the flames of bigotry and fear. There is always a time to grieve and a time to weep but now it is a time for peace and peace-making. In my heart, September 11th has become greater than any ideology or religion and just comes down to this...
+ Feasting in the Sufi tradition offers another insight into this essential but counter-intuitive spirituality:The month of fasting, Ramadan, is often greeted by the Sufis as a good friend and as a welcome and honoured guest. They love to see this guest come, but also to see him go. The implication of the first is clear, but perhaps not of the second. The end of the month of fasting is followed by a feast. In ordinary terms this means that you can eat and drink. But in Sufi terms the feast implies the meeting with the Beloved - and the Beloved is then the cup bearer who pours out the wine of gnosis (wisdom and truth) and love. (www.chishti.ru/d_fasting.htm) After our feasting series - which includes a look at the feast as a way of prayer, a path into creativity, a tender school of hospitality as well as something of God's vision for creation - it is on to our annual stewardship drive. This year we have banished ALL talk of guilt and obligation: our goal is to live into the promise that those who give gifts from their hearts will be filled with joy.
And then it will be Thanksgiving - and our annual American Music Festival to raise funds for those with emergency fuel needs in the Berkshires -which is one of the highlights of my year: great musicians gather and share their gifts and music in ways that gets the crowd singing and sharing. Group singing is a lost art in the United States - except in certain rock concerts - but then the volume is usually too loud to sing in harmony. There is something ecstatic about Springsteen or U2 - and I cherish those times - but there is something holy, too, about ordinary people getting together to sing and create a little beauty and a bit of hope.
And no sooner is that feast over then it will be Advent. Hard to believe but... true.
I just came upon a new poem by Keith Ekiss called "Ode to the Creosote Bush" - and damn if doesn't evoke memories of the desert! It comes from his Pima Road Notebook and sure evokes the Sonoran Desert as I experienced her for the 10 years we were in Tucson. And still when it rains... I miss that high desert perfume. Check it out...
If you have any doubt about it, know that the desert begins with the creosote. —Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain
Because you are the flowering of drought. Because you grow amber and resinous from barren soil.
Over desert flats you spread out unregarded. You announce the festival of rain.
Because you house detritus-feeders. Because your white fruits are dispersed by pocket mice. Because kangaroo rats nest in your midden.
Dwarfing redwoods, outlasting bristlecone pines, oldest living thing born of the last ice age.
Because as a child I broke your white branch. I could hide behind your tangled limbs.
Because you come from Argentina. Because in Spanish you are gobernadora, hediondilla, guamis. Because hediondilla means little stinker. Because your prettiest name is covillea.
Pima tea, cure for infection and wound, bouquet of oil and lac.
You are called greasewood. You are pungent and odorous. You sign your poem anonymous.
Because you are sealant and glue, only jackrabbits eat your leaves. I lift your flowers if I want to breathe rain. You belong nowhere else but the desert.
Here are some old desert boys from their beginning who get something of that feeling, right, too. So sweet... (man I still recall seeing them JUST like this a hundred years ago.)
or, mother and mentor in New Haven, CT. What a trip to find that our young seminarian at Yale is doing and internship with my old friend. It is a blessing. What's more, the young person at seminary is SOOOO grounded and wise! It was a treat to visit and get caught up today as we prepare for the next steps in the United Church of Christ "discernment for ministry" process. What a privilege to be with a young person exploring the next steps of ministry.
