Number in Series: Second

Where Is The Spirit of God?

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s spiritual practice, led by Lydia Shiu, click HERE.

From Easter through Pentecost, which is on Sunday, May 23, we’ll be exploring some of the ways we find what’s important, encounter God, and participate in God’s Beloved Community as we listen to God’s spirit, in all the places and ways God is present to us. We’re calling this series Listening to the Spirit. We’ve found over the years that listening well – listening to ourselves and our hearts and our lives, listening to the people around us, and listening to God in all the ways God speaks – is central to fulfilling our purposes for our lives, central to how we find God and wholeness and everything else good in life. We’ll end the series on May 23, partly because that’s about the right amount of time, and partly because that is Pentecost Sunday. This is a day in Jewish tradition associated with a Spring harvest festival and God’s giving of the law through Moses, but a day in Christian tradition associated with God’s Holy Spirit, God’s living presence on this earth to be with and encourage and speak to all people. And today I’m going to talk about where the Spirit of God is. Where do we go to listen to the Spirit?

But first on a personal note, the last day of this series May 23 is the next time I’ll be preaching at Reservoir, since I’m taking a month off, starting this Tuesday. Yeah, a whole month; I’m incredibly grateful. It’s the first third of a sabbatical that the church is granting me for rest and renewal. After 11 straight years of leading a school and then leading a church, I’ve got some extra time over the next three years to step back from work here and there, find some peace, and listen to the Spirit myself as I seek God’s ongoing guidance in my life and the life of this community. So a big thank you to all of you and to our pastoral team and Board for making this possible, and a big thank you to this church for being not just a beautiful and amazing community I am glad to be part of and serve, but for being much more than the contributions of any one person, myself included.

And now to today’s topic. I’m speaking on the question “Where is the Spirit of God?” And I’m inspired by Jesus’ words in the gospel of Luke, which we’ll read now.

Luke 17:20-21 

20 Pharisees asked Jesus when God’s kingdom was coming. He replied, “God’s kingdom isn’t coming with signs that are easily noticed.

21 Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ Don’t you see? God’s kingdom is already among you.”

 

Jesus taught a lot about this place, or this idea, that he called the Kingdom of God. And people around Jesus were often like: what, what? They knew about kingdoms. This area was occupied territory, part of the state of Syria on the Eastern edge of the Roman Empire. So they were like: woah, Jesus – what is this kingdom you speak of? Jesus didn’t usually address these questions very directly; he told stories about what life is like when God’s love and desires carry the day on earth.

We like to call it a kindom sometimes because when you take out the “g” you get rid of the emphasis on power and patriarchy, which isn’t what Jesus’ vision are about at all. And more and more, we’ve been describing Jesus’ kindom vision as Beloved Community. Where faith and freedom are more our way in the world than fear, where relationships and societies are governed by generosity more than judgement, kindness more than contempt, and where we walk with God and others not proud and contentious but beloved, included, humble, just, and grateful.

But today I don’t want to talk about what the Beloved Community is so much as where it is. Because Jesus was asked, if you have a kindom coming, if you have a Beloved Community growing on earth, how will we find it, and Jesus is like – fine, here’s where you should look.

Another way of putting this is to say if God is still with us by God’s Spirit, where do we find it? Where do we look for God’s Spirit, so we can lean in and listen?

A psychologist and theologian I follow named Richard Beck recently wrote about this passage along these lines, acknowledging that the phrase Jesus uses that I read today as:

“God’s kingdom is already among you.”

The power of a preposition, friends. There are actually three different ways you can read the Greek of that phrase among you, and those will help point us to three places we can find God’s Spirit and listen. 

The first way we can read it is “God’s kindom, God’s beloved community is in your midst.” 

“In Your Midst”

Read this way, Jesus is saying:

the Spirit of God isn’t going to be any place you need to find at all, it’s right here. It’s me. Wherever I am, there the Beloved Community will grow and be. I’m right here.

Jesus is God’s presence and wisdom and help and peace, and the Spirit of God is the presence of Jesus still available to us all, unseen. 

Earlier in Luke, when Jesus began his public ministry, he said this more or less, when he said:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to speak good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to those in prison, recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of God’s favor.”

Healing and justice and freedom are signs of the kindom, and Jesus is like:

listen to me. I can take you there. Into God’s favor.

We listen to the Spirit by listening to Jesus.

It was transformative for me when in my late teens into my twenties, I realized I could listen to the teaching of Jesus and try to really follow it. I’m not saying I did follow the teaching of Jesus in most way, my God, no, it takes a lifetime. It’s just that I learned it’s a thing you can actually dedicate yourself to, and that it’s good stuff. 

I was in a group of Chrsitians that read and studied the gospels a lot, for hours. A friend gave me a book by a philosopher named Dallas Willard. It was called The Divine Conspiracy, and it argued that:

God’s hope, the conspiracy God was hatching, was for ordinary people to love and follow the teaching and practice of Jesus, listening to the Spirit of Jesus as we seek to do so, letting this form my life. 

I grew up seeing and hearing about a lot of unmanaged anger and lust. Listening to the Spirit in Jesus, I learned that if I wanted to be a trustworthy and safe person, my anger and my lust would need to be transformed, so that I wouldn’t be prone to using people or attacking people. I grew up like most of us thinking love was a feeling, but I learned from listening to the Spirit in Jesus that love is a way of life – it’s steady kindness and delight and service and trust. I grew up in an all white, man’s world. But I got my start in feminism, in anti-racism, in the radical affirmation of the dignity of all people through seeing how Jesus did all that, so far ahead of his time, so far ahead of our time still. And I grew up thinking being religious made you “judgy,” gave you the right to look down on people who didn’t have their stuff together. But Jesus showed me the way to radical acceptance. 

There was this time when I was a teacher, in my late twenties, when I was praying about the upcoming school year. And I was reading the words of Jesus in the gospel of John when he says:

I have come not to judge the world, but to save it.

And this light when off in my head, like what am I doing? As a teacher, I spend so much time judging my students. Even the way I grade their papers comes off providing them a much larger dose or criticism than it does anything that will really help them be better writers and more competent, confident young people. And that moment transformed how I grade English papers, of all things, what kind of comments I write and what I don’t, what kind of process I’d work in my classroom to focus on elevating my students, not judging them. 

What I’m trying to say is that I found my start in the kind of adult life I want to live by listening to the Spirit in Jesus, right there in our midst. To be found every time I read the gospels, and every time I pray with Jesus and to Jesus. 

I know so many of you have this experience, that when we listen to Jesus, we find better ways forward. We find life. I’ve heard many dozens, probably hundreds actually of stories in this community of people praying while reading the words of Jesus and praying to Jesus and with Jesus and finding great ways forward. 

That’s why in my month off coming up, part of what I’ll be doing is reading the four gospels slowly, and taking walks alone believing that Jesus is walking with me, unseen, through the Spirit of God, and that Jesus is there to talk to when I feel like it, and to light up my mind and my heart and my path. 

The Spirit of God is in our midst, whenever we give our attention to the words and life and teaching and presence of Jesus. 

But there’s another way to translate this phrase. The Spirit of God is not only in our midst, it’s not only in Jesus. But the Spirit of God is also within you.

“Within You”

The Spirit of God is within you. One of the great innovations of the good news of Jesus is this radical interiority of God’s presence with us. 

The prophet Ezekiel promised that God can and will take hearts of stone – cold, hard, unresponsive – and make them hearts of flesh – warm, loving, responsive, able to receive and provide nurture. In Luke, some people call this Luke’s heart theology, that God can work upon us to help us be warm to change, to welcome love and grace and practice kindness and compassion and nurture for others. 

This is the “rule and reign” of God in our hearts, or what I like to call the God’s loving presence and leadership within us. Sometimes we listen to the Spirit within us through our conscience. And sometimes through the still, small voice of God, sometimes a combination of both.

So many of you have rich and many experiences of the God’s presence and leadership through God’s Spirit within you. We have a treasury of this kind of experience in our church. I am by no means the expert in the room on listening to the Spirit within us.

But I can simply say that many of the most important decisions I’ve made in my life have been based on listening to the Spirit within. Who I married. Where I live. Why I became pastor of this church. I could go on and on.

Seven years ago, our church was caught up in a controversy which thank God now seems dated and well behind us. But we were sorting out whether our LGBTQ participants in our community would have full standing and equality in our community. Again, this seems obvious to many of us now, but for most of Christian history, churches haven’t extended the same rights and freedom and blessing and dignity even to LGBTQ people as we have to everyone else. And for the most part, it’s only been in recent decades in this country that churches have started to do so. 

Now I was by no means the only player in this conversation in our church. There were many gracious, courageous, thoughtful LGBTQ people and allies who participated and led our church’s discernment and change. There were pastors and leaders and members of our community – and all kinds of people outside our church who were watching us – who weighed in in different ways. But for my part, though I read dozens of books on the Christian faith, the Bible, and the experiences of LGBTQ people and Christians, I participated in hundreds of conversations with people about their experiences and convictions and yearnings and pain. I was part of many discussions with pastors and scholars and people of different sexual identities and faith experiences, and so much more.

One of the most influential moments in my whole process that got me where I am today, was an experience I had during worship a little over seven years ago, where as I was singing with our congregation, a thought popped into my mind that was so vivid, in words so clear, and felt so much like everything I know in my mind and my experience of God, that I was sure God was speaking to me. I’m still sure God was speaking to me. And the sentence I believe God said by God’s Spirit was enough. I knew that I would always henceforth be a pastor who would extend the same dignities and blessings and love and inclusion to LGBTQ people as I would to anyone else. And I’m so grateful that God helped me get here. 

The Spirit of God is within you. God is with you to be present to you and guide you, my friends, whatever you are facing today. 

The late medieval Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila put it this way:

that God lives within you, and since heaven is wherever God lives, you are God’s heaven.

Friends, trust that God lives within you. Ask God for help to notice how God is with you, for God to speak God’s love and leadership to you through your mind, through your desires, through your conscience. Pay attention by faith, and see what you hear.

The Spirit of God is, with Jesus, in your midst.

The Spirit of God is within you.

But also one more place.

The Spirit of God is within reach.

“Within Reach” 

The Spirit of God is within reach.

This third way we can translate the words Jesus said about kindom and about the Spirit means “within your grasp”, “near to hand”, “right in front of you, wherever you are.” The Spirit of God isn’t just in Jesus, and isn’t just within us, but also just out in front of us, still to be realized, wherever you are, throughout all creation. 

When I was new to the Christian faith, I was taught that Spirit of God was in Jesus – so we can listen to the Spirit when we listen to Jesus. And I was taught that the Spirit of God lives within those who love and follow Jesus – so that if we love and follow Jesus, we can listen to the Spirit of God within.

But I was also taught that outside of Jesus, and outside of baptized followers of Jesus, you might find goodness, but you weren’t going to find much of God’s Spirit. A lot of Christians are taught this, which is why Christians sometimes don’t have the greatest curiosity, humility, and compassion for how God is present and what God is doing outside of Christian people and institutions. 

But over the centuries, more and more followers of Jesus have realized that God pours out God’s Spirit abundantly, in surprising people and places, and that God is present to God’s creation everywhere. The Spirit of God is also beyond you and me, but within reach. 

Franciscan followers of Jesus discovered that the Bible contains wonderful words of God, but the first Word of God is creation. The natural world – the trees and oceans and plants and animals – all of creation is the first Bible, where the Spirit lives and speaks.

Jesuit followers of Jesus learned to look for God in all things. Which at their best, which hasn’t been always, has led to really great curiosity and partnership with non-Christian cultures and peoples, seeing that God is speaking there too by God’s Spirit.

Protestant missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries were mostly caught up still in the colonial project, in which they brought good news of Jesus but also white supremacy, and American and European dominance. So sad. But small, and later increasing numbers of these missionaries, were led by God and taught and trained to notice signs of the Spirit of God’s presence in all cultures and all peoples, long before Christians or the name of Jesus were ever on the scene.

I don’t have time to share more stories on this front in my life, but in recent years, I’ve listened to the Spirit more and more out in front of me, beyond places I’d known to look before.

I’ve listened to the Spirit speaking about the reforms that religion needs to be healthy in our times from a Muslim journalist who writes about about Islam, secularism, and Jesus. 

I’ve listened to the Spirit speaking about how to be a more relational person, and how to continue having Jesus shape my life, through a public health agency in India we partner with. 

I’m listening to the Spirit of God speak about the struggles of the earth to survive and the power of the earth to flourish through my children, and through the mountains and the trees, and through scientists and activists mostly operating outside of religious spaces. 

Turns out, where can we find God? Everywhere.

And through whom can Spirit of God speak? Absolutely everyone and everything.

This is why life with God is an invitation to listening. Spirit of God doesn’t want to be hard to find or hear. Spirit of God is living, moving, loving, luring, speaking, inviting us to all the best all the time, through many means. 

Jesus invites us ask, seek, and knock. Jesus call us to radical attention – to be present; to radical curiosity – to wonder where and how God will speak today; and to radical listening – to trust that the Spirit of God is in Jesus, is within us, and is right out in front of us, everywhere we go. 

God’s Angry Too. What Next?

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s thematic spiritual practice led by Trecia Reavis, CLICK HERE.

 

Hi, Friends, I’m Steve, our senior pastor, and welcome again to our first Sunday of Lent. Even though we’ve been talking about this season for a few weeks, I’m guessing that it’s still odd-sounding or off-putting to some of us. 

 

If you don’t have a religious background, or if you have one but it didn’t include Lent, then it’s arbitrary. What is this old word, this dated religious practice? And what’s in it for us? I’d like to speak to that in a minute.

 

And if you do have a religious background that at all includes Lent, then it might seem like the last thing you need now. Lent is famous for the phrase: what are you giving up? Because Lent has, amongst other things, been a Christian season of fasting? Of not eating meat, or at least not on Fridays? Or giving up certain foods or pleasures or distractions. And for some of us, giving up more this year is the last thing we want. How much have we given up these past 12 months already?

 

But Lent is a lot more than giving up, and it doesn’t need to be an outdated or off-putting religious practice at all.

 

Lent is the six weeks before Easter, when we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus – the founding events and stories of our faith. Lent is a time to be closer to God, to invite the Spirit of God to shape our lives. 

 

It’s a time of putting down and of taking up. We put down or set aside or even give up things that distract or grip us. That’s where the traditions of fasting and giving come from. If you have things you’d like to to put down for these six weeks, feel free. But given the year we’ve had, we’re downplaying that side of the tradition. Maybe more importantly, Lent is also a season of taking up – of giving time and attention to prayer and welcoming the Spirit of God’s movement in us and in the world. 

 

Lent is a kind of dare to ourselves. Lent is from an old English word that means spring. Where we live, we dare to remember in the cold, snowy winter that we are just a few weeks from brighter days, warmer weather and birdsong and green. Spring is coming.

 

And we dare to hope that in our mix of putting down and taking up, wherever we feel lost or disoriented, God will help us find God and find ourselves again. Where faith has more doubt and distance, God will renew us. And where we lack focus or center, God will help us find what is most important. 

 

That’s the title of this year’s Lent, What is Most Important. The church won’t tell you what should be most important in your life – that is for you to discern with the help of God and friends. But we’ll read some of the Bible’s prophets and see how they can help us find what’s most important. 

 

The founder of Godly Play, the approach to learning the Bible our church uses with our children, says that prophets are people who were so close to God that they knew what was most important and they can show us the way. 

 

Each week, this Lent, we read some of the words of a different prophet, and see how that prophet can help us pray, can help us find God and ourselves, and can get us wondering what is most important.

 

Each Sunday, Lydia or Ivy or I will focus on the week’s prophet in our sermon, and then you’ll have five days of Bible readings, comments, and prayer practices you can try in the week to come. You can find that all in the guide that you picked up with your Lent in a Bag or that you can find our website – reservoirchurch.org/lent. 

 

This week we begin with a prophet named Amos. I’ll share brief excerpts from the first two days readings, tomorrow and Tuesday’s readings, and get us started. 

 

Amos 1:2 (CEB)

    He (Amos) said:

    The Lord roars from Zion.

        He shouts from Jerusalem;

        the pastures of the shepherds wither,

        and the top of Carmel dries up.

 

So the very first thing that Amos has to say is that God is angry. Amos spoke his anger and wrote his poems in the ancient Near East, 2800 years ago. And sometimes when we read Amos, we’re aware of that huge gulf of time and culture. Amos talks about God sometimes differently than we would. We don’t see the world quite the same way.

 

But other times, Amos sounds like he could be living among us, speaking to our world. 

 

You’re angry about all that’s messed up in this world. Guess what, God is angry too. What is wrong with us?

 

This year, Ivy developed the spiritual engagement practices that ends each day’s reading in the guide. They’re on the Lent deck of cards we were giving out as well, and they’re accompanied by a different object each week. For the first week, Ivy chose matches. And tomorrow and Tuesday, you’ll be invited to light matches, as that flame represents things you’re angry about. 

 

A couple of you previewed this material, and said that first week, I’m going to need a whole big box of matches. I thought about that. Because for me, anger is not one of my first go-to emotions when things are wrong. But last week, I sat down with a box of matches, a container to dump them in when I blew them out, and a blank piece of paper in case I wanted to write things down. I decided I’d preview one of Mondays’ spiritual engagement exercises, by lighting a match for each thing I was angry about these days, then after letting it burn for a few seconds, blowing it out, and moving on to the next one. Well, after about fifteen minutes, I had a large collection of burnt-up matches in my bowl and long list of people and groups and forces that I was angry about.

 

So much cause for our anger. So many targets for our anger.

 

I asked God to give me a sense of where God was in the anger, how God was responsive to all my anger.

 

And the picture that came to mind was one of the biggest fires I’ve ever seen. When I was in high school, every year we had a homecoming weekend in the fall, and the school and the fire department would construct this enormous bonfire on this empty grassy plot near our school. They’d put this scarecrow outfitted in the colors of our school’s rival on it too and burn that thing in effigy. Add this to the list of my high school memories that would never happen in public school around here these days. 

 

Anyway, that fire came to mind and the thought that came to mind in prayer was God saying: Steve, if you have match fire-sized anger, I have bonfire-sized anger. 

 

God is angry too.

 

The early framers of Christianity wanted a God that would be respectable to the Graeco-Roman world of the time. So following the lead of Plato and Aristotle, they tried to reconcile their experience of God and the Bible’s accounts of God with what Plato and Aristotle imagined the highest God must be like – unchanging, aloof, above human emotion and passion, the unmoved mover. And these concepts have been passed down over the centuries in the faith. 

 

So that most Christians today don’t imagine that God has an emotional life anything like ours. They tell us not to trust our emotions – they’re feelings, not facts. So-called negative emotions like anger are shut down too often. 

 

But when we come to the prophets, we find this is not true of God. God is passionate. God’s emotional life is larger, more vivid than ours. This is part of what is most important, that God is engaged, invested, emotionally responsive to what goes on in God’s creation, our lives, our world included. 

 

When we have good cause to be angry, God is angry too.

 

Now God’s anger is not like ours in some ways. People often get angry when we’re afraid. One mentor I knew who had significant anger issues he was dealing with said to me: it’s stunning, really, how often when I stop to look at my anger, I discover that beneath that I’m really afraid. 

 

Other people get angry when they’re experiencing shame. How often do you see a man make some mistake behind the wheel of a car, and someone else honks their horn to get their attention, and the same driver who made the error starts honking back, or flipping the bird, or swearing in anger? A lot of us don’t know how to handle when we’re ashamed, and so to move away from the discomfort of that shame, we go straight to anger.

 

God’s anger isn’t like this. God doesn’t experience shame. I think God is mostly not afraid too, and if ever God is afraid, God knows not to cover that anger. God isn’t always on our side either. Sometimes we’re angry when we lack perspective, or our pride has been wounded, and we need to be curious and let go of that anger.

 

But when it comes to wrongs done, violence done, harm done in God’s creation, God feels immense anger. The first chapter is a catalogue of ancient societal injustices – land theft, environmental degradation, forced labor and slavery, sexual crimes; people, nations stripped of their rights or dignity. 

 

God sees and God roars like a lion. 

 

The prophets see what is worthy of God’s anger, and they don’t turn away or try to shut down their own anger. They feel what God feels and they speak the truth. 

 

I wonder what you are angry about this year. I wonder how you are feeling that anger? How are you experiencing your anger? What is it doing in your life? How would help to know that God is with you in your anger? That God is angry too? What might this mean to you?

 

We’ll have the chance to explore questions like this with Amos this week. And we’lll see that God’s anger goes to some interesting and constructive places too, some places we can perhaps go with God as well. 

 

Let me read the second of our two scriptures. This is part of what you’ll read on Tuesday.

 

Amos 5:21-24 (CEB)

21 I hate, I reject your festivals;

    I don’t enjoy your joyous assemblies.

22 If you bring me your entirely burned offerings and gifts of food—

        I won’t be pleased;

    I won’t even look at your offerings of well-fed animals.

23 Take away the noise of your songs;

        I won’t listen to the melody of your harps.

24 But let justice roll down like waters,

        and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

 

Amos is speaking in the voice of God, which is maybe the wildest thing the prophets of the Bible dare to do. You’ve got to be careful when you try to speak for God. For every one prophet in the Bible who did so, there are thousands of others in history, even today, who would have left us all better off if they’d stayed quiet instead.

 

Anyway, I hear a couple more things here. I hear more reasons God is angry. 

 

What a waste, right. Amos speaks another strand of the sadness and anger of God. God is angry over injustice, but God is also angry over bad religion. Religion that justifies the status quo, religion that performs supposed love and worship of God, while hating God in the face of the neighbor made in God’s image. Religion that loves power but not doesn’t love. Religion that offers things to God but doesn’t support lives of humble integrity, offered in kindness to one another.

 

Again and again in the prophets, they tell us this is important too. They tell us God wants nothing to do with this kind of religion. God doesn’t want to be associated unjust, unloving, violent religion, which is a lot of what religion is and has been. 

 

From God’s perspective, it’s got to seem maddening when people speak for God, perform devotion to God in public, construct buildings and institutions and ideals in the name of God, without learning to be decent people, kind people, loving people, just people. 

 

What a sadness. What a waste.

 

People might be fooled by bad religion, but God is not. Last week, while reading a pastor and theologian named Bruce Epperly, I came across this line: “God sees everything as it is, but also everything as it could be in light of God’s version of Shalom and beauty.”

 

God sees everything as it is, but also everything as it could be in light of God’s version of Shalom – wholeness, wellness, peace with justice – and beauty.

 

What could our world be? What could our lives be? 

 

If God doesn’t want injustice and God doesn’t want bad religion, what does God want? If injustice and bad religion make God angry, what makes God happy?

 

The two words Amos lands on are the Hebrew words “tsedeqah” and “mishpat”, what we usually translate as “righteousness” and “justice.” God’s arc, God’s longing, God’s big play in the world is that justice, mishpat, would roll down like mighty waters, and righteousness, tsedeqah, like an ever-flowing stream. That we – people, families, communities, churches, nations, societies, would become tsedeqah and mishpat.

 

These two words are collapsed into one word in the Greek of the New Testament – dikaiosune. It’s usually translated as “righteousness” in English Bibles, but it really means these two things put together – righteousness and justice – heart and actions as they were meant to be.

 

If you had to distinguish between these two words, one is more personal, one more collective. One is more private, one more public. One is more about intentions and one more about impact.

 

Righteousness, tsedeqah, is about being a good person. About setting loving intentions. Cultivating good, trustworthy character. Becoming the kind of person other people can trust with their children. Seeking the good of your neighbor and even your enemy, not just yourself. 

 

And mishpat is about right actions, that regardless of intention, you do the right thing for the common good. It’s about companies and governments and churches together doing what is right not just for themselves, but for the common good. 

 

Some of care more about one of these than the others. We say, intentions don’t matter, impact does. We say as long as we achieve economic justice, enough for all, as long as we dismantle what degrades ourselves or our neighbor – racism, homophobia, misogyny, sexual assault, pay gaps, equity gaps, and on it goes – than we can be satisfied. This is mishpat, and it is holy and good and important to God.

 

Some of us don’t have such public eyes. We care most about people being kind and loving and decent, doing the right and moral thing in their private lives, having integrity. This is part of tsedeqah, and it too is holy and good and important to God. 

 

God wants both. Good, kind, loving people that together shape a just and peaceful world. This is important to God.

 

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was famous for preaching these words of Amos, of course: Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. We will never be satisfied until we see this. God will never be satisfied until God sees this.

 

King spoke these words often. They were in his “I Have a Dream Speech” among many other places – in the first half of the speech, the part with more substance and less swagger. These words of Amos anchored his vision for this country, a vision we have still not embraced. These words of Amos anchored King’s prophetic vision of the beloved community – a public life of universal belonging, of opportunity and equity for Black Americans and for all Americans, a more peaceful and just world for all peoples.

 

King believed that the arc of history was heading this way. The moral arc of the universe is long, he said, but it bends toward justice. I don’t know whether or not King was right about this. You could argue it both ways. None of us can predict the future and know just where our world, let alone our universe, is heading next.

 

But we know this is God’s arc. God wants to see righteousness and justice – kind and good and generous and loving people in a just and peaceful world. 

 

I wonder what in this vision you will find important. Is there some way the prophets will work on you this week, this season, to shine light on your character, clarify who you are and who you long to be? Is there some way God seeks to grow you into healing of heart and more loving intentions? 

 

Or has this year taught you about justice? About embracing God’s vision of a well-governed, equitable world of mishpat? Is there a cause or care you’d like to give yourself to more, along with others?

 

This week, as we begin Lent together, I’m excited to put down a few of my first thing in the morning distractions and to spend a half hour each morning with our Lenten guide. I hope you’ll join me each day for whatever amount of time works for you.

 

As we take up this prayer and attention to what the prophets have to say to us, I hope we’ll each discover something important about God – how vitally engaged God is with us, how loving, how responsive, how much creative possibility God greets us with. And I hope we’ll listen and awake again to what’s most important for us as well, finding our way forward into beautiful, whole lives that make God happy, that make us glad – lives well-lived even in hard times, lives of righteousness and justice, best as we see the way for ourselves and one another. 

 

I’m excited to begin together. If you’d still like a paper copy of the Lenten guide and our Lent in a Bag with cards and objects, we have 20 or 30 left at the church. You’re welcome to stop by the sanctuary between 11 and 2 and pick one up while supplies last. If not, stop by the link on our site – reservoirchurch.org/lent to view or download all you need. We’ll even start to tease out these themes of Amos – what makes us angry – on today’s wave call, if you’d like to join us there. 

 

This Lent, these next six weeks, may God give you the blessing of moving closer to God, as the prophets did, and of finding for you before God, what is most important and how to go there. 

 

Amen.

The Kin’dom of God is Like…

For this week’s Events and Happenings, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s spiritual practice led by Trecia Reavis, CLICK HERE.

 

Thanks so much Trecia, for this invitation to be with God – to scan ourselves and ask to be ‘risen’.

I’m Ivy, a pastor here – good to be with you..
We will in just a minute press into the parable Trecia mentioned  – but first I wanted to say a little bit about why parables may be really meaningful to us – particularly in these days…

 

Why Parables

I love parables because they cultivate our imaginations to consider a reality beyond the present world we see. They help us continue to unlock ways that we’ve gotten stuck and/or comfortable with the status quo, and they help us reacquaint with the mysteries of the Kin-dom of God that also exists and resides here & now in our “ordinary life.”  This is what parables do. It’s what they’re for.  

 

As you might imagine, this means parables often provoke, challenge, and inspire us.

 

Today – still early on in this New Year of 2021 – I need inspiration. I don’t know about you? I feel familiar with the hard, the anger, the dislike – and I need a little “rise” as Trecia so beautifully stated….  SO I greet this little 4 week mini series, before Lent we’ll be doing on the parables – with a deep hunger. . . a deep longing… to see what God might reveal…

 

I need a refresher on “how to live in and believe for community/humanity”- I need a refresher on “how to keep pressing forward in a life that God wants me to live”, when I wonder how much of the small stuff that I do – or touch, really matters anyway?  I need a refresher on what the “kin-dom of God is like”…..  

 

Parables are goood, gooood, good. Because they reveal to us hidden aspects of ourselves over time, as much as they expand our understanding and knowing of God.

 

They ask us to dive deep within ourselves with those questions … They ask us to check ourselves – and often create more questions –  of whether or not these parables are still live to us today – or have we domesticated the parables? Have we tried to reduce Jesus’ story-telling down to one single meaning?

 

Amy-Jill Levine,  a Jewish Scholar and professor – says that “the parables, if we take them seriously not as answers but as invitations, can continue to inform our lives, even as our lives continue to open up the parables to new readings”, new meanings and new truth.

 

Parables invite us to stand in the light of today…this moment, our present reality –   As hard as it is, and as tired as we are – and “rise beyond” as Trecia says…”peer just above” the burning world, to see flickers of “God’s kin’dom on earth as it is in heaven…” and ask ourselves what part we will play in that continued creation.

Prayer: – Could you settle our minds God? Could you stir our hearts? Could you tend to the most tender parts of our souls and usher in peace and release to our bodies this morning? Amen.

 

The parable we’ll look at today is found in Matthew 13:33, it says 

“The kin’dom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

It’s one of the Kingdom parables, often coupled with the parable of the mustard seed.  And the quick interpretation we get – of both these parables, is that the mustard seed and the yeast – are “tiny”, yet will grow – and the kin’dom of God is “like” that…  – but if we walk away with just that – we likely will miss some of the particular invitations God might have for us .

 

The word, “parable” means to throw something side by side. Jesus does this throughout his storytelling…comparing the kin’dom of God to another element (such as seeds, a pearl, or yeast), and as He does we are invited to uncover new insights of each element.

 

For example:

With the parable of the mustard seed, the two images upon which Jesus is building are 1) a therapeutic image of life and healing (mustard was known to be a medicinal plant), and 2) a fast-growing weed. . . 

 

And so likewise, as Jesus compares the kin-dom with yeast. The two images upon which Jesus is building – and that I want to unearth more today – is a communal image of interconnected life and transformation, and a fast-growing natural, but WILD fungus.

 

YEAST

You see, commentators have suggested that while parables were told to be relatable to the audience – they were also meant to raise their expectations and invariably surprise them.  Parables were radical, even subversive in their original context- they shook the religious status quo, provoking the audience to see that, “God and God’s kin’dom were more than they thought.”  The parable of the yeast would have been especially disturbing to Jesus’ first century audience.  All three of the elements of the analogy—the yeast, the woman, and the amount of flour—would have really been challenging – AND perhaps challenging still to us today.

 

You see, the Messiah, and the reign of God that God’s people were waiting for – was one that once it came – they felt would surely be recognizable – clear, defineable – and as the Torah had taught, with many a precise and detailed rule to follow, God’s reign would be controlled, certain and contained. 


And so as we look at this parable – YEAST – being related to the kin’dom of God would have given the audience some pause.

Yeast – as they would have known it – was more of the sourdough starter variety – (versus the little packets of Fleischman’s that you pick up at the market). It was this wild, natural occurring fungus that existed all around, all the time…this indeterminate living thing!


It’s not clear whether yeast would have had a purely negative or positive  connotation to Jesus’ audience though – we certainly see in the New Testament ‘yeast or leaven” show up many times in a way that suggests something was “off” -“As Jesus said beware of the yeast of the Pharisees”  – but we also know that some of the Thanksgiving offerings made in the temple were inclusive of leaven, part of their worship.


I think perhaps the greater disruption for Jewish listeners was that yeast was such a WILD, uncontrollable force, this single-celled fungus that pops up everywhere, on the surfaces that ANYONE could touch, on any day, in any place. On the skin of those they would come in contact with, on the cloaks of the priesthood and the commoner alike. A living organism that exists so boldly –  available to take up residence indiscriminately of its host – is the provocative message – as it’s compared to the kin’dom of God.

 

It would be very challenging for a Jewish listener to figure out this comparison. They would wonder if this is what the kin’dom of God is like then how  would they know where the kin’dom of God begins and where it ends? How would they know their place in the kin’dom?

 

This was jarring and stretching for many – to imagine that the elements of the kin’dom of God could somehow already be available –  in the very structure of their lived environments, as close as their skin, and as pervasive as air. And yet this parable revealed something they knew to be true of the nature of the world around them, and at a fundamental level  – for many listeners – this was compelling (as it was confusing). 


BREAD MAKING PANDEMIC
You may have noticed that bread-making became quite a frenzy in pandemic.

First it was Store-bought bread to leave the shelves of grocery stores… 

Then it was flour.

Then it was flour mills.

And also yeast. 

 

There’s something about bread…


Why bread?  Why not some other baked good?

 

I think it’s something to do with the primal aspect of yeast.  IT’s so TINY – but so FUNDAMENTAL to our lives – to the makeup of the environment around us.   It is unruly and mysterious – and ignites transformation that we play a part in – at our very finger tips, as we knead and knead it into dough.

 

In some ways during pandemic –  through bread-making – we’ve had the opportunity – to become reacquainted with the keys of the kin’dom – which maybe is this way of standing in the midst of a world that is ravaged by a virus and ravaged by each other’s violence, and to be alive to the tiny possibilities for newness hidden within.     Bread baking allowed people to be part of creating something new,  from what appears to be lifeless – nothing – flour …This newness that we can witness in a rising bread… the way yeast inhabits the world  of dough around it in a new way…. somehow gives us vision to live out God’s kin-dom – to inhabit the world around us in a new way –  while not rejecting the world as it is.   

 

Bread echoes in our bones – as something fundamental/primal, and of new life – simultaneously.

 

A bread-maker I listened to at the beginning of pandemic said,  “I really do like to think of what happens in fermentation [as in a sourdough starter] — how it’s a breaking down, a decay, and with that comes something nurturing, something that can feed you”…“Therein lies a  transformation.”

 

Jesus is inviting his followers to see that he didn’t come to destroy the law – but that the law through him might be fulfilled.  So Jesus is entering fully into the reality around him – while the religious elite were trying to uphold and grow a  kin-dom by conserving, preserving and controlling at all costs.   Protecting/defending against any wild yeast – anything that would change their way of knowing God…  In this way Jesus suggests – it’s hard to bring new life…. 

 

God’s kin’dom is one that seeks to live  – seeks to grow – not by limiting partnership – by expanding – by overflowing — and coaxing in/drawing in all who were around to be a part of it.  To bring in new life, this is the way of love – the active ingredient in the kin’dom of God.

 

He’s cautioned to say, “it’s not change (this element of yeast), that’s the nasty thing –  Status quo is the nasty thing. 

 

Yeast eats. It breathes. It’s alive – it’s active and in the right environment, it will multiply and flourish – wildly!  Yeast is life… much like the Kin’dom God talks about. And he’s speaking to his audience then and NOW –  saying, “and you are the activators of such life… “

 

  1. Woman 

As is the woman in this parable.  Jesus doesn’t give us any details about this woman in the parable. And perhaps that’s why like in Matthew’s translation we are drawn to focus our attention on the leaven being the meaning-maker as it relates to the kin’dom of God.

 

But in another translation  – it isn’t the yeast that resembles the kin’dom – but it says “the kin’dom is like “the woman” who took the yeast.

 

The kin’dom is like the woman… 

This suggests that this woman is as much an active ingredient in the creation of the Kin-dom of God – as is the yeast.  That she is an agent of the kin-dom – in her own sphere of influence…. AND this suggests that this woman in her “ordinary” role, doing a regular domestic task – is you, and me – any of us – all of us.  In whatever it is we do in our day.

 

The kin’dom of God isn’t magic – it doesn’t transform our harsh realities – but it does have the potential to transform us …  I imagine this woman to live in a small Galilean town  – without a lot of resources, or position in society…she likely could never earn her way to high status in the temple. … But God suggests she’s already part of the kin’dom… She’s present to her surroundings, alive to the world around her…  and in doing so she becomes an active ingredient.  She’s’ willing to work with what is around her, in an effort to spring forth more life. 

 

Three Measures

Scripture says, she took the yeast and

“…mixed it in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

Now there’s a piece in here that would have stood out to Jesus’ listeners – likely in a way that it doesn’t for us… They would have responded to this measurement of flour – and said something like –  “WOW! That’s a lot of flour.”

Three measures doesn’t equal three cups.

Three measures of flour – is somewhere between 50 and 60 pounds, or 60 – 80 loaves.

This suggests to us that this woman did not intend to just make a loaf for herself, or just for her household, or maybe even just for her neighborhood. This amount of bread is enough to feed a village. The kin’dom of God is like a woman who takes all of what she has around her – even if it looks lifeless and like nothing – and grabs some wild spores from the air – and believes that she can feed the world around her (in partnership with God).

 

It is a heart posture – a leaning in with belief that what we can touch/see/do is never too small in the kin’dom of God. 

 

MY STORY, PART 2
Despite all the lovely bread making – and bread-eating that I did… – (and there was a lot of it at the beginning of  quarantine )…

I still circle around to this very question and ask, “but isn’t there a “too small” category?” When we are talking about real meaningful impact in the world…   I mean really.. The ruptures in our social fabric – the devastation in our souls is too much…for a “too small”,  right?

Because that devastation – I feel it in my soul – my “soul is sore.”

In moments when I start to sense again the kin-dom of God near… when God’s love rises within me – something else occurs that deflates that stirring of hope in me.

And I feel our social contracts with one another – are stretched, and frayed, and nearly beyond repair.

 

*BELOVED COMMUNITY FUND

However, the truth is – it’s exactly these little moments, these moments that so often fall under the radar .. that catch my heart off-guard and surprise and inject this fundamental truth of the kin-dom of God  – of locating ourselves as part of a community – that still believes in one another – by being present, aware and alive to those around us.

As you’ve heard over the last few weeks on Virch – we started a new initiative, called the Beloved Community Fund – which seeks to provide financial short-term assistance – AND also to provide a network of HUMAN resources – to holistically support the wellness of someone in need. 

Over the last seven weeks .. So many of you have expanded the kin’dom of God. 

Locating yourselves, your resources, your time, your coats, your boots, your food – as PART of a beloved community.  Knowing full well that to give and receive – to be in need and to offer to those in need is part of the pattern of life – that any of us will find ourselves in. 

This heart posture has touched folks who would identify as “part of Reservoir community” and also those beyond Reservoir INTO ALL of the kin’dom of God here on earth. 

  • You’ve helped provide a Christmas Eve meal for a group of folks with a history of chronic illness, and substance abuse and homelessness.
  • Helped someone be able to continue with therapy… 
  • Helped someone who is sick and in need of surgery..
  • You’ve been present to a family – recently new to the US – with no winter gear or resources…

 

THIS community – so many of you showed up in that regard. Shared your bread. Treated these folks you don’t know – NOT AS IF they were angels,  AS IF THEY were GOD – but regarded them AS angels – AS God in your midst… not b/c you can solve or fix all of the circumstances – but because you believe that your engagement, within your sphere – within your touch – can activate the love of God within and without – THAT NOTHING IS in fact “too small”, and that love can flourish greatly, even wildly so….far beyond where we can see.

 

You see- one of my favorite parts of this VERY short parable are the last few words of that verse – where it says, “….all of it was leavened.”

Once the love of Jesus is activated… There is no barrier to where that love spills out – no edge, no dark corner, no person, no action, no addiction, no sickness – that it won’t touch. ALL will be leavened, with God’s love…. As we greet those around us with the belief that God’s image resides within them.

 

Genesis 18
I want to share one last thing – that I think fills out this parable… anchors it in the long line of God’s presence here on earth… 

Parables were not unfamiliar to Jesus’ audience – in fact many of the parables evoked earlier stories that they would have been familiar to them… The story in Genesis 18 does this, I believe.  Here’s what it says: 

1The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”

“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”

6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs/measures of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”

 

So you can see here – probably some obvious parallels to the parable of the yeast… a woman, bread, three measures. . . . We also see, three strangers seem to appear out of nowhere.  


Abraham and Sarah greet them as holy – as God  – whether they understand that to be true in real time or not!

 

  • Bread is made.  Again with a ridiculous extravagance and generosity – huge portions…! As if they were feeding a whole nation of God to come. 
  • And in the mix of sharing bread with one another… 
  • One of the men tells them that they would have a son in a year.

Sarah laughs – and says, there’s no way, it’s too late – I’m worn out –  I’m too small, I’m insignificant..

  • And then Sarah becomes pregnant.  This mysterious , unexpected, miraculous thing happens… 
  • She is transformed – yes physically she becomes pregnant
  • But something changes within as well – in her heart – from the idea that she’s ‘too worn out – she doesn’t matter…’   
  • To this belief, “I’m not too small,” “I’m willing to partner with you, GOD”
  • And in her transformation…A nation of God is born… 

 

As we know of parables – they reveal more about our true selves, as much as they do of the nature of God – and they reveal that the birthplace of the kin’dom of God is within us…

 

Like yeast, God’s love can not be contained.  It is everywhere. It shows up in 3 strangers to Sarah and Moses, it shows up in a family you’ll never meet,  in a worn out womb, in a heart of despair, at the edge of a Galilean town, in a baby’s cry, in the scent of bread filling your house…

“The love God had for the world couldn’t be contained by heaven – it spilled over the heavens, and came to Earth, came to be in human form, in Jesus.” (Nadia Bolz-Weber).

And now God’s love has active potential – to touch everyone, to speak to the oppressed, to heal the sick, to touch the soul sore….through us.

 

We learn through these stories that God’s kin’dom is ordinary and wild.. Full of fish and pearls, and surprise and doubt, and leaven and laughter and nurture, and banquets and mustard seeds, “with kings – but also with shepherds” (Amy-Jill Levine). 

It encompasses everything.

  • God’s kin’dom is already folded into the stuff that makes up our world – and it’s already folded into us. 
  • To be a part of God’s kin-dom will continue to feel disruptive, unbelievable, surprising, challenge us to believe our efforts matter/our small pieces matter –  and even, like Sarah –  feel laughable at times…
  • We need to allow these parables to be active in our stories today – 

 

DAILY BREAD

Each day we need this refresher – of what the Kin’dom of God is like.. 

God, help us remember what it is to be part of your kin’dom, “Give us this day our daily bread”.  

When we feel like lumps of lifeless flour – or when we look at this world and just see dark, stinky, decay…  God bubble up – rise up – from the cracks in our lives… help us to nurture this heavenly yeast, Because this is the yeast that we will need for decades – centuries to come. 

 

OUR TIMES

  • We are in a time of leavening.
  • GOD IS STILL AT WORK.  in the upheaval of covid, of racism , of insurrection.  May we keep kneading the yeast of God’s love – so we can live in this kin’dom life – both in the world as it is – and the world we are creating with God –  simultaneously. (adapted by richard rohr) 

 

As we close today, why don’t you consider what “The kin’dom of God is like __________ .” What is the kin’dom of God like to you?

 

Prayer:

Oh God, Divine parent of us all – *in whom is heaven*.

Holy, Loving, Merciful one is what we call you. 

May your love be enacted in this world,

and be our guide to dream, to hope and create the world now, and as we imagine it to be.
May your kin’dom come.

May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day, our daily bread.

Fuel us for the work of our days.  Feed us with rest and with love. To love ourselves and neighbors well. 

And lead us into your big heart – that expands our own, for the greater good, the common good, and the stranger.  

Lead us not into isolation, and new lines of division.

Lead us into your presence, apparent in every part of our days, 

where the glory of your kin-dom of love, restores us all – now and forever. 

AMEN.”

*in whom is heaven* – wording from New Zealand Book of Prayer

 

 

 

In addition they offer these words/phrases which might resonate with you:

  • inflammation

–  right side of the body

 

–  waiting 

–  recovery

–  a racing heart

–  a purposed loudness (like at a bowling alley)

 

And an image that might tie these last 4 together:

I looked up and there was a wellspring bubbling up – a sign of hope, new life, growth.

 

BENEDICTION: A word of blessing as we transition from Virch this morning….

 

My friends as you go out into your spaces today.

May you find the sense of god’s kin-dom rising within you….

May you find that your hands and the works of your hand  are already touching it….

May you find that the words of your mouth are already speaking of it….

May you find tiny spores of newness in your ordinary life…

And may you be inspired, delighted and enwrapped in holy peace as you do…

Preparing the Way for Wholeness

For this week’s Events and Happenings at Reservoir, click “Download PDF.”

For this week’s spiritual practice led by Vernee Wilkerson, click HERE.

 

As I get started, I’m going to light our Advent candles – last week, we lit the first candle for joy – Jesus, we welcome you, bringer of joy to our world. And today we light the second candle, which for us this year, is the candle of peace – Jesus, we welcome you, maker, restorer, presence of peace.

 

Last weekend, I hope many of you had a chance to pick up a Christmas present from Reservoir Church to you. Since I had nothing to do with those, I’m really proud of our team for doing that for us all. It was a “while supplies last” kind of thing and they’re gone now, but if you didn’t pick one up, it was sweets and a beautiful Howard Thurman prayer on a card, a candle, flower seeds to hope for spring, a scratch ticket style self-care advent calendar: all totally delightful. Thank you, Reservoir staff team. Totally delightful. 

 

That whole self-care theme had me thinking about a little experiment I’m running in my life this Advent season.

 

And here it is: ice cream and a grapefruit.

 

Which of these would you rather eat today? The grapefruit, or the pint of Ben and Jerry’s? I’m gonna tell you: I’m sure I have eaten way more pints of ice cream in my life than I have grapefruits. Not even close.

 

Way back when I turned 40, two of you gave me 40 pints of Ben and Jerry’s for my birthday. 40 pints, maybe more. I think the idea was that it was a year’s supply. It lasted me like 2 or 3 months. I love ice cream. I eat a lot of it. 

 

But you know, I’m not getting younger, and I don’t always sleep quite as well as I used to. And I had some bloodwork done at the doctor the other year, and you know some of those numbers you don’t want to get too high were creeping up a bit.

 

And I noticed, I eat a lot of ice cream in the evening. Sometimes 1 bowl, two bowls, then maybe another sweet. A lot. And now and then, fine. But as often as I do. Well, I realized I didn’t always feel very great in the evening. And I knew this wasn’t a great way to preserve my health as I age.

 

So this year, I thought, I’m going to try something for Advent. After dinner every night, I will not eat any ice cream. And instead, I’ll do the same thing every evening. I’ll have a cup of tea, one small chocolate or cookie with that if we have any around. And a grapefruit. 

 

Why a grapefruit? I don’t know, we had some in our house no one was eating. And I ate one and remembered, I kind of like grapefruit. I mean, not like I like ice cream. It’s a whole different category. But it’s clean, juicy, and I sort of like how long it takes me to peel and eat a grapefruit – honestly, I can eat a pint of ice cream way faster than it takes me to eat a grapefruit, and it gives me something to do with my hands. I could go on.

 

But this is what I’m doing. And now and then I miss the ice cream, but I find on the whole, I like this experiment in real self-care. In the short run, it doesn’t delight me quite like that pint, but I feel better afterwards. Maybe a lot better sometimes. 

 

Now obviously I’m not focusing on diets or fat shaming or anything like that. Eat what you want, friends. This is just my story about preparing the way for a little more wellness in my life. 

 

But for all of us, this whole question about what is or isn’t good for us has me thinking about Advent and Christmas and making room for God with us. 

 

What do we need from God? What soothes and calms? How do we live in the kindness to ourselves that God has for us in the heart of God? How do we move toward greater peace? And what is peace anyway?

 

Is peace calmness? Or is it wellness? 

 

Peace is one of the words of Christmas time. But when the stories talk about peace, we mostly get stuff like this that doesn’t sound very peaceful: 

 

Luke 1:13-20 (NRSV)

13 The angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayers have been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will give birth to your son and you must name him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many people will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the Lord’s eyes. He must not drink wine and liquor. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth. 16 He will bring many Israelites back to the Lord their God. 17 He will go forth before the Lord, equipped with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, and he will turn the disobedient to righteous patterns of thinking. He will make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

18 Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? My wife and I are very old.”

19 The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in God’s presence. I was sent to speak to you and to bring this good news to you. 20 Know this: What I have spoken will come true at the proper time. But because you didn’t believe, you will remain silent, unable to speak until the day when these things happen.”

Unexpected pregnancy when you’re getting along in age. Rules and regulations that will make your kid God’s messenger but also really weird. Being struck silent for months, because you were unable to imagine God’s wonders. This sounds like a lot of things, but the first word that comes to mind for me would not be “peace.” This is disruption,  

 

Our Saturday morning community group Bible study was studying this passage the other week, and was great. We were wondering: was Zechariah high on the incense he was sniffing all by himself in that temple? Did that have something to do with this angelic encounter? 

 

And we were talking about all sorts of other things, like for instance, Mary, we heard last week, had a very similar reaction to stunning news from God. She was like: how can this be? And God was like: Mary, you’re the greatest, here’s how! 

 

But with Zechariah, the priest, he’s like: God, how can this be? And God is like: you are not going to be able to speak for the better part of nine months, because you doubted me. 

 

Why the difference? 

 

We don’t know. Privately, did Mary believe and Zechariah doubt? Maybe.

 

I kind of don’t think so, though. They’re both surprised, maybe a little bit believing, and a little bit incredulous, just like most of us when it comes to the Christmas story and just about everything else to do with God. We kind of want to believe, but we’re not always sure if we fully do.

 

How can it be, God?

 

But Mary, with the very low standing she had in her society, is ready to embrace the world being turned upside down. She prays with gusto and  joy this radical prayer of all the upending that Jesus will bring in his life.

 

Zechariah, he’s older. He’s a priest, a leader. He’s more established in life. Maybe he doesn’t want the world turned upside down. Maybe, like most of us, the older he gets, the less open he is to change.

 

For whatever reason, though, Zechariah, a person of significant standing and voice, needs longer to ponder before he can pray his prayer of the great disruption Jesus will bring into the world. His prayer is a lot like Mary’s – God will turn things upside down, deliver God’s people, help them not be so afraid anymore, defeat the enemies, show us all how to find forgiveness, and so forth. 

 

But then, at the end of that prayer, there it is again, peace.

 

Luke 1:78-79 (NRSV)

78 Because of our God’s deep compassion,

    the dawn from heaven will break upon us,

79     to give light to those who are sitting in darkness

    and in the shadow of death,

        to guide us on the path of peace.”

 

Zechariah’s kid John is going to be a special boy, a special man, but he’s just the warm up act. He’s going to prepare the way for God to do something even more special through Jesus, to break out in compassion, like the sun breaks forth at dawn, and to guide us on the path of peace. 

 

It’s beautiful. But what is this breaking dawn born of God’s compassion? What is this light? It seems to speak of direction from God, maybe even of modelling. These are both means of guidance, of revealing a path that otherwise wasn’t found and walked upon. God isn’t planning on using brute, controlling force to achieve God’s goals in the world. Never has, never will. 

 

But this direction, this guidance, this picture of where and how to walk that God will provide in Jesus. To what end is this path? What is this path of peace Jesus is to give us all?

 

Is peace a settled bliss? Is peace an absence of conflict? Or is peace the presence of justice? 

 

Is peace relief and calmness? Or is peace wellness and wholeness? 

 

This Hebrew word for peace that underlies the concept in the Bible is shalom. It’s the Hebrew word you wish to one upon a sabbath – shabbat shalom. A peaceful sabbath. It’s the Arabic word, salaam, you wish in greeting. A salaam aleykum. Peace be upon you.

 

But in both of these examples, as with peace throughout the scriptures and the good news of Jesus, shalom is wholeness and wellness, more than simply stillness or calmness. Shalom is things set right, it is the presence of justice more than merely the absence of conflict.

 

May your life be made whole again in your day of rest. 

 

Wholeness, wellness, be upon you, my friends. 

 

Jesus is like the light breaking at dawn, the one who has guided, who can guide us still away from death, to walk in the paths of wholeness. 

 

There are a lot of ways to avoid conflict, not all of them whole or healthy, right? But to achieve justice – shalom – takes disruption of injustice. It takes truth telling, it takes undoing, saying no, to some ways of being and doing, and it takes saying yes to new ways of being and doing.

 

There are a lot of ways to find stillness. You just stop what you’re doing. But to find wholeness, wellness involves seeing the truth about illness. Wellness, wholeness takes negation of what’s causing illness, and it takes words of affirmation to say yes to what will make us whole. 

 

Getting to wellness and wholeness takes disruption of the way things are. Getting to wellness takes telling the truth about the way things are. It takes removal of poisons that are doing us harm. 

 

Jesus makes us whole. Love makes us whole. But it doesn’t just happen to us. We partner with God with how we help, with how we welcome, with how we prepare the way.

 

This was exactly what Zechariah’s boy John grew up to do: to prepare the way for Jesus to lead them into the paths of shalom, wholeness-peace. 

 

Luke picks up the story when John grows up a bit, saying:

 

Luke 3:4 (NRSV)

4 This is just as it was written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

A voice crying out in the wilderness:

    “Prepare the way for the Lord;

        make his paths straight.

John, for his part, would be a truth teller, a disruptive presence, to encourage people to do justice and make way for a new way of life. This type of peace-making work wasn’t stillness and calm for John; in fact, it got him killed. 

 

We too live amidst times of disruption. Most of us don’t get to choose idyllic stillness and luxury, counterfeit peace this year, even if we want to. 

 

What’s left for us is to wrestle with Zechariah, with the possibility of good news, and to listen to his son, John, and prepare the way for Jesus’ paths of wholeness, of shalom peace. 

 

In his column last week, Michael Gerson – an old speech writer for George Bush, wrote, “The Advent narratives are filled with waiting people: Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth, more. They lived in patient expectation and were receptive to the Good News when it arrived. Their hope did not come as the result of a battle. It came like a seed planted in the ground. Like the sun rising in defiance of night. Like a child growing within his mother.

 

We are not the heroes of the story. Our contribution is to be watchful and open. But hope arrives in awesome humility. God is with us. Jesus is with us. This is everything.

I love that line: we are not the heroes of the story. Our contribution is to be watchful and open. To welcome, to prepare the way.

 

For me, this year, that whole choosing grapefruit over ice cream is really just the tip of the iceberg in the preparation I’m making for Jesus to birth more wholeness in me. 

 

Deep wholeness doesn’t grow in us just through what we eat, of course. I shared earlier that getting to wholeness takes disruption. It takes words of negation to what’s ill and words of affirmation for what’s healthy. It takes uncovering, and revealing, and truth telling to get whole. 

 

For various reasons, this Advent, as part of my morning prayers each day, I’m asking God: what truth do you want me to see about myself? What truths do you want me to see around me? And what truths do you want me to say to others? What words of truth, what words of affirmation do I have to say? 

 

I’ll close with a little story from a theologian I love and have been reading again this fall, Kosuke Koyama. He’s where I got the 3-mile-per-hour-God bit, if you remember that. He tells this Burmese story about truth, healing, and wholeness.

 

“A young boy was bitten by a cobra and was taken by his parents to a monk to be cured. The monk said no medicine would work, but he would attempt a cure by an act of truth. He said that in his fifty years as a monk he had been happy only during the first seven following his ordination, and ‘If I am telling the truth, let the poison flow out of this child’s body.” When he uttered these words, the poison flowed from the boy’s head to his chest. Then, the father, saying he would tell a truth, said that he did not like giving to the temple, although he had been doing it all his life. At this, the poison flowed from the boy’s chest to his waist. Then the other said she would tell a truth. She said that she had not been happy with her husband during their entire married life. At this  the poison flowed completely out of the boy’s body.”

 

The un-concealing of the truth we must face has healing power. 

 

Sometimes it is words of affirmation that drive out demons and diseases.  Sometimes it is other kinds of truth that make us whole. Either way, the truth does set us free. 

 

If you find your life disrupted, then good news, friends, you’re ready for Advent. You might just be ready for God, in great compassion, to shine in you with the light of dawn, and to guide you in the paths of peace. 

 

Let’s pray.

In Times of Turmoil

For this week’s Events and Happenings at Reservoir, click “Download PDF.”

To watch this week’s online worship service, click the YouTube link above.

For this weeks’ spiritual practice Ivy Anthony led called “Child of Light,” click HERE.

 

Last week, I finally brought my car to a mechanic to address a slowly but constantly leaking tire. We found the bit of a nail that had made its way into the side of the tire and caused the problem, so I was going to need two new tires. OK. But when they get the car elevated and remove the tires, lo and behold, they discover that my rear brakes are just about shot. So they check the front brakes too, which turn out to be just as bad. What started as a one tire, small dollar car repair, once they got under it and really started looking around, became a 2-tire, all the brakes, rather large bill for car repair. Bummer. We’re gonna be alright, but bummer.

As that happened, I thought: you know, this is a pretty good metaphor for life in America these days. We see a problem, and then we open it up and look around a little, and we’re like: gah, it’s worse than I thought. 

We get a super-virus come our way, the pandemic we were all fearing would come one day, and not only are we not ready for it, but the longer it goes on, the more we see how poorly our country can respond to a health crisis, and it’s like: oo, we have a lot of problems here. This is not going away quickly. 

And then there’s the state of our democracy, or what’s going on in our local schools and how resilient we are in how we raise and educate kids. There’s the state of racial justice and equity in America. The health of the Christian faith and witness in this country, and hey, throughout the world. 

Yesterday a good bit of greater Boston was cheering, and I wondered if the vibe of this sermon I had been getting ready to give was all off now, but I still feel like not. We’ve had a lot of sighing to do this past week, this past year really. There’s been a lot to be disheartened about, still a lot of things to worry about, a lot that fills us with anger or despair. 

So in these times of turmoil, how do we be? How do we be with ourselves? How do we be with each other? How do we be with God? 

Two psalms have been speaking to me, and I want to share them and share a few words with you. They’re easy to remember if you want to keep going back and reading them yourself, because they’re the number 100 apart. Psalm 146 and Psalm 46. Psalm 146 first.

 

Psalm 146 (NRSV)

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;

    I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,

    in mortals, in whom there is no help.

4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth;

    on that very day their plans perish.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,

    whose hope is in the Lord their God,

6 who made heaven and earth,

    the sea, and all that is in them;

who keeps faith forever;

7     who executes justice for the oppressed;

    who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;

8     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;

    the Lord loves the righteous.

9 The Lord watches over the strangers;

    he upholds the orphan and the widow,

    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign forever,

    your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord!

 

This psalm has been helping me manage my expectations for our leaders and our elections. 

Our leaders of course matter. Our leaders can participate in what God is doing on earth or not. They can cooperate in the work of God in this world or not, and that has real consequence. 

The scriptures give us lots of ways to understand what God is doing on earth, and here’s one of them. The psalmist sings that God made all people and all things and God wants to help us all, and especially those of us who could use a little more help right now through no fault of our own, especially those of us who have been set back or disempowered. 

God gives the oppressed justice. God feeds those who are hungry. God sets prisoners free. God helps the blind see. God restores dignity and strength to those who have been discouraged and disheartened. God has a special place in God’s heart for refugees, immigrants, outsiders, and those whose lives have left them vulnerable to economic or social harm. 

And when people really dig in against what is good and decent, when people hard-core resist the ways of God in the world – that’s what “the wicked” means in the Psalms, God stands against them out of love, to urge them to repent, and to call for protection for all that they harm. This is what God is doing. 

So when our leaders prioritize these kinds of things, when they are these kinds of people, they help advance the work of God in the world. And when they neglect these things or do the opposite, then they impede the work of God in the world.

Our leaders matter. We are right to care. 

But we can also seriously overestimate the power of our leaders, and we can seriously underestimate what God can do without them.

The psalm tells us not to put our trust in princes, or we might say, in presidents. Why? They are mortals. They’re going to quit or be voted out or they’re going to die having not fulfilled most of their promises. That’s just the truth. And not only are they mortals but for the most part, the psalm says, “in them there is no help.” Most or our leaders, most of the time, are out for their own interests. They don’t care that much about us, and even when they do, they’re not all that good at making things better.

Part of our stress is because we think that our leaders are coming to save us, when they are not. And maybe part of it is a uniquely American thing. Our country is a child of the optimism of the Enlightenment, and we tend to expect a lot of our country. We tend to naively expect a lot of us as a people and tend to expect a lot of our government. But a lot of those expectations go unfulfilled. 

I heard some people looking at the division reflected in this election and wondering how will this nation find some kind of unity or common ground? Frankly, I have no idea. I heard others looking at the legacy of our outgoing president, wondering what we do with his legacy of serial lying, of white supermacist race-baiting, and all the other bad behavior he’s brought back to the center of American life. And the fact that he’s got a lot of fans still. What do we do with that? Again, I have no idea. 

This week, though, I heard my Muslim colleague Shaykh Yasir Fahmy asking a different question, asking us to consider how we might disentangle ourselves from how tied up we are in presidential politics. How can we release some of what we can’t control, and free our consciousness, free our energy to participate in the work of God in and around us? 

The psalmist tells us what God is doing. What does it feel to be part of it? 

I’d be curious if you want to put ideas right now in the chat on Zoom. It’s open so everyone can see, so keep it clean and keep it constructive. But how, this week, can you participate in the work of God? How can you become love? How can you participate in God’s work of kindness, justice, mercy, and liberation? Opening eyes, feeding hungry, encouraging the discouraged? 

Here’s what I experienced this past week.

I got a message out of the blue from a student intern at an immigration law clinic. He reached out because he knew a little bit about Reservoir, had visited before and had a sense of this church as a kind and compassionate church that cared about justice, which was really nice to hear.

And he was like: listen, there’s this person in ICE detention that we can free. There’s a good legal case. But we have to guarantee safe, quarantined housing for two weeks and then some longer term temporary housing after that. Can you all help with that? 

And I was like: thank you so much for thinking of us, and I will try, but um, probably not. 

Have you tried to find someone free housing in the Boston area before? I have, and frankly, you all in this congregation have stepped up before. You are amazingly generous people. But during a COVID pandemic? That’s a whole nother challenge.

So I put a kind of Hail Mary out by just posting something on my facebook page, and an old colleague of mine I hadn’t talked to in years reaches out and it like yeah, I moved but I still have my place in the area that’s free for a couple of months. All yours. And then I reach out to some contacts in an interfaith immigration justice network I’m a part of about the two week quarantine, and they say they’d raised money already for this very purpose and can get a hotel room for two weeks. 

So with all this housing in place, I let the law clinic know and suddenly we hear, this person is being set free. Amazing. The generosity of good people teams up to participate in the work of God, setting a prisoner free. 

And then I reach out to one of my community groups, and I reach out to our church Faith into Action group, and people donate short term cash assistance, we get food deliveries set up. Person after person participating in the work of God. 

I’ve been speechless with joy as I’ve seen the love pour out. So has the person on the receiving end of it. It feels so good. 

Let’s read some of what’s coming in in the chat….

How do we save America? Again, I have no idea. But Psalm 146 tells me maybe that’s God’s job, not mine. My job, and each of yours, is to put our hope in the goodness of God, and to save ourselves and one another by participating in that goodness of God. 

So in times of turmoil, first, do the work of God. And secondly, find the river, and drink deep. I give you Psalm 46. 

 

Psalm 46 (NRSV)

1 God is our refuge and strength,

    a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

3 though its waters roar and foam,

    though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

    the holy habitation of the Most High.

5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;

    God will help it when the morning dawns.

6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;

    he utters his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our refuge.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord;

    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;

    he burns the shields with fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God!

    I am exalted among the nations,

    I am exalted in the earth.”

11 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our refuge.

 

This psalm also affirms what God is up to, over and against our nations and our leaders. God’s desolation is to end war, to break bows, to shatter spears and burn shields, the power of God is for peace. America has never had a president like this, friends. I don’t know that we ever will.

But this is the will of God, that people of power stop putting us all into turmoil. 

Meanwhile, though, there’s a promise for all of us in times of turmoil, that God is our refuge when the world is shaking. That God is an ever present help, when trouble is at our doors. 

If we can only be still, and drink from the river. Beautiful idea, but what does it feel like when it happens? 

How can a God that looks like Jesus renew us and give us energy? How can a good God interrupt our doomscrolling to help us be still and to give us life and hope?

It helps if we can find the river. I want to talk about the river before we close but let’s get each other going. While I talk, if you have a river whose stream makes you glad, if there’s something in your life that God uses to bring you stillness or joy even in trouble, write what that is in the chat.

We need to find God’s river for us. 

See, the river in this psalm is a bit of a mystery. Because the city of God here is Jerusalem. And unlike most ancient cities, there is no river there. This is a city that has had problems with fresh water for thousands of years now. There’s some irony that everyone has been fighting over Jerusalem all these years, as it is a city that geographically has no river to make it glad, just an underground spring.

But for the psalmist, what they found to be the particular presence of God in that city was the river. The river that made them glad was how God showed up there, again and again.

If you believe, as I do, as a follower of Jesus, that God lives with you, that God is always with us, then you are part of God’s heaven. You are a person God loves, and you are a place God is glad to be.

What helps you remember that? What helps you drink from that love?

Let’s read what’s showing up in the chat.

For me, it’s a spiritual practice in the morning. On my good days, I sit quietly for a few minutes with my cup of coffee, undistracted by screens, and remember God loves me and I have good work ahead of me today. Lately, I’ve been reading a meditating on a different scripture about God’s love each morning. Some days, not so much happens. Other days, it’s a river.

God works through other means too, though. Yesterday, the bagel sandwiches a member of our Saturday morning community group bought for us all were part of the river. Listening to the love between a young couple that asked me to officiate their wedding this week, that was part of the river. Hugs from my family, good books, food and exercise I love, walks outdoors an balmy fall days, all part of how the river of Godo makes me glad.

Friends, wherever and however God helps you be still again and know that God is God, wherever and whenever God loves you and makes you glad, that is part of God’s river for you. Wherever and whenever God brings us collective relief and joy and hope in public life, that too is the river. 

Friends, the river of God is always here for us. It is up to us to find the river and to keep drinking from it.

That’s what I’ve got today. Times of turmoil are no fun. They shake us to our knees. That’s real. But even there, even here, we can find the river and drink deep. We can be still and know God is with us. And we can join God in the loving, liberating work of God in the world. 

Be part of the work, drink from the river.

Friends, hear the word of the Lord as we close:

 

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still. 

Be.

 

Drink deep from the river of life, and find the joy of the Lord in the loving, liberating work of God. 

Amen.

Love One Another, As I Have

For this week’s Events and Happenings at Reservoir, click “Download PDF.”

To view this week’s “Virch” worship service, click the YouTube link above.

For this week’s spiritual practice on Beloved Community, Click HERE.

 

 

Our text today comes from John 13:34. Let me read it for us, pray before I share the message.

 

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all human beings will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

 

In these unique times of unprecedented social environment, the pandemic, reminders of racial injustice issues, among other states of our nation and our lives these days…. Our church Reservoir is leaning into this theme called “Beloved Community”. It’s a way we’re asking ourselves who are we? Who do we want to be? Who do we need to be in these times? What is the church? A lots changed, for example, not being able to meet in person Sunday morning for a worship service for starters, so to ask these questions right now is critical. 

Ask yourself, who do you want to be? What should the church be in this world? 

Who do you want your church to be? What is our church being called to be in these times? (and within that, how do you want to be a part of that, what do you need to do, who are you being called to be?-because you are the church and what you do personally in relation to and with this community is what’s going to shape this community!)

The pastors, staff and the leaders of our church, and from listening to our people through various modes like the Community Group visioning process, Redi Team survey, and Member care we’ve been engaging in through one on one calls, just to name a few–think that maybe, maybe what we want and who we need is– one another. How do we need one another? With deep radical love for one another. So hence the theme: Beloved Community. The gift of community has always been an important part of our ethos. And so we ask, how do we deepen this Beloved Community? What do we mean by that? What does that look like? –that’s what we want to explore in the next 6 weeks as a church in our sermons and in our community groups. 

 

I’ll start here though, first of all. I’ll just say, it’s not a mushy concept okay. Sometimes church talk can feel like this. You know some Christianese lingo that sometimes gets lost in the real meaning, with phrases like, “let’s just love on one another”, like what does that mean? Or like, “are you plugged in to a life group?”, like what’s a life group and what does it mean to be plugged in? So what do you meaaaaan by Beloved Community? Well we’re not talking about soft flowers feel good love. Beloved Community is embodied by bold, strong love that stands in the way of anything that threats justice. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr imagined and spoke of this Beloved Community. He said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” So we’re not just talking about lovey dovey, we’re also talking about power and justice. 

 

For me, even when I think about love though, like attraction love, this aspect of power and justice is important to me. My first memory of a crush, for example, we’ll start with small imaginations and move into more robust ones, but I still think it exemplifies what I think is a snapshot of what I believe love is. I have a memory of when I was a little girl in Korea, in elementary school, one day I was coming out of the bathroom and as I walked down the stairs I saw some boys at the top of the stairs laughing at me. I turned around and one of the boys walked down the steps, turned me around and told me that my skirt was tucked into my pantyhose. I was mortified and so embarrassed. Being laughed at is like the worst feeling but this guy, he decided to not just laugh from afar but walk down the steps to me, away from his friends, to tell me the truth and include me in the secret, thereby giving me power to make changes to my wardrobe and essentially standing up to the boys who were bullying me! I mean I didn’t process it that way initially of course. For me then, it just turned into a huge crush on this guy who was bold and did the right thing. My respect for him turned into melting on the wall whenever he passed by in the hallway after that. Because, you know, I think we recognize how powerful justice is, even at a young age. But you know, I was a little girl, I only knew how to express that through a dreamy crush. 

 

Now that I’m older, I have different ideas of a dreamy crush. Part of it is that I already found one that I captured and married. But I have a dreamy crush on this imagination of a world, a society, a neighborhood, a community that has… no more bullying, no more fighting, no more killing, no more inequality where some have a lot and some have barely to survive on, a place, a people where there’s mutual love, respect, and justice. Where everyone has dignity and a voice and power. How do we get there?

 

A biblical picture of this can be seen with what it calls the kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God. But even that has morphed into some idealized future, when Jesus said the kingdom of God is near, not as just a warning call but an urgent invitation to what’s right about to happen. I remember in seminary my Greek teacher literally bouncing up and down describing this word “near”, how the english word ‘near’ doesn’t nearly describe what it’s trying to get at, but it’s more like ‘right before you nose’! Jesus also said in Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God is within you!” It’s already here and is coming in fullness. And that’s how Martin Luther King saw it too. As not some far off thing but a real possible picture of what the global community can be now, must be right now. 

 

The kingdom language was an imagination of the ancient world in which there were kings and lords. It was meant to describe a realm where God is king, but like a king you never seen, that turned upside any notion of a hierarchical power structure. Which is why recently many Christians have tried to reclaim this notion with a slight change in the word to kin-dom, where it’s not about a king but kins, family, as brothers and sisters and siblings living equitably and justly with one another. Yes a beloved Community does not operate like the world does in hierarchical structures but more like familial. And I don’t mean patriarchal family like I see in my own korean culture, where the father really is the one who is to be most respected and honored. But it’s more like what the new Mulan movie freshly captured. Although, I hear Mulan’s screenplay writers were white, looks like some were Jewish descent, anyways, let’s just say the movie’s got some complicated reviews from both fans and critics from Asians. But in a very light surface level personal review, it’s interesting to me that in the beginning, Mulan is chastised by her parents to bring honor, to know her role, and at the end of the movie Mulan’s father hugs her and says he’s sorry? I don’t know, it’s a nice ending but that’s pretty remarkable message for an old traditional asian man to express emotion like that and not be stubborn. But I think that is why it’s a beautiful story that captures us because it flips the power dynamic. It might not be an accurate portrayal of what actually might happen, but it is inspiring to see the young girl empowered and bringing honor in a new elevated way I might say. It’s a picture of a non-patriarchal family, not relying on the traditional hierarchy but a new way where every member of the family is able to deeply and boldly care for one another. 

 

It took even Jesus many various parables to describe this kingdom, this counterintuitive upside downness of this newly imagined world. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is like yeast a woman works into her dough. The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hires workers at different hours and gives them the same pay! It’s a scandalous picture to be honest, that’s harder for us to reckon with than we’d like. We may think yes, I want Jesus’ kin-dom of God he describes, but be honest, do you really? Do we really want this? Cause it might not look like what we imagined. It might challenge us. Require more. Cause God’s vision is much bigger than our own. It’s not utopia. It might even look dystopian to you. It’s like how Billie Ellish said, “I had a dream, I got everything I wanted, Not what you’d think, And if I’m being honest it might’ve been a nightmare.” 

 

In John 13:34 Jesus says

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all human beings will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

He says this in the context of his impending death. He says here, love one another, as I have loved you, which is to be noted, different from, ‘love your neighbor as yourself”. As I have loved you. And what is that like? Look around the text. I always love reading the text around the text. What was he doing earlier before he said this? And what does it do after? Well a few other things happen in chapter 13 that I think it’s interesting to note. In the beginning of Chapter 13 is when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.  This was a picture of how Jesus loved, doing something that was common at that time but a only servant or a slave would’ve done. And might I add, that in the previous chapter, in chapter 12, is the story of Mary wiping his feet, which makes this washing reminiscent or redefining of what happened in that context when Jesus was chastised for letting a sinful woman touch him. Okay, back to chapter 13, after the feet washing, Jesus predicts his betrayal and calls out Judas basically. Man that must’ve been an awkward dinner, like, hey all of youguys are great, I’m gonna die soon, I’ll miss you, oh and by the except for one of you, whom I will not say the name of, but he’s dipping bread with me right now, yeah this guy right here, you betrayer! This is how he loved them, by calling out publicly one who was going to betray him. And then, Jesus predicts Peter’s Denial. Again, oh you too. You say you love me but you just watch, let’s just watch what you end up doing. As I have loved you, which is truth telling. Jesus told the truth. He was prophetic. This love is not what we expect…. And I’ll say more about nonviolence and conflict the next time I speak in this series, as MLK pointed out as a cornerstone to the Beloved Community. 

 

So I mentioned a few things, what this beloved community is. What the kin-dom of God might look like, but it’s hard to describe. Like I said, even Jesus used so many parables that his disciples were confused by and scholars and Jesus followers are still trying to unpack and figure out what he was trying to say. So here’s a few more images, because when definitions fail, images and parables can be a gift that keeps on giving…. Like Steve mentioned in our midweek newsletter about a sermon Michaiah preached. Beloved Community is like a community of trees, roots entangled, standing together, and sometimes these forests get stronger through a fire, crazy to think about and so much metaphor there…. Or one that one of our staff members, Trecia, keeps referring to as an image that’s been a helpful picture for me, we are the vine. The branches. Again intertwined, bearing fruit, entangled with one another. Another one is from St. Paul in Corinthians, describing the church as a body with many different parts. Whether you are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, having one spirit. The body also has so many metaphors too. How it needs each other, how different the parts are, how it suffers and shares joys. Trees. Vines. A body. 

 

Dearly beloveds, who will we be? Can we imagine a community like no other that we could possibly be? Do we want that? Do we expect that from ourselves? If not, what are we doing, just playing house? Let’s explore and dream together, our Beloved Community, how can we be and what must each of us do to make us more so? Jesus be our guide. Helps us to love as you have loved us. Show us your love. Amen. 

Meditation on Psalm 13

For this week’s events, click “Download PDF.”

To watch or rewatch this worship service, click the YouTube link included above.

Today’s spiritual exercise called “Trail Marker” is HERE.

Psalm 13

13:1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

13:2 How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

13:3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,

13:4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

13:5 But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

13:6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Loving and Gracious God, We step into this worship from many different places. Some of us come seeking joy and comfort. Some of us come tired looking for some answer or sign of hope, some of us, would you draw us near to we’re not even sure why we logged on or keep coming back to you. No matter where we’re coming from, you and your steadfast  love. Would you make evident to us the power of your love, and convince us, that your love is stronger than anything we might face. we pray, in Jesus Name Amen. 

I love that the Psalms are filled with words of prayer from ages ago, But the Bible, is not only the ideal example or a how to book, they are stories of complex people, giving us examples of various journeys of faith that one may embark on. in complicated situations, that display ebbs and flow of many journeys folks have taken over the ages, in their relationship with themselves, their world, and their God. In fact, we shouldn’t just accept the Bible as authority but as a community. Let me say that again. We shouldn’t just accept the Bible as an authority but as community or communities, witnesses, testimonies, as there are many different voices and perspectives, diversity within the Bible. Some claim the Bible as an authority. The Bible is powerful. It’s helpful. It is convincing and a good wise library of stories to journey alongside with. But Bible as authority, as a sole or most important aspect of the Bible is obsession with authority and thereby submission. Our preoccupation with hierarchy must stop. 

Any time we engage the Bible it has to start here. What is the Bible and how do we read it?Like checking who the letter is from before we read the contents, we have to first reconcile a few things about the Bible, before we can get to the good stuff It’s the first thing we have to deal with and address. . So stay with me as I try to take you through that a bit before we get to the meat of the text. First, let me set the context through translation of the original text and touch on the historical context of its time, and then talk about what we can learn from this prayer. 

So, verse 1. How long oh LORD? Right off the bat, the original word is not LORD. Lord connotes hierarchy, like yes my Lord, to someone who oversees you, or Lord over you. The original word that’s often translated into English as capital LORD, is actually YHWH, a word the Jewish people don’t actually utter out loud because it is too holy. It actually didn’t even have vowels, and the consonants are all breath consonants, YHWH.  The language is so ancient no one is exactly sure how you’re supposed to pronounce it.Maybe, God’s name sounds more like, a deep sigh.  Instead, in its place, the Jewish people say, Adonai, which does mean Lord, which is why we translate it LORD. I’m sure you might’ve heard me share this before in a sermon, because knowing the background and context of what we’re basing so much of our time and energy and religion on is so important. What is the name of this God we’re even talking about?  If you don’t know the history and know how to capture it properly, then you’re probably not doing it justice. SSo this is me doing Bible justice. ome call it the work of decolonizing, as colonial terms, like Lord, have too often tainted the deeper, richer, broader meaning of seeing God as more a Lord, but one who is also as close and intimate to us as our own breath. God doesn’t just watch over us. God is with us and in us. Emmanuel – a name that Jesus showed us, by the way. 

Okay, that’s verse 1. LORD pops up again in verse 3, but every time you see LORD, don’t think of a guy on a horse with a cape and a sword and a shield, I mean sometimes you can but diversify your image of God, sometimes try thinking your breath within you, always coming in and going out, always present, take a deep breath and imagine God’s presence filling you up. 

Okay, verse 4. “and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed””

 The version we read today is NRSV, which often takes the pronouns into consideration and if it isn’t specific to a certain person and is talking about man, as in human kind or a human being in general, they try to make it gender neutral. Which is what most seminaries use, although as my Old Testament professor would say, NIV is more “accurate” because it doesn’t change the pronoun and translates it to something more like, “and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and yes that’s what the original text said and most translation have something along those line but, NRSV gets it closer to what it was trying to mean for us today. 

 Maybe this doesn’t matter to you, but the experiences of a person for most of history has been in the perspective of a man.It is more difficult for those who don’t identify as male to relate. It’s actually been used to say that see women didn’t pray, because you only had records of men praying. So you wanna smash patriarchy? It starts with very small things like this, a little word like “he” that dominates and captures the imagination of so many religious experiences and stories like this prayer. They don’t mean “he”. They mean one, one who has experienced enemies prevailing against them and being left with nothing they can do or say. 

So whenever you see something like, “therefore man will never….”something something some lessons for humankind…” think, human beings, or human kind. And if it says he, think they or she, whatever pronoun you’re comfortable with. 

With that I’m going to go on another, what may seem like a tangent, sorry, but it totally relates. These languages and words we are critically thinking about as we read the Bible, to consider gender and sexuality, that weren’t a thing in times of deep patriarchy, that we’re trying to turn and unearth and change, we need to be doing that with our own words now. Last year, I said in a sermon, “You are God’s beloved son. You are God’s beloved daughter. God loves you.” Good message right?! Well, a person gave me feedback afterwards, to remember those who might not identify as a son or daughter, and would be more inclusive to add, “You are God’s beloved child.” And I was like, oh! So, now I try to, in my sermons or even in prayers, not just talk about the sisters and brothers gathered here, but broadening my vocabulary to be inclusive and say siblings. It’s not a huge fix, but it could mean less exclusion to people. Let’s help each other, without judgement cause some folks really don’t know this whole world of pronouns but we can pastorally, with Jesus-spirit offer invitation to the world of pronouns right? Gender has been a great source of oppression and exclusion. God is the Lord our God who brought God’s people out of Egypt. One who liberated. If we can  do the work of liberation through how we name people, her, him, them, then we can at least try in community. 

On that note, I’ll skip to verse 6. It says,  “I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” We’ve discussed at Reservoir the gender of God not being particularly male, so I won’t belabor the point. Seeing God solely as a male misses out on so many fuller characters and extensions of God. Reinforcing “he” language on God pays a big price. Especially to little girls, thinking only men or boys can be close to God or be anointed by God. Or bring questions like, how am I made in the image of God if God is male. So, just another reminder that, verse 6 is saying, God has dealt bountifully with me, and not sourcing the act of bounty only to a male figure.

Whew, okay we did some decolonizing the language, the culture, the context, and smashed the patriarchy of ancient wordings and expressions. You’re probably like, HOW LONG oh Lord, will Lydia go on about this stuff? Now we can get to the meat. 

How long, indeed. A deep visceral cry of lament, that’s more of a rhetorical question than an actual timeline needed. It gets to the agony, the helplessness of this psalmist’s state of suffering. 

And yet, even within the suffering, the psalmist has an object of affection. Their, (it was probably a he but i’m using they pronoun) grief is not lost in a void but they are able to direct their emotion, anger, and lament to someone, a being, a God, that they can express raw feelings to. One whom they trust and lean on, as they say later in the prayer. But at the beginning of the prayer, they’re filled with question after question. This prayer shows us that no matter how big or dire our questions are, there is one who we can hurl ourselves to. Our sufferings are not left to our own loneliness in it but just as this psalmist prayed, we also can pray, even when we’re not sure if God’s even listening, even if we’re so angry

Verse 3 hits on such a depth of despair that almost doesn’t seem like the right things we should be saying in a prayer.” Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,” Demanding. Threatening.  This is in the Bible as an example of faith?No, these prayers are not just examples, like I said earlier, but they are a consolation. They are in solidarity with those who are suffering. They are here for those who are experiencing such frustration with God that makes demands on God. They are for those who have been to the depths of suffering down to thoughts of death. If you haven’t been there, you don’t know. But if you have, this is a balm to your soul.  It’s not a golden prayer high on display, but rather intimate, even hidden or embarrassing moments of darkness one may experience. And I love that such “not so right way to pray” is included in the Bible. Cause I’ve prayed some heretical, inappropriate, not in my right mind prayers to God and wondered if I’ll be struck with lightning right then and there. No. It’s okay to pray like this, the psalms show us. 

This prayer also shows us various facets of one’s experience that faces suffering in all the different angles. It’s uncertain what the suffering is but it’s complicated and involves not one particular thing, but multiple folds. Suffering comes from God who does not listen or answer. “How long will you hide your face from me?” Suffering comes from within for they cannot turn off their minds and get any peace. “How can I bear this sorrow all day long?” And Suffering comes externally, “my enemies have prevailed.” They are in a theological, personal, and social predicaments. Have you experienced that? Making rounds to all those we can blame–God, ourselves, others. It doesn’t reveal who is actually at fault. That’s not important. It just is. Problems are complex. Where the trouble comes from is all sides. It’s hard to decipher exactly who is responsible and what to do. It just hurts everywhere. 

Lastly, verse 5 and 6, it turns. And it doesn’t mean that this is how prayers should always end, on a good note. There are psalms that end abruptly without a resolution, and plenty of good songs that end without a resolution chord. So what does this turn mean?

It could be an example of how we can turn our minds from things of our current suffering to the past remembrance of God’s faithfulness. It could be a spiritual tool of one who has dealt with suffering some and knows the power of coupling our grief with gratitude. It could be a picture of a gift that comes unexpectedly while you’re praying. It seemed like they were so lacking in the beginning of the prayer and all of sudden they remember how bountiful God has dealth with them. How could that be? Or maybe it’s a protest. A protest against all that is evil and wrong. A dumbfounding ray of hope in unexpected places. Maybe the audacity to be both, to hold, “how long oh Lord?” and “you have dealt bountifully with me” in both of our hands, is the call of prayer that this psalmist needed in their life. May we have the faith to say both, in prayer and in petition, in grief and in gratitude, in life and in death, to God. Let me pray for us. 

Jesus I pray that just as you faced both death and resurrection, that you give us the courage to face both.  Help us to lift our hands in weakness and receive the power of your abundant love again and again. Hear us oh holy one. May those who sow weeping, go out in songs of joy. Amen. 

Gratitude Service

Photo of fisherman silhouette, standing on small boat in water. Mist and mountains in background.

Reservoir Church gathers together to worship, grieve, welcome new life, and celebrate God’s abundance with gratitude. Sermon text from John’s gospel, Chapter 21. A video tribute of praise during Covid, from The Work of the People.

Click above on the PDF of today’s slideshow for this week’s events and happenings.

God Became Like Us So We Could Be Like God

Last week we began our seven weeks of Lent with me critiquing a popular view of why Jesus died on the cross. I said that if we think what the cross shows us about God and people and justice is that God hates us, or that God needs to punish before God can love, or that God uses violence to get God’s will done, then we’ll hate ourselves and one another more, our notions of justice will be too punitive, and we will be prone to violence ourselves.

And I tried to begin to share one reason Jesus died – which is to show us what God is really like. To show us that God is love, and that in particular, God is self-giving, co-suffering, all-forgiving love. 

Lydia will be preaching next week, and the week after that Ivy will be leading us in another one of our participatory liturgies – these weeks when we skip the sermon on Sunday, and experiment with alternative ways to use our time and space for worship together. 

But today, I want to explore a second reason why Jesus died. This is one of the oldest answers to that question. When the early teachers of the faith, the fathers and mothers of the church 17, 18, 19 hundred years ago were asked about Jesus, one of their shortest, most powerful ways of talking about the good news of Jesus, including the death of Jesus, was to say: He became like us, so that we could be like him.

Jesus became like us, so that we could be like Jesus. 

God became like us, so that we could be like God. 

I want to talk about that meaning, that belief, that hope today. And in particular, I want to talk about two different ways of reading that sentence, which reflect two different views of God, and two different views of all of us too. 

Can we pray first, though? 

We’re looking at the Cross this year through the lens of the Seven Last Words of Christ – the seven things that Jesus said as he was dying. We have a much deeper daily dive into this in our Bible guide. Each week, Monday through Friday, we give you a short passage from the Bible, sometimes a related poem or image, along with a few comments from me or some weeks from Lydia, and an encouragement for a prayer you might pray and a short spiritual practice you might try. The guide is different every day, but the spiritual practice stays the same every day for the week, to give you some chance to try it on for a while and see what it might do for you. This guide is really the heart of our Lenten experience. It’s on our website at reservoirchurch.org/lent. We’re emailing a link to our mailing list each week too. And we’re keeping a few paper copies in the lobby as well. Week two starts tomorrow, and if you missed week 1, no worries, just start tomorrow – no need to try to go back and catch up or anything. 

And this week, our second phrase from Jesus comes from Luke right where we left off last week. Sometimes this is called the Word of Salvation. 

Let me read the passage for us, that is also printed on your programs.

Luke 23:32-43 (NRSV)

32 Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

We talked last week about what a cruel scene this is, and that continues. Jesus isn’t just tortured and killed – his clothes are stolen. He’s mocked. People lash out at him in anger.

But there’s this other interesting thing going on here. The Romans post this sign over Jesus’ head that says, “This is the King of the Jews.”  By doing this, they get to mock Jesus – like to say: ha, what kind of a fake king are you! And they get to mock the whole colonized Jewish people as well, saying: look at this failure, this pretender. The only king you have is Caesar, who could do this to any of you if you step out of line .

It’s interesting, this provokes something of a debate about what it means to be a king, and what Jesus can and can’t do as he’s dying. And if Jesus is God’s chosen human leader – what they call the Christ, the Messiah, if Jesus was even fully human and fully divine, well, then what does it mean to be God in the flesh, or to be God period? 

Our two criminals highlight this tension.

Both of them want to be saved. 

Both of them want to be noticed, to be remembered. 

Both want God to be God to them, as they understand God to be.

But they have very different versions of what that means. Criminal #1 sees Jesus, and Kingship, and Messiah the way most of the crowd does. If you have power, then take over. Be strong. Win. Get me off of this cross, or you’re a fraud, Jesus. While we’re at it, get yourself off the cross, or you’re a liar. Ease or eliminate my pain, or you’re dead to me. 

Criminal #2 takes issue with their view of Jesus – and maybe with their view of power, of kingship, of what God’s like, maybe all of it, we don’t know. But criminal #2 sees there is nothing wrong with Jesus, there is nothing lacking in Jesus because he either doesn’t have the power to change this pain, or he can’t use that power, or he has a different kind of power entirely. 

Criminal #2 turns to Jesus, and says: what I want is to be remembered. Can you make sure I’m not alone, Jesus? Can you make sure this isn’t the end? Can you make sure this means something, that I mean something? 

And Jesus says: yes, in fact, today you will be together with me, in Paradise. 

Before we talk about Jesus’ answer, about what his words might mean, I want to talk some more about these two views of power, and how they’re examples of two different views of God. 

I insult the great Protestant reformers and their ideas all the time. That 16th century reformer Martin Luther, for instance, was an unhealthy, kind of unhinged anti-Semite. But to give credit where credit is due, I think Martin Luther did have a brilliant idea about God, and how our view of God shapes all kinds of things.

Luther said that followers of Jesus tend to live either a theology of glory, or a theology of the cross. 

Here’s some of what he meant by that. 

A theology of glory needs to win, win, win no matter what! It’s a need to triumph, to be on top, to not experience failure, pain, shame, weakness. 

A theology of glory starts with the usual human stereotype of God, a God that above all else is power. Disatant perhaps, sometimes angry and fed up with us, but holy in perfection, and unlimited in sheer force.

Those of us with a theology of glory need to be first and best – ourselves and our groups too. This means avoiding problems if we can’t fix them, and it means despising weakness and supposed fault, our own and others. Those with a theology of glory also tend to be really moralistic, because they long for perfection – so whether it be morals of the so-called right or left, what’s most conservative or what’s most woke, those with a theology of glory want perfection that requires conformity, and are impatient to plain mean when they don’t get it. 

A theology of the cross makes peace with what is – with our mixed outcomes of winning and losing, of joy and pain, of success and failure, health and sickness. 

A theology of the cross starts with a God that is revealed most fully on the cross. A God that above all else is love. A God who is most fully revealed to us in the fully divine and fully human person of Jesus. Who is particular – a Jewish child of a carpenter. Who is relational. A God who enters human bodily weakness and mortality. A God whose path to life is through suffering. 

Those of us with a theology of the cross can be first or last. We accept weakness, limits, and woundedness in ourselves and others because we know this is what is part of our beautiful humanity. We are not surprised when things don’t work out as we hoped. We long to improve ourselves and the systems we are part of, but we are unsurprised that things are not as they should be, and we reform and change with acceptance, patience, and the kindness that comes from those things. 

Now the first communities of Jesus followers had a theology of the cross. They couldn’t help it. Even though they worshipped Jesus who had risen from the dead, even though they announced that God had beaten death in the person of Jesus, even though they lived with less and less fear, still their God had been killed on a Roman cross – what the powers of their age used to terrorize and disgrace and punish the lowest class offenders of their age. They didn’t wear crosses or put crosses up in their places of worship – to do so would be dangerous and embarrassing. Still, they couldn’t help but be associated with the cross and so connected with shame and suffering. 

The first followers of Jesus also had many among them who were slaves, who were severely poor, like hungry most of the days of the year poor. And they didn’t have middle class to rich suburban and new urban churches and poor to middle class all the rest of the churches like America does. They had small, mixed class communities dedicated to caring for the needs of each member. They couldn’t possibly imagine themselves as best, or perfect, or without fault or problem. 

But this changed over time.

The cross became an emblem of Christianity in the 4th century, when during a Civil War in the Roman empire, one of the rivals to the throne – Constantine – claimed he saw an image of the cross in a dream, just before a big battle.  Legend has it he saw this image of the cross in the sky, and heard the words, “Conquer by this.” He won the battle, so he converted to this symbol’s religion, Chrisitanity, and changed the course of religious history. 

And Christians have been conquering in the name of the cross ever since. If you’re Muslim, the cross is an image of colonialism, and of the Christians who’ve been trying to take your land and draw your borders. If you’re Jewish, the cross is an image of anti-Semitism, of the people who’ve blamed you for the death of God and tried to exterminate your race. And if you’re American, especially if you’re Black in America, the cross has been the image of White supremacy, of a White nationalist Chrisitanity that has set crosses aflame as they’ve terrorized you. 

The cross went from a picture of God’s solidarity with our weakness and death and suffering and shame to an emblem of victory and triumph. And ever since, it has again and again been really bad news for the world. 

On the one hand, this is just important to know if you associate with Jesus, that the means of his death, and the dominant image of our faith has become a colonial image, an anti-Semitic symbol, an emblem of white supremacy and of culture warrior faith. All sad, but true. Christianity has in many ways become, in Luther’s term, a religion of glory.

But this is also not just historical. We see theology of glory religion alive and well American Chrisitnaity, where being a Christian makes you more – not less likely – to racist or just inhospitable takes on immigration or on the discrimination experienced by people of color. Christianity doesn’t have the corner on theology of glory in our moment either. You see it in radical White Christian terror, and you see it in radical Islamic fundamentalist terror, and you see it in India right now in radical nationalist Hindu violence against Muslims. 

Regardless of our faith, what shapes our view of God or life shapes everything. If you’ve got a fix-or-avoid every problem, gotta be the winning team faith, you’ll need that to stay true to that faith – immune to criticism and problems, always on top. You won’t be able to be humble, to welcome criticism of your churches and systems, to respond to it. And you won’t be able to have healthy interfaith relationships, or peacefully and respectfully participate in a pluralistic society. 

This can be really personal. 

I come from a family that was really shaped by a theology of glory. We were raised to be stoic. I was talking with a family member this weekend who just got out of the hospital after a surgery. And she was like: yeah, I spent last week in the hospital, I’m on a bunch of different medicines for pain, and I can’t lift my arm anymore, but really, I’m fine. 

Always fine, right?

And we were nothing with one another if not critical and defensive. 

I’m trying out a spiritual practice for Lent. It’s an idea I got from a guy I met recently. We were talking about spiritual practices in our lives. And this season of Lent came up. A lot of people fast in some way for lent – give up a type of food or something else. Others pray – we have this daily Bible guide that has a recommended spiritual practice each week. Others traditionally practice generosity. And this guy had a really particular way he practices generosity during lent – not just a financial generosity, but a relational generosity. 

Every day during Lent, he reaches out to a different person he hasn’t been in touch with recently. Sometimes it’s a lot, and sometimes it’s just a text that says hi. But as soon as I heard him talk, I felt in my gut that this was for me. This was the Spirit speaking to me. And so we’re only a few days in, but I’m on it. 

A thank you note one day, a how’s it going text another. A few days ago, I remembered this sad, sad moment in my family life a decade ago, and realized I wanted to send an apology note to my dad. 

Here’s what it was for.

When I was a teenager, I was really into music – singing mainly. But I thought about studying music theory, which required picking up some basic keyboard skills too, though I’d never had any piano lessons.

And during that time, my family – which was always really short on cash – managed to pay for voice lessons for me the last three years of my time in high school, and then later, they bought this electronic keyboard I could use too. These sacrifices were made for me by parents who had themselves met in a high school choir, so you’d think when music came up, it would be this sweet thing in our family life, just full of connection and gratitude. 

You’d think that. 

But there was this time I was maybe 19 or 20 and I was home to visit my family on a vacation. I think it was late morning, and my dad and I were home, and I was playing this hymn by Johann Sebastian Bach and singing along. 

In English, it’s called “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.” It’s a song about the cross. It’s a really sad song, but a song with a ton of love and devotion in it too. It’s like: Jesus, you have known all my wounds and faults and felt the pain of those when you were dying. And as it goes on, it becomes a love song too, an expression of connection and gratitude. 

And I think I was feeling it – music tapping our emotions and all. And my dad had come up behind me without me realizing it, and when I stopped, he just said something like: I love that song. It’s always been a favorite. 

And I remember turning and saying something like: you don’t exactly show it, Dad. I mean how does your life show that you love God?

It was awful. It was an accusation barely hiding inside a question. It was all my religious zeal and hypocrisy of that moment of my life turned against my dad, whose faith practice didn’t look like mine at the moment. It was probably some surprise at finding my dad having witnessed this moment of emotion I hadn’t wanted him to see, and that turning to defensiveness. And it was probably other resentments I had about my father that had nothing to do with this, just finding a convenient outlet here.

Whatever was going on for me, my dad raised his voice for a moment, I don’t remember what he said. But he stormed away, and we never spoke about it again. Not once. 

That was kind of the way things tended to go. 

Now a faith, an interior life shaped by a theology of the cross would have been OK with my emotional life being witnessed. And it would be curious about my father’s spiritual life, that seemed different than mine, rather than critical. A family life shaped by the way of the cross would mean if I criticized my dad so harshly, so randomly, so meanly, he might look at me and tell me that was strange, or that hurt, or wonder why I was being so mean. 

But this family system, and these inner lives and relational lives colored by what Luther calls “theology of glory” didn’t know how to do any of that. Weakness was scorned, criticism was common, and we all had these highly-tuned defensive instincts and tactics to avoid each other’s barbs and stay away from those parts of each other. 

 And all this meant we couldn’t be with each other very well, which is always true in a theology of glory. It’s good at winning, but not at relationship. It doesn’t know how to be gentle in its criticism, so it’s harsh instead. And it doesn’t know how to accept and be curious about weakness and fault, so it’s super-defensive when others criticize. And so it builds walls, not paths to one another. 

This propensity toward criticism and defensiveness is one area my life has called out for transformation from God, for a gentle God to join me in the human experience of bitter attacking, as we read today Jesus did, and for Jesus’ unguarded, gentle generosity to reshape my heart and actions instead. 

Jesus had a vision of social transformation, that the will of God would be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that God’s kingdom would come on earth, to use Jesus’ language. And part of that is also a one by one by one personal transformation, that we would become like Jesus, as Jesus has become like us. 

We see this personal hope throughout the New Testament, in places like this excerpt from Paul of Tarsus second letter to the house churches in Corinth, where he writes:

II Corinthians 3:18, 4:7 (NRSV)

18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

By looking at, worshipping God in the person of Jesus; by relating and connecting to God in Christ, we participate in this union with Jesus that transforms us into – ironically – a kind of glory. The beautiful, wholly loving nature of God, into pure goodness and freedom. And that happens even as – in this life – we remain weak and humble and limited. 

We can even hear echoes of this hope in Jesus’ promise to the second criminal, as he dies next to Jesus: Today, you will be with me in Paradise. 

This is a good place after death, communion with God beyond the grave. But this is also, in the next life and in this one, the destiny for the character and relationships and identity of all people of Jesus, to be where Jesus is, and to be our versions of who Jesus is: broken but whole, full of life in the face of suffering, full of love in the face of fear. 

This is part of the gospel, the good news of Jesus. It’s the most common formulation of the good news of Jesus in the so called Eastern branches of Christianity. He has become like us so that we can become like him. Renewed into our full selves, not erased but completed. God has become like us so that we can be like God. 

Gentle with our weaknesses, secure even in our imperfection. Kind and patient, even when we need to offer criticism or try to change things in our world. Loving fiercely without controlling. And in an age of loneliness and competitiveness and fear, living not just for ourselves but for the greater good and living boldly and connected and unafraid.

Here are my closing invitations for the week. 

Invitations to Whole Life Flourishing

Give and receive criticism with room for weakness – less personally, more gently, with more curiosity and compassion.

Spiritual Practice of the Week

This week, you’ll be invited to hold our wounds and sin and failings before Jesus, to ask for mercy, and to ask Jesus to grow the life of God in us in their place. 

(Let’s try that now, those of us that want to…)

Write down one aspect of yourself, your experience, your life, or our world that is most marked by sin or death – something we are entangled in that is far from God. Hold the word or phrase in your hand and offer it to Jesus, praying the ancient prayer, “Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us.” Ask Jesus what aspect of the life of God Jesus would like to grow in you and your world in place of what you are offering to Jesus.  

Now I am not a public health expert or anything, but this past week, you could see Corona virus fear sweeping our country.

Now, at church, we’ll do what we can to be prepared. Our staff are having some conversations, and we may remind you now and then in the weeks to come to stay home from your community groups or Sunday services if you have flu systems. And we’ve told parents and volunteers with our kids the same. And we could all do to step up our handwashing habits, and our not touching our noses and eyes habits and stuff like that. And if this flu outbreak gets worse, you’ll be hearing this and more many times, in many places. We’ll have more to share perhaps in the weeks to come.

But as a church, I’m also asking: how do we have a Jesus-informed, cross-centered approach times of threat or fear? 

How do we not look for someone to scapegoat or blame anyone for our brush with mass illness? I know I did my civic duty and ate in Chinatown last night.  

How do we use it as an opportunity to do what we can for our own and others’ health and safety, but also to make peace with our own weakness and mortality? 

How do we cultivate a careful, but unafraid approach to sickness and even, God forbid death, that allows us to be people of compassion and generosity when our friends and neighbors are overcome with fear? 

These are some of the preparedness questions I’m asking right now as a follower of Jesus. I hope to keep asking them together with you. 

For today, though, I want to say to you, friends, that no matter what happens in the weeks and months to come, we are accompanied and held by a God who has become one of us, who has suffered and died with us, and who loves us fiercely and tenderly in all of our fears and limits and wounds and weakness.