New/old thoughts about talents and keeping it real...

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, November 12, 2011. Please join us if you are in town at 10:30 am.  After worship, we will also hold a congregational meting to finalize our Open and Affirming statement. 

To be a person of faith in the spirit of Jesus means that you have learned to live your ordinary life extraordinarily well.  Like the ancient Church Fathers used to say:  the glory of God is a human being fully alive. Isn’t that beautiful?  The glory of God is a human being fully alive!

+As the story says we’ve ALL been given talents by the Lord – we’ve been given grace and blessings and joy, too – but do we use them and share them and multiply them or do we bury them?

+Do we live our ordinary lives so extraordinarily well that we imitate God’s gracious generosity and abundance – or are we cheap –   or fearful – or self-absorbed – and maybe just a little bit lazy?

That’s what I want to consider with you this morning as we try to keep it real –

 especially when it comes to this parable that has been over worked and misinterpreted for centuries – do we imitate God’s generosity or just play it safe?  Do we recognize – and fully embrace – the magnitude of God’s grace – regardless of the pain and darkness we also know in our lives – or do we waste it over and over again?  Do our ordinary lives give shape and form to the extraordinary generosity of God made real to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?

So this morning let me share three insights with you and then I’ll take your questions:

+ First, let me clarify the meaning of talents because I think they have often been misrepresented in a ways that don’t bring us closer to God.

+ Second, let me share some thoughts about how this story invites us to respond to God’s generosity in our ordinary lives.

+ And third let me remind you that when it comes to God’s grace we are called NOT to play it be safe but to embrace this gift with creativity and a boldness that defies the imagination.

But first pray with me that we might be grounded in the Lord’s presence: O God of Grace and God of Glory: may the words of my mouth and the meditation of each of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight through Christ Jesus our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit reign now and forever. Amen.

Now right out of the gate let me say that this parable is NOT really about your abilities – or your creativity – or your wealth, beauty, talent or value:  it is about God’s grace.  I know it has been interpreted in other ways on and off throughout the years – and preachers LOVE to allegorize this text, too – talking about cultivating the God-given skills and abilities you have been born with and using and sharing them fully. Such talk builds up our institutions – keeps people volunteering – and makes others feel guilty.

Nevertheless, such an interpretation is fundamentally flawed because mostly it is about God’s grace.  When Jesus tells his story about a wealthy man who gives his slaves 5 and 2 and 1 talents, you have to know that a talent is serving as a symbolic representation of God’s grace, ok?

At first it doesn’t seem like it because in real life a talent was also a coin worth more than more than 20 years wages – between 75-96 pounds of silver in Christ’s time – so we’re talking about a massive act of generosity.     And I trust that Jesus used this symbol to get people’s attention: real people throughout the ages often need a hook to help them pay attention to the story, right?  We’re so very easily distracted…

+ Who watches television? Do you ever use your remote to flip through the hundreds of options available to you on cable until something grabs you attention?  Then you know what I’m talking about…

+ Who listens to the radio in the car?  A friend of mine once went to a workshop in Nashville for contemporary country song writers where they told him that their market audience is a 35 year old woman with a few kids in the back seat of a sport utility vehicle on the way to or from some child’s event – so you have less than 20 seconds to grab her attention before she punches another button and moves on.

Last month my brother-in-law auditioned in Manhattan for “America’s Got Talent” and he had to sell himself to the studio audience and judges in 90 seconds. Trust me, Jesus understood human nature, so he told a story that would grab people’s attention immediately, ok?  Trust me also that the pay off comes at the end of the story when the obvious is turned on its head – just like the kingdom of God – but at first he starts with something provocative to get us hooked.

It would be like me giving you a winning Powerball or Mega-Millions lottery ticket at the close of worship and then heading out of town.

+ Are you with me on this so far? That the talents in the story are a catchy and provocative way of luring people into a tale that is really about God’s grace?

+ This is not about practicing your piano lessons or becoming a doctor or a teacher or anything else vocational.  This is about recognizing that God has given us all – even those with only one talent – an enormous gift of grace.

And here’s something else you need to know about the talents: they were not on loan from the master, ok? These were flat out gifts – they became the property of the slaves – who

were not asked to return anything at the end of the story. Interesting, don’t you think?  If this were a story about being loaned some huge quantity of money, then it would become a stewardship message – and I’ve heard this text preached on stewardship Sundays all my life– but this isn’t about a loan.

+ It is about a gift – an incredibly generous gift – that everyone benefits from, right?

+ That’s the first insight: God’s upside-down kingdom is all about generosity and grace given to everyone.

The second idea from the story is this: just like each of the slaves was given

a gift and asked to use it to the best of their ability, so too are we.  And let me push

the envelope a bit with you here because this could be important. Did you notice that two

of the slaves were given a massive gift of grace?

+ What did they do with it?  They multiplied it – doubled it – so that there was a whole lot more to share and give away.

+ These servants treated their gift with the same audacious generosity as the one who it to them.  Verse 23 puts it like this:

Well done good and faithful servant; you have been trustworthy with a few things, now I will put you in charge of many things: come, enter into the joy of your master.

Hmmmmm…?  The joy of your master – what do you think that’s about?  A brief survey of Matthew’s gospel is insightful:  The first time the word joy (chara) is used is when the Magi see the star leading them to Bethlehem and stop to rejoice at the Lord’s birth.

+ In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples that that will rejoice and be glad whenever they are persecuted for following him for their reward will be in heaven.

+ The man who finds a treasure hidden in a vacant field is filled with joy when he sells all he owns to buy it.  A shepherd who finds a lost sheep rejoices over it, more than the ninety-nine who never went astray.

+ And the women who come to the empty tomb after the Lord’s crucifixion experience joy and awe when they are told that Christ lives again and will meet them back in Galilee.

Preacher and bible scholar, Brian Stoffregen, says that in the gospel of St. Matthew, joy is caused at “finding the infant Jesus, trusting that your reward will come in heaven, hearing God’s word, experiencing the kingdom of God in all its surprising forms, being rescued like a lost sheep and discovering that Christ has been raised from the dead.”  Joy it would seem – the joy of the Master – has something to do with being open to grace and sharing it with as much reckless abandon and generosity as God.

+ And I say this because look at what happens to the other slave who simply buried his blessing. He didn’t waste – or squander it or do anything wrong with it – he just didn’t do anything with it.

+ He stuck it in a hole in the ground in fear:  I was afraid so I went and hid your gift in the ground.

And what does the master say to this news:  You wicked and lazy fool – you neither reaped nor sowed, gathered nor scattered my gift – so get away from me… and live into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

That’s a hard word: an important word, too but still a hard one because there’s nothing about Jesus meek and mild here.  And I think the reason it is included in Matthew’s gospel is contextual. Jesus first shared this with his friends and apprentices to help them prepare for times of darkness and waiting. “You will be tested by real life,” he was telling them, “by darkness and fear, by your wounds and the wounds others inflict upon you. And the only way through the darkness is by sharing the light I have already given to you with reckless generosity.”

+ Forty years later, St. Matthew was telling the community much the same thing: unless we’re willing to be as generous as God to us with grace… we’re going to blow it. Our own fears – or laziness – or judgment will lock us up into a hole in the ground where we’ll miss the chance to share love and forgiveness and compassion.

+ You see God’s grace is not diminished by sharing it; someone likened it to a Christmas Eve candlelight celebration: “When one person shares the light of a candle with another, the first person’s light isn’t diminished in any way – and now there is twice as much light as before.” (Stoffregen)

Not so, however for the third slave who is judged – and cast away for a time – because he was too afraid to share. He hoarded the light – he wasted the gift – and he lived more into his wound than God’s gift of grace. So that’s the second insight: if we live into the master’s joy and generosity – if we share it with abandon – then we will experience blessing God’s presence within and among us ways that defy our imagination. If we don’t, we will know only darkness and the gnashing of teeth.

So don’t play it safe, beloved, that’s the third insight:  DON’T play it safe and bury grace in a hole in the ground.  Or in a hole in your heart - or in a wound in your life.  God really is greater than our wounds and fears and hurts and that’s why we’re asked to consider St. Paul’s wisdom today, too. He is living proof that God’s grace is bigger than all our wounds.  You recall the arch of his story, right?

He began as an opponent of the Lord Jesus Christ – he hated the new way – and created a life dedicated to destroying Christianity. But on his way to bring some Christians to death, what happened?  He was struck blind by the resurrected Jesus – he was challenged and judged by God and heard Christ call him out on his hatred – only to be taken into the care of his former enemies and nursed him back into health.

And then for 14 years – this is the part I often forget – for 14 years he went off into Syria and Arabia for prayer to sort out the meaning of this judgment by grace.  We know that his conversion happened in about 32 of the Common Era and he arrived in Thessalonica about 51 CE:  that’s 14 years of being judged by God’s grace.  No wonder he told his first congregation in I Thessalonians 5:

God didn't set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we're awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we're alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you'll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you're already doing this; just keep on doing it.

And this wasn’t some cheap misappropriation of God’s amazing grace – a campaign stunt by one of the cartoon characters who currently pollute the political world – now this was the real deal: I once was lost but now am found – was blind but now I see. 

Grace generously offered – and shared with abandon – is the way an ordinary life is lived extraordinarily well.  And here’s the last thing:  even judgment born of Christ’s grace holds the possibility of redemption. The great Reformed theologian, Karl Barth, put it like this:

The person who says that the Bible leads us to where finally we hear only a great No or see a great void, proves only that he or she has not yet been led thither. This No is really Yes. This judgment is grace. This condemnation is forgiveness. This death is life. This hell is heaven. This fearful God is a loving father who takes the prodigal into his arms. This crucified is the one raised from the dead. And this explanation of the cross as such is eternal life. No other additional thing needs to be joined to the question…

For even just asking the question opens us to the answer: God didn't set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ who died for us a death that triggered life.

+ God shares with us all an amazing grace

+ God calls us to find the heart of living well by sharing that grace

+ And God’s grace never quits for even judgment there is light

Well, that’s the good news for today:  any questions?

Monday morning insights with the flu...

One of the unexpected blessings of being down with the flu is the chance to catch up on reading the Christian Century magazines that sit by my bedside. I always skim the latest issue when it arrives - and sometimes dive right into a particularly important essay - but mostly I take my time with these gems. And in time, a stack of them takes shape and for on my night stand that eventually gets explored during the quiet time after Christmas and Easter as well as summer vacations.Today two book reviews captured my imagination:

+ A Play-Full Life: Slowing Down and Seeking Peace by Jaco Hamman. The review notes that "in an era and society in which fear, worry and anxiety are ever-present and constantly amplified, Hamman offers a play-full life as both an alternative and a form of faithful resistance." This is exactly what was suggested by Harvey Cox in his brilliant but oft overlooked work from 1968: Feast of Fools. Cox was prescient when he wrote:

It is important to emphasize that among other things man (sic) in his very essence is homo festivas and homo fantasia. Celebrating and imagining are integral parts of (our) humanity. But Western industrial man in the past few centuries has begun to lose his capacity for festivity and fantasy - and this loss is calamitous for three reasons: 1) It deforms man by depriving him of an essential ingredient in human existence; 2) It endangers his very survival as a species by rendering him provincial and less adaptive; and 3) It robs him of a crucial means of sensing his important place in fulfilling the destiny of the cosmos. The loss is personal, social and religious.

As a local church pastor I have long known this to be true - and experimented with ways of reclaiming the foundational practices of fantasy and festival in both my personal as well as corporate spirituality. Last Saturday, for example, was our annual Harvest Dinner at church. Sometimes this has been a very "dry" and uber-adult affair: wine and cheese at 5:30 pm followed by lounge music and a sit-down dinner. And there is a place for dressing in our finery and putting on the Ritz from time to time - even at church. But not if it shuts out young families, children, the poor or those without a sense of "place" within the congregation. Then, indeed, we become the "country club at prayer."

So, over the past five years we've tried to find ways of making this annual event more festive in the most playful sense - and now children and families, people with partners and those who are solitary have started participating in larger and larger numbers. My lay leaders let themselves be playful with the tradition - they encouraged fantasy and experimentation - and on Saturday over 80 of us from 7 to 95 gathered for a feast. For the first time the church band, Between the Banks, was asked to provide entertainment, too. So we discerned that rather than perform, the theology of this feast demanded a group hymn-sing-a-long event with as many full body, hand movement songs thrown into the mix as possible. Laughter, too - hence the "competition" to sing "Amazing Grace" not only to the well known tune but also to "Stairway to Heaven," "House of the Rising Sun" and let's not forget "Gilligan's Island!"

Cox writes in a provocative and playful way: In representing Christ as a clown our generation probably senses, at least intuitively, that the painted grin and motley suit carry multiple meanings and more. The very ambiguity of the cap and bells somehow suits our wistful, ironic attitude towards Christ. To Christ's pointed question of Peter, "Who do you say I am?" we can no longer conscientiously spout only the conventional replies... (so that) we may express many things at once: our doubts, our disillusionment, our fascination and our ironic hope." Clearly, I am going to order this book and invite our leadership team to read it with me.

+ Then there is Norman Wirzba's Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. This looks like a winner, too that helps deepen my own theology of the feast in thought and practice. For the past 10 years I have been thinking, experimenting, studying and practicing an ever-evolving theology of the feast. When we were in Glasgow, Scotland I saw a little flier in one of the many churches we visited that framed the ministry of Christ as making his hands, feet, heart and mind real. That led to me reclaiming the importance of table fellowship - and a decade long search for ways of building Christian community around the radically open table.

Wirzba writes: Why did God create a world in which every living creature must eat? He then answers it like this: "Eating joins people to each other, to other creatures and to the world." My daughters have helped me explore this with their commitment to feasting at the holidays. We love to set a beautiful table and create rich and satisfying meals for one another. I've grown deeper through the writing of Joy Mead - The One Loaf - Holly Whitcomb - Feasting with God - and Donna Sinclair's brilliant Spirituality of Bread. What's more, the celebration of Eucharist has become central to my presence as a pastor. I share Mead's observation that:

... the so-called Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as it is observed in most churches, has little relevance for modern people, precisely because it has little or no relation to eating and drinking outside the church walls. With the problems of hunger and poverty - and of the production, distribution and consumption of food which oppress all people in their daily lives - Holy Communion has virtually no relation to people's work, their economics or their politics... it seems that a wedge has been driven between the sacred and the secular, the soul and the body, the spiritual and the temporal... a wedge that remains between a holy and profane way of eating and drinking.

Perhaps that is why I rejoiced over Saturday's feast that was filled with fun and real connections. This is a parable for our deepening ministry, yes? A radical, simple, earthy and practical way of being Christ's body in the world: feasting in a playful and compassionate way in community. 

As the Century article put it: "it is all about communion, community and (participation)... (in a world of) exile where we refuse to welcome and accept responsibility for the membership of creation of which we are a part; exile is alienation and isolation from communion... But every mundane act of eating is an invitation to commune with God and God's creation."

So as the flu moves through and I take a little down time, I give thanks to God.


credit:
+ Gastronomical Jesus @ http://paintedprayerbook.com

Thanksgiving Eve 2011

Here is the press release that just went out for our up-coming benefit...

Fourth Annual Thanksgiving Eve Benefit for Emergency Heat in the Berkshires

Indie Artists Gather to Sing Out for the Poor

Pittsfield, MA – November 1, 2011. Local independent musicians and artists in Berkshire County announced the Fourth Annual Festival of American Music and Poetry at First Church on Park Square (27 East Street, Pittsfield, MA). This benefit for the PittsfieldArea Council of Congregations Emergency Fuel Fund takes place on Thanksgiving Eve, Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 7:30 pm. Performers include: Between the Banks, Andy Kelly, Carlton Maaia II, Rebecca Leigh, Graham Sturz, Linda Worster, Bert Marshall and Hal Lefferts.

“This is a chance for great musicians to share American music with Pittsfield and raise funds for our neighbors in need,” said the Reverend Dr. James Lumsden, pastor of First Church and concert organizer. “It is what the heart of Thanksgiving is all about.” This is the fourth year local musicians, poets and artists have joined together to use their gifts to fight the cold Berkshire winter.

All the funds raised are distributed through the Pittsfield Area Council of Congregations Emergency Fuel Assistance Fund – an inter-faith community of compassion in Berkshire County with a 100 year history in Pittsfield. 

For more information:

· www.firstchurchpittsfield.org

· www.pittsfieldcongregations.org

Sunday evening thoughts about the end of autumn...

The last two days have been stunning autumn days with brilliant sunshine, frost and soft, cool breezed. Soon, the sun will vanish for 6 months and the sky will be filled with grey - and often snow.  Such is the close to my favorite season to be outdoors - fall - and the sneaky start of a drift into winter. We hiked in the woods for a bit yesterday just to savor the smells of the leaves and to bask in the glory of a late afternoon orange sun. For most of my life, I have considered winter something to be avoided if not overly fought. The words of Carl Sandburg might have been my own...

 I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

But now - in fits and starts - and with a still emerging cautious optimism, I am starting to cherish the blessings of winter. Poet, Donald Hall, in a collection of essays about the seasons at his home on Eagle Pond, New Hampshire writes of people who have come to "know themselves" by winter. 

In New Hampshire we know ourselves by winter - in snow, in cold, in darkness. For some of us the first true snow begins it.  For others winter begins with the first bruising assault of zero weather. There is yet another sort, light lovers, for whom winter begins with dark's onset in mid-August... and then there are those who love the darkness... we are partly tuber, partly bear.

This is a unique perspective on living, yes?  For me, a truly acquired taste, to be sure - not quite Hall's tuber but more like Robert Frost's crow.

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

In an essay about "the spirituality of the seasons," Brenda Coleman notes "The gift of seasons (whether they are calendar seasons, church seasons, or the seasons of life) is in living in their movement, and recognizing the signs and subtleties of the changes. When we stop to notice, we give ourselves the opportunity to care for our souls, our inner selves. These changes are our road signs to stop and pay attention to the movement of God in and through us."  Then she observes:

Then winter arrives . . . with its extremes . . . the ever present darkness, punctuated with blindingly bright sunshine that reflects off the white snow. We are forced to take notice of the contrasts. We sit in our warm houses and cars looking outside where the temperatures are extreme, wondering why we have to go out at all. We feel like we are on hold … and all of life, except an occasional cardinal at the feeder, seems to have abandoned the earth or be hidden away. Is there a spirituality of winter? What might God be telling us in . . .

• The sharp contrasts – the darkest nights, the brightest stars, the blinding white snow.

• The emptiness - the stillness - the quiet - the slowing down.

• The dying back to our bare potential and reducing our lives to what is essential.

• The beginnings of rejuvenation – both of the earth and ourselves

I am starting to get it - it is bigger than my feelings - bigger than my limited perspective, too. Frederic and Mary Ann Bruasault suggest that another part of winter's spirituality has to do with nourishing wonder. "Winter can be a wonderland for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. While on the surface the winter world appears drab, especially compared to the riot of summer and fall colors, with wonderosity we can find much to celebrate in these months. Increasing our appreciation for all of God’s Creation by consciously noticing what arouses our wonder is a spiritual practice."

Four little things have helped me start to embrace a healthy spirituality of winter: snow days, snow shoes, cross country skis and warm feet.  Snow days are obvious:  they force us all to stop and be still.  It is so quiet in the Berkshires after a deep snow - dangerous, to be sure - but equally beautiful. Snow days are an unexpected retreat.  I young mom said to me this morning, "When we got socked by 18" of snow last week, I didn't complain! I rested a bit longer, did some house chores with my husband - we NEVER do that unless in snows - and enjoyed a quiet time with the boys without having to rush around to their activities."

Snow shoes let you go into the woods - or by the frozen river - and enter into a whole different quiet.  NOBODY is out there. Cross country skis are for moving - and that has its place - but snow shoes are for wandering through the most unlikely places. I've been on the Housatonic River at dusk when everything turns silver. I've listened to the wind whip across the ice without any other sound, too. Let's be honest, I'm not very good on cross country skis - yet - but they bring blessings too and get me moving when the weather would ordinarily keep me house bound. They get me sweating and celebrating being alive in the winter sun, too.

And let me simply note, that having warm feet is the difference between heaven and hell for me. One of the reasons I have hated winter for more than 50 years is directly attributable to cold, wet feet.  So, while I still have miles to go before I can truly "sleep" and rest with winter, I'm getting closer to celebrating this season. I think Billy Collins gets it right he writes:

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children's School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with -- some will be delighted to hear --

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and -- clap your hands -- the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

I wait and I pray...

Not long ago I shared with a friend that currently my favorite Psalm is 131:

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.  But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.  O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

Walter Brueggemann, in his essential aide to praying the Psalms -The Message of the Psalms - underscores the importance of this short prayer-poem when he writes:  "The piety reflected in this psalm is directly opposed to modernity with its drive toward independence, self-sufficiency and autonomy... The myth of modernity believes that real maturity is to be free of every relationship of dependence. But... (here) it is evident that the human goal is not to be breaking away, but happy trust."

Two thoughts deserved further comment:

+ First, this is NOT simply about personal piety - although there is that dimension present - and there is nothing wrong with personal piety, yes?  Unless, of course, it becomes the whole story - and this is clearly not the case in Psalm 131. Rather, this testimony of rest and trust is offered in opposition to business as usual in politics, religion and social relationships.  The prophet Isaiah (2: 6-22) speaks of the status quo of Israel as "being proud, haughty, lifted up, arrogant and autonomous. (This, declares the prophet) leads to destruction... while the voice of the psalm offers a positive counterpart. This does not mean abdication or resignation, but the recognition of how life with God finally is."  (pp. 48-49)

+ Second, this psalm struck me as being a part of the spirituality that Reinhold Niebuhr embodied - and with good reason. Last night I started to read Charles Lamert's new book, Why Niebuhr Matters, and came across this pithy summary: 

In the middle of the 20th century, having outgrown a theological liberalism, Niebuhr challenged and rethought the nonsocialist Left in American politics. He developed a political realism that refused to sacrifice ideals to mere pragmatism, or politics to bitterness and greed. He examined the problems of morality in an immoral society and re-imagined the balance between rights and freedom for the individual and social justice for the many.

Both the Psalm and the heart of Niebuhr sound a lot like the critique being shared from the Occupy Wall Street encampment.  Writing in Friday's NYTimes, Thomas Friedman noted:

... this gets to the core of why all the anti-Wall Street groups around the globe are resonating. I was in Tahrir Square in Cairo for the fall of Hosni Mubarak and one of the most striking things to me about that demonstration was how apolitical it was. When I talked to Egyptians, it was clear that what animated their protest, first and foremost, was not a quest for democracy - although that was surely a huge factor. It was a quest for justice. Many Egyptians were convinced that they lived in a deeply unjust society where the game had been rigged by the Mubarak family and its crony capitalists. Egypt shows what happens when a country adopts free-market captialism without developing real rule of law and institutions... (and today) our own Congress is a forum for legalized bribery!

And Gary Dorrien of Union Theological Seminary puts it like this in a recent issue of the Christian Century:  "The Occupy Wall Street movement will probably not produce theories of economic democracy or policies for it. But to their immense credit, the occupiers have set off the first protest movement that responds with anything like the moral outrage that is appropriate to the situation."  (Dorrien offers a thorough and important context and critique, too @ http://christiancentury.org/article/2011-10/case-against-wall-street?print). 

So I can't help but go back to the Psalm as a gentle and prefigurative "Serenity Prayer" (check out Elizabeth Sifton's book, Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War. She is Niebuhr's daughter and offers a brilliant understanding of why and how this prayer came to pass amidst the tumult of economic depression and escalating fear and war.)

+ My heart is not lifted up: that is, I don't think too highly of my self or my own problems today...

+ Rather I trust that YOU are Lord so I don't have to try to be God: I can do my part and know that my part is sufficient.
+ And trusting that your freedom and justice and love, O Lord are the alternative we need at this moment in time - not more insider Wall Street deal-making, not more partisan bickering and certainly not more mean-spirited blathering - I will do my part.

+ I will accept what I can change - I will accept what is beyond this moment - and I will rest like a child in her mother's arms, too without giving in to either bitterness or defeat.

+ To be sure, acceptance means that I don't have all the policy prescriptions, Lord - some things are beyond me - but you have already inspired others to figure out those details. Didn't you already proclaim: "to every thing there is a season?"

So I am going to rest in the trust that as I seek you - in the face of the least of these my sisters and brothers as well as your amazing grace - I can live as a quiet presence in this all too busy and angry world:  maybe I can even live at peace with myself and creation.  God grant me that serenity...

Don't hurry up... ok?

One of the commitments we made upon leaving the desert Southwest for the hills and trees of the North Country was that whatever else was done in this new ministry, it had to be fun. "If it isn't fun, don't do it!"  Now fun can sound frivolous to those who are obsessed with hurrying about. It probably sounds cruel to those obsessed with their own pain and fear, too.

So perhaps we should have said something like: "Unless it nourishes JOY..." - or the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of SELF - or even savors time for simple acts of ordinary compassion, yes? That might have better articulated the alternative to the small worlds we sometimes find ourselves trapped within that was part of discerning this new calling.  But... fun is what was said, so there you have it.

(This Springsteen clip has a killer second verse and bridge about suddenly realizing the traps we've created for ourselves... and the ecstatic joy of release.  One of my favorites.)

Five years into this new commitment, however, I now want to say that while fun is a fine word - a good starting place that points ministry in the right direction - it just doesn't go deep enough. I saw something yesterday that reaffirmed this insight in a discussion about fanaticism:  it was observed that fanatics lacked the ability - and desire - to laugh at themselves. Laughter as a unique spiritual discipline begins with fun - I think of playing with babies as they discover the sheer joy of learning to laugh - and how healing that is for everyone involved. But learning to laugh at yourself goes deeper - it takes a commitment to being playful - for only then can it become an asset in nourishing humility.

Laughter also takes time... At our midweek Eucharist one of my friends mentioned a poem she had just heard by Marie Howe from the book The Kingdom of Ordinary Time.  I had just rushed in from another appointment so was not fully grounded.  But as I thought about it I realized that I had heard this poem.  In fact, I owned the book!  In a poem called, "Hurry," Howe writes:

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,
Honey I'[m sorry I keep saying Hurry -
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing.  Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.

Been there - done that - am often STILL there DOING that - right? The laughter and call to fun were the clue - a piece of going deeper - but going deeper into joy and a way of living that refuses to hurry is closer to the true calling.  Eugene Peterson writes that we are called to be changed by what God is doing in us - not remain static - or stagnant.

It is the nature of God is doing in us that we grow. But this 'naturalness' does not mean that growth is painless. Growth calls into action new parts of our minds, our emotions, our bodies. What we experience at these times often feels like pain. We are not used to stretching ourselves in these ways. But the pain should not surprise us - our muscles ache when we take up any new activity. Athletes expect to get sore muscles when they begin training. A commitment to Christ and obedience to his commands stretch us beyond ourselves - and that hurts. But his is a very different pain from that inflicted by torture or punishment. Growth pain is the kind we don't regret; it leads to health and not disease or neurosis.

Then he reworks a passage from Hebrews 5 like this:

I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you've picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet her I find you in need of someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again - starting from square one - baby's milk - when you should have been on solid food long ago!

Don't take that as a harsh scolding - a mild one, to be sure - but not harsh because it is only a statement of the human condition: we all tend to resist and oppose and fight change within and beyond - rationalize and excuse our penchant for baby's milk - when we need solid food. I know this is true for me...and I suspect this has been a constant litany since the beginning of time.

God calls us deeper - beyond the pain - beyond the laughter, too. God calls us into grace - and joy - and the Cross - into the upside down kingdom most poetically described as the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. Some things are born within us, but then outlive their usefulness and must die - and we can trust that their death will lead to new life because of our faith in the resurrection.  We don't have to understand it - comprehend and explain it - just trust by faith that God's love is greater than our life and death.

(Jesus said) Listen carefully: unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground - dead to the world - it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who hold on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal. (John 12: 24-25)

There is a little death to be discovered each day, yes? A little laughter and slowing down, too I think. Lord, may it be so among and within us.

One of the blessings of this season...

One of the blessings of this season for me is our annual "Thanksgiving Eve" gig. It is something I have been celebrating and working on for over 30 years - in one form or another - and with each church I serve, it takes on a new charism.  This year, for example, ALL of my buddies from the past two years are returning - ALL OF THEM - and that is such an incredible blessing to me.  They are all profound and generous musicians.  They are a wonderful collaborators who are a hoot to make music with, too. And at a deep, deep level we all share the same values.

This year's theme, "Come On Up to the House" comes from St. Tom Waits with a little help from our friends at the various "Occupy Wall Street" encampments.  It will be a benefit to raise funds for the Berkshires Emergency Fuel Assistance fund, to be sure. But it will also be something more - much much more.

It will be a time to share the beauty and justice of those cooperative miracles created whenever passionate and creative  people share their voices and hearts in song. It will be a gathering of the tribe, if you will; a meeting of those of many faiths - and none - who are more interested in people than profits, more aware of the ties that bind rather than our differences and more committed to community and compassion than polarization. 

I like the way Rowan Williams put it today in the NYTimes as he expressed his support for those who have been encamped at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.  He said: “There is still a powerful sense around — fair or not — of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of messages not getting through; of impatience with a return to ‘business as usual’ — represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices.” 

The article continued that  Archbishop Williams supported a Vatican statement last week endorsing the idea of a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions and for a separation of retail and investment operations at banks that have relied on bailouts from public funds. He concluded: “If we want to take seriously the moral agenda of the protesters at St. Paul’s, these are some of the ways in which we should be taking it forward. If religious leaders and commentators in the U.K. and elsewhere could agree on these three proposals, not as a fixed agenda but as a common ground on which to start serious discussion, the struggles and questionings alike of protesters and clergy at St. Paul’s will not have been wasted.”  (see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/world/europe/archbishop-of-canterbury-endorses-tax-on-bankers.html)

So to my mind and heart, our Thanksgiving Eve event has become a low tech version of the OWS movement, a little bit "Prairie Home Companion" and old-time revival married to a 21st century take on the "human be-in" that came to flower in Golden Gate Park on Sunday afternoon in October 30, 1966. It is the joy of a festival celebrating a way of living beyond the status quo. It is a gentle introduction to the counter-cultural critique of all contemplatives with a playful sense of self rather than a grim self-righteousness persona; a strong tenderness that practices radical hospitality rather than fear-mongering and demonizing those who are different; and a quest for discerning common ground instead of name-calling and the blame game. (I think this Seeger Session clip from the Boss captures some of the atmosphere that I cherish at these events when everything comes together...)

And every year I experience some of this vision being shared and nourished when former strangers choose to sing harmonies together. When people from throughout the community decided to share some of their time and resources to help those they have never met. When children get caught up in the beauty of group singing in an era of IPODS and MP3s.  When the notion of "we're all in the same boat now" is so palpable that our best selves are encouraged rather than diminished.  When Christians and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and atheists and everybody else grasp what it means to sing, "Amazing Grace."

This year we're adding a few more musical friends to the mix - and this will only bring more joy.  So, if you are in town, why not check out the "Come On Up to the House" party at First Church on Thanksgiving Eve?  Wednesday, November 23rd at 7:30 pm (27 East Street, Pittsfield, MA) It will be a gas!

Like the prophet Isaiah said so long ago:

Comfort, oh comfort my people," says your God."Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem, but also make it very clear that she has served her sentence, that her sin is taken care of—forgiven! She's been punished enough and more than enough and now it's over and done with."  Thunder in the desert! "Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road straight and smooth,  a highway fit for our God. Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks. Then God's bright glory will shine and all flesh shall it together."

So come on UP to the house...

  

Do no harm...

Today, among other things, I had a quiet conversation with another parent about how caring for and loving our adult children has mostly become an exercise in staying silent.  We chortled knowingly about all the conversations we've had in our heads: all the advice, profound wisdom and insights we want to share with our beloved children knowing all the while that not ONE word of this wisdom will ever be spoken. They neither want nor need what we think they should know - so mostly we shut up.

This is one of the beautiful but heart-breaking things about growing older with our children: we have to cultivate silence and humility while letting them live their own lives. The other night I was asked, "How do you make sense of some of the things your kids do?"  MAKE SENSE, I said softly, THERE IS NO WAY TO MAKE SENSE OF SOME THINGS THEY DO? YOU JUST HAVE TO ACCEPT THEM. GIVE YOUR BABIES OVER TO THE GRACE OF GOD EVERY NIGHT AND TRUST THAT GOD REALLY IS GOD AND I AM NOT.

"Otherwise," I paused and said to myself, "I would go crazy with worry." 

Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed us with the
]oy and care of children: Give us calm strength and patient
wisdom as we bring them up, that we may teach them to love
whatever is just and true and good, following the example of
our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Living as saints for the Lord in OUR generation...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, November 6, 2011.  We will mark the blessings of All Saints/Souls Day during worship.  I will be using the Common Lectionary texts of Amos 5 and Matthew 25 for the foundation.  If you are in town, please join us at 10:30 AM for Holy Communion. (For some reason the picture department is going wacky today so... here's the text, ok?)

This past Tuesday was officially All Saints Day – an occasion set aside by the church for the past 1400 years – to be a reminder of all the faithful souls who have served the Lord with integrity since the beginning of time. It is always conjoined with All Souls Day – November 2nd in the Western calendar – as the remembrance of those who have died and moved from this life to life eternal by God’s grace.

It is an awesome sacred event that invites both an inspired creativity and a profound reverence from God’s people. Because, you see, today is all about God’s judgment in grace on our lives. In fact, all of November holds close the theme of judgment as we travel towards Christ the King Sunday on November 20th. And while we tend not to talk much about judgment for most of the rest of the year – and I think that is mostly healthy as a way of balancing out our former obsessions – let’s be clear: without some comprehension of judgment, we will almost always sink to the lowest common denominator in our actions and then congratulate ourselves for doing so.

As H. Richard Niebuhr said so carefully back in 1937, “The American Church tends to preach about a God without wrath who brought human beings without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” So I want to emphasize that our marking of All Saints Day today is a hallowed occurrence to consider what our lives to date tell us about living into the light of God’s purposes.

The prophet Amos gives us the context: living today is like a man running from a lion right into the jaws of a bear; or a woman who goes home after a hard day's work only to be raped by her neighbor. It is grim – it is broken – it is bewildering. So he cries out this challenge: understand that the Lord your God…

Can’t stand your religious meetings: I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. And I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you truly sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.

Tough words, yes? Challenging and judgmental, too, don’t you think? So how do they help us explore ways that WE might live as saints for the Lord in our generation? How does the prophetic critique empower us to sing God’s song and live into the Lord’s justice, mercy and compassion? Let me offer three suggestions and we’ll see if they are useful, ok?

• First, let me ask you a question: how many here today make use of an alarm clock? Not everyone does, I know, but how many need the assistance of an alarm clock to get up and get going each day?

• I do – I depend on my alarm clock sometimes – because I often stay up late studying or writing. And left to my own habits and vices, I would sleep till noon if I could. Truth be told, on my Sabbath days away from church on most Fridays that is exactly what I do: sleep until I am ready to get up.

But most days I need an alarm clock to wake me and get me moving in real life – and that is what the prophet is doing for us. Offering a jarring and demanding wakeup call so that we don’t miss God’s light. Do you see that?

• Amos isn’t so much scolding us as he is trying to roust us from the stupor of business as usual: when did you truly sing to me, the Lord your God he laments?

• Oh sweet Jesus, do you hear the heart break in that? The sadness and sorrow?

• It seems to me that the prophet is calling us towards our best selves – our most beautiful selves – our lives created in the image of God, yes?

So the first truth about judgment is that it is a wake-up call: a sacred alarm clock calling us into life beyond the lowest common denominator. A life that gives shape and form to right relationships – lives that bring music into our ordinary existence – and lives that celebrate fairness and mercy. That’s the first clue about living as God’s saints in our day, ok?

The second comes from Christ’s parable about the wise and foolish virgins who are also asleep – see a theme emerging? Now let me call your attention to a few insights in this story before cutting to the chase: In chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel we are given stories Jesus used to prepare his disciples for the dark uncertainty that would come after the Cross. These are not stories for the lowest common denominator – or popular consumption - but rather stories Jesus told to his apprentices and disciples.

• Do you grasp the distinction here between popular consumption and apprentices? This is crucial because the heart of the message has to do as living into God’s light even in the darkest of times.

• And remember: you are apprentices – you are not casual observers or random game show applicants – you are disciples so this story is directed to you.

So please notice that Jesus says: this is what the kingdom of God is like – bridesmaids who are prepared for the groom and welcomed into the banquet feast. Three images: bridesmaids waiting with lanterns, lanterns prepared to shed light for as long a wait as is necessary, a bridegroom who welcomes the prepared into the banquet. “This” says the Master “is what the kingdom of God is like.”

• You know, when we talk about God’s grace – a blessing that is always free and offered as a gift – we sometimes sound like there is nothing required of us, right?

• And that just isn’t completely right: for while we can never earn or purchase God’s loving presence and forgiveness, we can get ready for it – and I think that is what Jesus is trying to tell us as apprentices.

Get yourselves ready: you are bridesmaids invited to the feast so act like it! Don’t waste your time complaining and carping about the darkness: darkness is a fact of life. It happens to everyone – we all have pain and fear and disappointments in our lives – so there is nothing special about the darkness. And everybody has to wait, too. So make the best use of the waiting and the darkness – don’t waste them – learn from them. Let the hard times help you get ready for the feast so that you can share the light when called to stand and deliver. Because when you least expect it: the bridegroom will show up.

In other words, there are some things we can do to ready our hearts for God’s grace and this, too, is what it means to be a saint in our generation. Specifically, we are to learn from the darkness and waiting about being vigilant – and THAT is so totally counter-cultural that it blows our minds.

Last week, I was down for a day with the stomach flu – a nasty old pain that everybody gets from time to time – and I found myself reading some of Eugene Peterson’s theological reflections about the Holy Trinity. Ok, I’m a church geek – I like to read theology from time to time – along with poetry, mysteries and literature. Anyhow one of his insights really grabbed me when he said that most Americans have exchanged the traditional Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – for a contemporary reworking called the New Trinity of MY needs, MY wants and MY feelings. Think about it:

We live in an age in which we have all been trained from the cradle to choose for ourselves what is best for us. We have a few years of apprenticeship at this before we are sent out on our own, but the training begins early. By the time we can hold a spoon we choose between half a dozen cereals for breakfast, ranging from Cheerios to Corn Flakes. Our tastes, inclinations, and appetites are consulted endlessly. And we become obsessed with my needs, my wants and my feelings. (Peterson)

We don’t know how to wait – we are angry and frustrated and terrified of the darkness that surrounds us – and all too often we exchange the truth and power of the Holy Trinity for the New Trinity of my needs, my wants and my feelings. And in this we are not unlike Christ’s first disciples.

When Matthew first shared this story from Jesus with his friends they were also surrounded by darkness: Christ had been crucified – and raised from the dead – but now they were waiting for him to return in glory – in light – but all they saw was the darkness. Sixty years had come and gone since Jesus first told them this parable – that’s a LOT of waiting.

So here’s what they did: they kept telling themselves this story over and over again – encouraging and challenging one another – to be vigilant and learn from the darkness. To use waiting as a school to practice patience and mercy and hope because Jesus promised them that when they least expected it, he would show up with a feast again.

And I think that is the third way of living as saints in our generation: trusting that God’s light is greater than our darkness. Do you know what William Sloane Coffin of Riverside Church in NYC used to say at the end of worship? “Go out there into the world,” he would tell the people, “and give them… heaven! There is already too much hell – so go out and give them heaven and all its light!”

• Go out there and sing the Lord’s song like the prophet Amos – and point to the light.

• Wake yourselves up from the stupor of greed and fear that you might be ready for the banquet when the bridegroom appears.

• Be vigilant – be prepared – and make a habit of nourishing and sharing the light.

Ours is a revolutionary and counter-cultural faith that we have been asked by Christ to nourish within and among us: for that is what saints of the Lord do in this and every generation. So, let those who have ears to hear: hear the good news for today.