Jesus’ Third Last Word: “Here is your mother. Here is your son.”
Number in Series: Third
Isolation: Our Modern Day Weapon
Third in the Series, Seven Stories: Jesus’ Big Story, and the Other Stories by Which We Live
Could we start this morning with a prayer? A moment to pause and orient your heart to God. A moment to check-in and ask yourself, “how is my heart this morning?” Let’s take a few minutes to check our hearts and check-in with God. If it helps you, you can put your hand over your heart. “How is your heart this morning?”
Silence.
Dear Jesus, maybe our hearts are all over the place this morning – heavy, curious, weary, broken, or numb, impatient, eager – maybe all we can say is, “well it’s beating!” I want to give thanks to you for all of that, Jesus. Thank you Jesus that when we ask for your presence you point us back to our hearts. Could you, this morning – let our hearts hear your voice – and feel your presence?
Amen.
Stories and our Hearts
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus in his longest sermon says that “people speak from the fullness of their hearts” (Luke 6:45). Now, what fills our hearts, Jesus says – is wide open with possibilities – the full spectrum from goodness to evil.
From the beginning of our existence I believe Jesus has been speaking good into our hearts. He’s been filling our hearts with HIS great story of peace and mutuality and connection that holds wilder power than we could ever imagine. A story that has the potential to shape our lives, to build new things and hold our humanity to a greater purpose – to dream and to vision – for greater justice and peace than we say today.
I think he keeps speaking His story to us – for this very purpose – to stretch our imagination.. And the capacity of our hearts… . To keep imagining just how generous Jesus’ story of love is – because it’s a hard one to believe on a daily basis – when the stories we are fed are ones full of antagonists like harm and anxiety – fear and oppression – frenzy and death…these characters SUFFOCATE and flatten the story of love into hard, dark stories. They are such hard stories, BUT they catch our attention, because they are so LOUD and prevalent – and forcefully vying for space in our hearts.
These stories prove to be effective weapons at piercing our full hearts and deflating them to dead end stories like of domination, redemptive violence, isolation, purification, victimization and accumulation.
These are the six primary stories, that authors Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins suggest we tell and have been telling, writing and listening to, for a really long time.
These are the stories that we are visiting in this current sermon series. Pastor Steve talked about domination and redemptive violence the last two weeks and today I’ll talk about our tendency to isolate – and what effects ripple out from a seemingly benign posture.
These stories are important for us to inspect. To find out just how much space they have taken up in our hearts – to do the work of excavating where they are rooted, and unweave them from the language and vocabulary we speak in our lives and that we speak of God.
This is important so that the spiritual fibers of the Holy Spirit that were written in our DNA from birth, can rise back to the forefront and can be familiar words in God’s story, that speak to bind us to one another – ones that say “we are not alone”, “that we are loved” and “blessed by God”. Today we’ll look at just how sly – but powerful isolation can be at separating us not only from each other – but from this deep, true story of God in us – that was planted long ago.
We are the ones that get to fill out the story of Jesus – we are the ones that give it shape – dimension – the height, the depth, the width – how beautiful and powerful this story can be if we speak from hearts that are filled with the greatest, most generative protagonist of all, LOVE.
My STORY – Part I
I’ve shared about my upbringing here and there in sermons. I’ve talked about the coldness of growing up in Maine – the poverty, the rigidity of my faith experiences in my religious context. But I haven’t talked that much about the pervasive sickness of this small town in Maine.
And it hit me this past Friday, when I entered the doctor’s office for a colonoscopy AT 10 years younger than the recommended age, of just how strong the link between isolation and sickness is. ((This is not going to be a sermon about a colonoscopy – mercifully! Just in case you are wondering if that’s the trajectory we are going on – it is not!))
(*little health alert here*, if you are of recommended age or you have a family history go, go, go, go get a colonoscopy! I’ll make you some broth and pour gatorade for you, but go get one!).
The sinister thing about isolation – is that it can seem so confined and benign. We can witness people or groups of people at the periphery of our life, doing their own thing, seemingly happy, not harming anyone – and feel like there’s little impact of this distance on our lives. But often that separation has felt effects – it is destructive, because it breaks off all connection with sources of good – relationship with one another, God, and ourselves, and in the separateness a leeching of poison and decay spreads out into all the surrounding areas.
The small town I grew up in and neighboring small towns revolved around this epicenter of powerful, paper mills. An incredible source of revenue for these towns, for the livelihood of so many people and their families – and a badge of honor in many ways to carry on the generational line of hard work and honest living. These were the stories of the town that were told … of security, loyalty, pride… comfort, happiness..
The stories, that were told and the stories that I watched lived however, always held for me a bit of dissonance… (it’s the same feeling I get today, when I see Maine’s license plate that says “vacationland” on it – or the big sign that you see going North at the border of NH into ME – “Maine, The Way Life Should Be”).
Because what the mill also provided were stories of generational lines of sickness and death. In the decade I was born, the river which the mills were built along, flowed through the center of town and out into the farmlands – the mighty Androsccogin River, had dissolved oxygen levels of exactly zero. Which means that fish became unable to breathe and died by the millions, along with any other aquatic life, plants, etc.. Newsweek named this river, one of the ten filthiest rivers in the United States. Everything in the river died. *source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
Not only were the waterways poisoned….. but the fresh air we breathed was contaminated with chlorine leaks and other poisons billowing out from the smoke stacks…
The byproducts that compromise the air we breathed, the water we drank and the land we walked upon were a medley of toxins , “Dioxin, cadmium, benzene, lead, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, chloroform, mercury…(and many more that I can’t pronounce)..*source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
This cocktail of poisons – leeching into our water, air and land – of course poisoned the bodies of so many humans I knew and loved, in the form of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, lung cancer, prostate cancer, esophageal cancer, Ewing’s sarcoma, emphysema, cancer of the brain, cancer of the heart, and undetermined cancers.
“These illnesses would occasionally show up in suspicious-looking clusters, sometimes in generations of families, often in high percentages.” *data source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
This week, I connected with an author, Kerri Arsenault, from a town next to the one I grew up in – who has a book coming out in September called, “Mill Town”, (and from which I was able to quickly get all this data). We shared the commonality of cancer taking both of our Dad’s and witnessing so many other humans we love, decay in our towns… but the greater underlayer that we also held in common was the powerful posture of isolation in these towns from the government, mill authorities to families, neighbors and friends.
The possible link of sickness to the production waste of the paper mills started to get more widespread attention – more attention outside of Maine…
- I remember that a Boston TV station investigated the flurry of cancer diagnoses in their NEW series at the time, called Chronicle and called the episode, “Cancer Valley.”
- And during this time, Dana-Farber in Boston starts asking questions to doctors in neighboring towns to mine, “What the heck is going on in your town? We’re getting all these kids with cancer coming in from your area.”
- In the early 2000’s: Cancer is the leading cause of death in Maine.
*data source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
As attention spreads, of this link, people in these towns who had their livelihoods built into the mill – started to feel threatened. Their way of life, this mill their energizing force for security and happiness is called into question. Fear starts to leech into the fabric of the town as much as the pollutants…
With this fear, isolation increases and is embodied as denial.
The Los Angeles Times talks to the state representative at the time, asking “why do you think there is such a high cancer rate?” Her reply was, “We have a very, very high cancer rate, but we always have lived with that. Nobody can prove anything, I don’t want to make [the paper mill] out to be a villain. They’re here to make paper and—there’s no question about it—this valley depends upon that paper mill.”
And the mill responds by claiming there’s “no clear link between mill wastes and cancer or other diseases.”
As late as 2012, local paper headlines says that “toxin spikes is a good sign and state officials are not alarmed”. “9.6 million pounds of chemicals released do not alarm authorities, because the increase in pollution shows an increase in papermaking.
“When anyone tried to connect the dots between the mill’s pollution and these illnesses,
logic was met with stories of justification,
personal experience with stories of excuse,
disease with stories of blame.”
*data source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
This is the subtly and slyness of isolation. The story lines that are created when a “way of life and living – of certainty” is disrupted – people feel threatened – they pull back from reality … and they isolate.
The possibility of losing that which they have held on to for meaning, identity and their shape of life – is too much to deal with, too much fear to negotiate and it’s too much of an ask to release, with vulnerability, what’s really going on in their hearts. So instead it is easier to write story-lines that say “Nothing to see here”, “We’re just doing what we’ve always done – leave us alone”, “Everything is just great, never been better!”
Meanwhile mills start closing, with the increase of the digital age. Jobs are lost … and cancer is still the leading cause of death in Maine, and now along with suicide rates above the national average and illicit drug-related deaths exponentially increasing by 340%. (https://www.addictioncenter.com/rehabs/maine/)
The wicked lie of isolation, despite heaps and heaps of data to the contrary, despite tons of personal stories that suggest elsewise – is that “everything is ok” – and the fullness of hearts that we speak from are the lies that have leeched into our being…. Polluting and depriving us of the very thing we need most – the breath of God and human connection.
In isolation – we can’t see a horizon – there is no “looking out”. We can’t imagine or hope for a different way, we can’t vision for change…in fact we center our hurts, and our fears and our judgements as the only things that we can rely on.
People were scared of losing their jobs – having to quit school to care for sick family members; scared of losing health insurance if they lost their jobs.
*source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
There were real things to be scared about! And yet the story on the streets if you were to listen was, “I”M FINE!” “I”M FINE!” “I”M FINE!” Keeping everyone at arms length.
This is the active harm, that not one ray of light, or breath, or salt or yeast can get in to catalyze change in an environment of isolation. The mill, was the system that provided people with what seemed like limitless opportunities, fortune – certainty. “People were given something to believe in, a place to belong, but at the cost of their own suffering.”
*source: (Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/).
We make ourselves believe that to survive, it is better to report to ourselves and others, that this is the “way life should be”. Because we believe deep down that we couldn’t survive telling the stories that we think are unspeakable. Unspeakable stories of our heart – of fear, of vulnerability and perceived failure.
We couldn’t entertain questions like:
“How’s your heart?”
“I’m scared.” (way too much)
“How’s your heart?”
“I’m so hurt.” (not even on the table)
I grew up determined not to be poor.
Determined to get a respectable education.
To always be employable.
And to never get sick.
But I never talked about how scared I was. How much fear filled my heart.
We are so scared of being vulnerable – and yet we don’t realize that when we isolate, draw away – we leave ourselves in the most vulnerable of states. At the mercy to our own fears, judgement and thoughts (that grind and churn in our heads). . . Which in isolation are the only things that grow.
Isolation turns our inner posture of going out and connecting with the things and people that we care so much about – into a posture of protecting ourselves from the things we are scared of , or that we hate, or that we don’t agree with.
So we go out and gather educational degrees, and bank accounts, and piles of really witty comebacks, and gym memberships, as resources to fill our hearts and protect ourselves from any possible unforseen change in our future..
But the byproduct to this way of life, this isolation, is similar to the poisoning of the mill. It’s a weapon really – that leeches out and suffocates our beating hearts – it deadens the way we were made, our very constitution – to be in relationship with one another- and forces of separation, and suspicion take over.
Causing us to miss our greatest resource – each other.
It’s one long, hard, flat story.
And by the way – it’s not just a story about a small mill town in Maine.
These are stories that permeate our nation – it’s endemic – all across America.
This isn’t just a story about sickness and disconnection and poverty – it’s a story about our tendencies as human beings…
It’s a story that says “no one cares”, “go it alone”.
It’s a story that is a “church” story, a “religion” story, a “family” story, and so on – as much as it is a “mill town story”
And it is the story that reigns as gospel – to so many who are heart-sick and “poor in spirit”, who are bereft and mourn the state of our world, who are weary from efforts of justice-seeking, who are afraid, who have just worked so hard, for so long. It’s our story.
SCRIPTURE
Jesus as you might imagine, is incredibly curious when we start to try to define the gospel for ourselves. So here on your program are his thoughts on the gospel,
Matthew 4:25 – 5:11 (NIV)
4:25 Large crowds came from all over to follow and listen to the story of Jesus – “ from Galilee, [a very Jewish area], the Decapolis, [these 10 towns – a very Greek area which is not Jewish, not religious, not pure, not clean, not holy], Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan.”
- All sorts of different people, from many backgrounds – races, ethnicities, non-christian, christian, very, very, elite religious – and non-religious.. .
- People who were curious.
- People who were suspect.
- People who yearned to know more about this Jesus fellow.
- And people who thought they knew all there was to know of this Jesus fellow.
- This crowd is a representation of the wide, massive spectrum of humanity.
5:1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them – this story.
He said:
3 “Blessed are [you whose stories are of] the poor in spirit,
for yours is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are you [whose stories are] full of mourning….
for you will be comforted.
5 Blessed are you [whose stories are] meek, – lowly, humble…
for you will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are you [whose stories] hunger and thirst for [justice*],
for you will be filled.
7 Blessed are you [whose stories] show mercy,
for you will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are you [whose stories are] pure in heart,
for you will see God.
9 Blessed are you whose stories center on peace,
for you will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are you [whose stories are] of persecution because of your struggle for [justice*],
for yours is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when your stories are full of insult, persecution and accusations that falsely fall against you – because of me.”
*”justice” from The First Egalitarian Translation
Jesus says, “I bless you. I bless you. I bless you.”
“Blessed are you whose stories are of isolation.”
This is the gospel story. This is Jesus’ story.
This is the good news. This is not good advice. This is not a passive aggressive story that Jesus that says, “you know what you need to do, you need to be a little more “meek” , a little more “mourn-y” a little more in “pain”, a little more “poor in spirit”…… to get my blessings, to enter this story….
NO! THis is Jesus saying to EVERYONE, this massive crowd of humanity:
“I LOVE YOU! YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I BLESS YOU – YOU ARE CONNECTED TO ME – My heart is connected to your heart.
Even in these states where everyone else on this Earth will want to ignore/avoid/judge/think you are TOO much, hurl insults at you, toss you aside – I BLESS YOU! This is the story written on your hearts.
You are not alone.”
Can you imagine what it feels like when you are at the end of your rope, when you’ve been so oppressed for so long, when you’ve lost what is most dear to you, when you feel so alone – Jesus says, “My friend, I’m here with you.”
Jesus’ story goes nowhere in isolation. Connection is the key to this story of love.
It can’t live in the dark.
The large crowd also held the religious elite who had upheld a “way of life and living, loving God” that had never been touched. Generational lines of being at this religious pinnacle – knowing what it looked like, what was required to ‘obey’ or ‘not obey’ the commandments of God. They already had this religious way of life locked down.
And yet, Jesus in these verses says, here’s a different story, “here’s a new way to live and love” – and it requires you to move in from the edges of the crowd, and connect to all of these people here.”
To drive this message home, Luke records these extra words of Jesus:
Luke 6:24-26 (NLT)
24 “What sorrow awaits you who are rich,
for you have your only happiness now.
25 What sorrow awaits you who are satisfied and prosperous now,
for a time of awful hunger awaits you.
What sorrow awaits you who laugh now,
for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow.
26 What sorrow awaits you who are praised by the crowds,
for their ancestors also praised false prophets.”
Woe to you.
Where a posture of relationship and mutuality is absent.
Woe to you.
Where the expansive spectrum of humanity is shrunk to a suffocating corner in your heart.
Woe to you.
Where love is void from your vocabulary.
For you heart will speak of stories that are bereft of meaning, God and life.
And your life will be but a weapon of isolation.*
(*I added that – Luke didn’t say that (just in case it wasn’t obvious).
What we try so hard to possess, protect and preserve – turns to poison in our hands. It turns hard and brittle and falls apart…
The active threat of the story of isolation – the real damage that is incurred – is that it flips the Jesus story upside down – it says that “Peace, security, happiness, love, ” – are all things to possess for ourselves – hoard and compile.
To have enough of these – to hold them tightly in your hands is winning at this story of life.
If they start to slip, the story of isolation says, hold on “tighter”, fight “harder” and defend more vehemently.
The religious elite in this crowd – already thought they had “won” God. Happy on their formed island… of certainty and “rightness”.
Jesus comes in and says, “woe to you, I have a different story, and it starts with I BLESS YOU.”
“Bless you! and bless you! and bless you!” Jesus zigzagging across the crowd, inter-connecting those who shouldn’t be connected – by the religious law, societal law, telling the new story of love.
“Don’t be afraid, you aren’t alone”.. Look! Bless you and bless you and bless you”….
“Loosen your grip. Peace, hope, blessing and belonging – were never meant to be held so tightly, they can’t be contained in one place. THEY ARE MEANT TO BE GIVEN.”
Their very essence is to spread and be magnified and fill all the dimensions of our hearts.
This is the flow of Jesus’ story – to receive and to give…
“You shall receive mercy – as you give mercy.. . you shall receive peace as you give peace.. You shall receive blessing as you stay connected.”
THIS IS THE STORY OF LOVE. The great protagonist… and love needs its space to roam and be free… in, and between, and through ALL OF US.
Jesus is telling a new story – an UPENDING story, where winning, and strength, where the biggest and most powerful don’t take center stage – and HE invites us all as crucial participants into this – into something so much bigger than a story of isolation can achieve.
When we step out of connection, when we sit at the edges of the crowds around us – we disallow the love of Jesus to be completely expressed in the world.
We DEAD END the Gospel story.
MY STORY – Part II: DECAY
I went back to my home town this December, the first time in a couple of years. And I connected with a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in some time. I was in a full room of people, and she came in through the side door…
When I saw her, I was pierced right in the heart.
Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you? That’s what it felt like – Here it was all at once – the decaying impact of the story of isolation, in human form. Written across the face and in the lines and eyes of my friend… The poison of it, the weight of it, the corrosiveness of it. She represented the stories of decaying governmental bodies that wouldn’t change policies, the decaying bodies of water and land – the wearying story of poverty – the grind of working so hard – it was almost too much to bear.
And I felt my heart rush with care and love and I had a split second of wanting to hug her and hold her and ask her “how her heart was?”
… and then I shut it all down…I shut my heart down.
I said to my husband, Scott, “we have to leave”.
Arms length.
Rush back to my space, my story of comfort, peace, warmth, DRIVE AWAYYYYY….. *my own move to isolation*
(and we did, we only stayed one night instead of two).
But Jesus says in these verses…. “Come back, come back! Stay connected. STAY connected. Her story of isolation is your story too… you can’t shake it. You can’t’ turn your eye.. And sit on the pile of your satisfaction and fullness…
You see, stories of domination, revolution, isolation, accumulation… are not just someone else’s story to struggle with and experience – to point fingers at… they are ALL of our stories – they impact all of us…
I think this is Jesus’ point if we are going to tell this story of love,
- We can’t use words like peace, when we only carve peace for ourselves in this corner – WITHOUT trying to restore peace where it is not…
- WE can’t use the word “connection”, when we use power as a way to distance ourselves from others, divide ourselves – when we could utilize it as a way to approach each other, unite and connect us to one another.
- We can’t use the word, “belonging” when the binding commonality is who we hate or what we don’t like … when we could set the foundation of belonging as what we share – what we love and hope and dream for.
- We can’t tell the story of love… with words like, “safety, security, certainty” because the story of love is too big, too dynamic to hold those words… It’s a story where words like courage, resilience and grit build new pathways. A story that rests on risk, trust, mutuality …..where we hope that the flow of love will create something new that we can’t yet see… a horizon we all long for.
Jesus’ story of love – speaks of blessing and connection – not hate and decay.
Ruby Sales, the civil rights elder – says we need to do more of this – we need to speak more of blessing and of LOVE. She’s been quoted as saying that she joined the civil rights movement not only because she was angry about injustice but because she loved justice itself. She says that, “most people begin their conversations with, ‘I hate this,’ but they never talk about what it is they love.”(On Being Newsletter January 2020).
When I left Maine in December I went away with things in my heart that I couldn’t stand the sight of – stories of poverty, sickness, weariness, decay. Things that I HATE and am outraged by. But I couldn’t get to this spot that Ruby Sales talks about in my heart.
What was it I cared so much about – what was it that I loved so much?
When I got back from Maine – after seeing my friend. I went to write her a letter.
A simple “thank you” note, for the Christmas presents and for opening her home to us.
I was still so full of anger and frustration and sadness at seeing her…
And as I sat down to write, my heart and fist clenched…
words came to the paper that I didn’t consciously scribe,
And the first line I wrote on that page was: “I love you, mom”.
“I love you – even if you couldn’t take a day off of work”.
“I love you, even if we couldn’t stay another night”.
“I love you” ..
Ruby Sales says the reason she wants to have justice, is because she loves everybody in her heart – and if she didn’t have that feeling then there would be no struggle.
ANd perhaps, there would be no reason for me to keep telling the story of Jesus, if I wasn’t so torn up at seeing the story of isolation decaying on people’s faces.
The words written on my heart – came through my pen – but they come through our actions, and our words too – so long as we don’t stop the flow of God’s love… It’s love that is meant to be received by us and given by us – but not held by us… It’s then that I can see with clarity what and who I love.
God is still writing his story in my heart…and it starts with, “I bless you, Ivy”.
And “I bless your friend.”
“Your stories are the same.”
“YOu are not alone. You are not alone in your outrage and frustration and sadness – and your mom is not alone in her sickness and pain.
You are both blessed in love, by me.”
We are all part of God’s big story.
What story of God will we write?
What stories will be told to the next generation of our day and age?
Will they be stories of growth, and healing, and blessing?
Stories of resilience, courage, connection and birth?
We are the living words, the sacred texts, the verses and the chapters – that others will read, we are the living Bible stories.
What Gospel will we write?
Invitations to Whole Life Flourishing:
Trust that you are actively disarming others, when you devote yourself to love and connection. Start by infusing your conversations with the words “love,” “heart,” and “hope.” Ask yourself, and people around you, “What do you love?” “How is your heart?” “What do you hope for?”
We need to start changing our vocabulary. Our actual spoken and written vocabulary. When you meet people try saying “How is your heart today?” Instead of “how are you?” And listen. Watch. Notice. Their heart will speak… even if they don’t yet have the vocabulary. Watch their eyes, their face – listen for the intake of breath, the sigh – the silence… we need to start listening to each other’s hearts… and it might have to start with our language.
Spiritual Practice of the Week:
In moments this week where the tug of isolation is strong, say as a prayer, “I am blessed by God, I am not alone”. And then take a practical step and move into the sunshine and/or reach out to someone for connection.
Prayer:
Thank you Jesus that you bless each and everyone of us here today, in our full humanity. In every state of heart, mind, spirit or body.
May we receive your blessing and give your blessing today, and tell the story of this blessing with a heart full of your love. .
Sources:
- Kerri Arsenault, https://lithub.com/growing-up-in-maines-cancer-valley/
*Book: Mill Town Reckoning with What Remains, coming out 9/1/2020
Everyone, Without Exception
I think we’re learning with increasing clarity that institutions and ideas that aren’t good for everyone aren’t really good for anyone.
Last week The Globe published a devastating write-up of challenges along these lines that a major institution in our city is facing. The headline read: MIT president acknowledges women, minorities on campus feel belittled, excluded. And it talked about women’s experience on campus of being insulted, people of color and LGBTQ people being marginalized, lower prestige staff being bullied by star professors.
This was MIT, but it could have been a lot of other places too. I think more and more we’re seeing in government, in business, in education, in churches ways that communities aren’t equitable. Ways that promises of welcome have had all kinds of asterisks and hidden footnotes attached to them. Ways that so many communities and institutions need to dramatically change to really include and honor all people.
So it’s fun to hear stories where this is happening. I heard one recently on a podcast episode called Liberte, Egailite, and French Fries. It was about a McDonalds restaurant, of all places, this one located in the French town of Marseille. In a poor, immigrant neighborhood in a coastal city, the local McDonalds has the motto, “Come as you are.” And people take it seriously. The community eats there, gathers there. The restaurant employs members from the community, and actually practices decent job training and advancement for folks from the neighborhood.
And there’s this teenager named Kamel. He’s 16, he’s a high school dropout. He’s got significant dyslexia which wasn’t ever addressed, which means he can’t fill out a job application. Home life is unstable, he lives half the time on the streets, and he’s starting occasional “work” as a carjacker and small time drug dealer.
What’s happening at that same moment, though, is that he meets Ronald McDonald at a community event. Outside companies, corporate events never came to his neighborhood. And here’s an actor playing Ronald McDonald doing a magic show. And he’s got one of those big orange McDonalds coolers that he can’t carry back with him when the show ends.
So Kamel, who’s there, says I’ll do it. I’ll bring your cooler back to your McDonalds tomorrow. And the manager who was with the actor says: sure, thank you. And Kamel does it; he lugs the cooler on his scooter the next day, turns it back in, and asks for a job.
Something about being trusted as he was made him want to work there. And something about how reliable he’d been made the manager want to hire him.
The story from there is fun – Kamel rises through the ranks, he’s eventually a great employee, he becomes a manager, through that position, a significant community leader.
This branch of McDonalds takes its “come as you are” motto seriously. Be being for everyone, good things happen.
But the story is bumpy too. McDonalds isn’t a charity – they’re doing their “everyone” thing because they think it’s good for business. And sometimes it is. But in Kamel’s first few years of employment, he’s not a great employee yet. They really need to walk the distance with him. And then later, when he’s a great manager for the community – and a labor leader, really – it’s unclear if McDonalds would rather have this “Come As You Are” success story, or if they’d rather get rid of him, not really be for everyone, and increase their profit margins.
“Come as you are.” Everyone is included without exception. This is a beautiful way to be in the world. I’m preaching today that I think it’s God way in the world and God’s way for us to be in the world.
But it takes work. It gets complicated. It sounds beautiful, but it’s not always what we want.
When Grace and I were first married, we were on this rec league volleyball team. Grace had played some organized volleyball, but I never had before. And this team had these two amazing players, maybe the two best players in the league. And I thought it was great that there was room for me, who was not so great. I made so many errors. And frankly, because our team included people like me, we had a mediocre record, despite our two stars.
I’ve been on the other side of it too.
When I was teenager and into my early 20s, I sang a ton. In a period of eight years, I was in dozens of choirs – school choirs, church choir, community choruses, all-state chorus, semi-professional choir, paid little choir singing gig for a commercial.
And as I sang in higher and higher level choirs, my standards changed too. The last time I sang in a choir was as a favor to a friend of mine, where they brought me in as a ringer to this community chorus that needed a little help. I only had to show up to the last two or three rehearsals, site read the material, help fill out the sound. They even paid me a little bit. But I remember, 22-year old diva that I had become, that I wasn’t so sure I liked singing in this entry-level choir.
So I didn’t do it again. But then again, that also means that for over twenty years, I haven’t been singing in any choirs at all. Would I rather have entry level choir, or none? Which is it?
Let’s take this “everyone without exception” theme into the our series we’re in and into the scriptures.
This month we’re speaking about how our church’s five core values can animate our own faith journeys, and our third value we’re touching on says: Everyone. “We seek to welcome people in all their diversity, without condition or exception, to embrace a life connected to Jesus and others.”
We didn’t make this one up, though. I think it’s one of God’s values.
Let me read you a story from the first early history of the Jesus movement. It’s from the eighth chapter of the Bible’s book called Acts.
Acts 8:26-40 (CEB)
26 An angel from the Lord spoke to Philip, “At noon, take the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) 27 So he did. Meanwhile, an Ethiopian man was on his way home from Jerusalem, where he had come to worship. He was a eunuch and an official responsible for the entire treasury of Candace. (Candace is the title given to the Ethiopian queen.) 28 He was reading the prophet Isaiah while sitting in his carriage. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Approach this carriage and stay with it.”
30 Running up to the carriage, Philip heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you really understand what you are reading?”
31 The man replied, “Without someone to guide me, how could I?” Then he invited Philip to climb up and sit with him. 32 This was the passage of scripture he was reading:
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent
so he didn’t open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was taken away from him.
Who can tell the story of his descendants
because his life was taken from the earth?
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, about whom does the prophet say this? Is he talking about himself or someone else?” 35 Starting with that passage, Philip proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him. 36 As they went down the road, they came to some water.
The eunuch said, “Look! Water! What would keep me from being baptized?”38 He ordered that the carriage halt. Both Philip and the eunuch went down to the water, where Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Lord’s Spirit suddenly took Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip found himself in Azotus. He traveled through that area, preaching the good news in all the cities until he reached Caesarea.
So apart from being a really awesome, fun story, this little account of Philip and the unnamed Ethiopian eunuch is a key moment in the early church’s experience and practice of their “come as you are” without exception journey, their learning of God’s value for “everyone.”
First century Samaritans and Jews had hostilities toward one another. Friendships, marriages, engagement of any kind really would not have happened between these communities. They definitely would have had separate McDonalds.
But Jesus had said to his followers – our good news needs to go to Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to ends of the earth. It sounded beautiful – Jesus’ commission to take God’s good news story to everyone, everywhere.
And yet for a little while, none of Jesus’ first followers – all, like Jesus, Jewish – wanted to do it. Why would they? It wasn’t like Jews were at the top of the status pyramid in the Roman Empire? They were scapegoated, conquered, marginalized at every turn; they had to fight for every bit of dignity and freedom they got.
But Philip was like, I’ll do it. I’ll go to Samaria. Interestingly, Philip – later known as Philip the evangelist, a bringer of good news – Philip first got his start as an equity, diversity, and inclusion leader in a large church food service program. Greek-speaking Jewish widows weren’t getting the same treatment as the Aramaic-speaking Jewish widows, so knowing representation matters, some Greek-speaking Jews were appointed leaders, Philip being one of them.
But he outgrows that first calling, and he moves into a Samaritan neighborhood, makes friends there, lives and shares about God’s good news there, that through Jesus, everyone was welcome into connection with God and connection with one another in this multi-ethnic movement.
It’s from there that Philip gets this nudge to go take a long walk, and he meets this royal official from Northeast Africa.
Now back then small numbers of people from surrounding nations were intrigued by the Jewsih God, even came to Jerusalem to worship on occasion. Jews called people like this God-fearers – outsiders to the story of God who worshipped this god anyway.
And this Ethiopian court official was apparently one of these god-fearers. But today, he finds himself in the story of Israel’s God.
He is an important man. We know this because of how he talks – he is very much in charge throughout this story. We also know this because of his title – he’s the money man, the chief financial officer of the queen mother of a nation. And we know this because he’s a eunuch. To be such a prominent assistant to a female ruler meant in those times that you’d be neutered first. So, power, money, but no sex, romantic partnership, and no descendants. Cut off from what traditional cultures have seen as your best chance at a legacy and a future in the world.
So it’s interesting to me that he’s reading a passage in the Hebrew scriptures (from the prophet Isaiah) about this servant of God who accomplished great things for God and people, while also suffering greatly. And part of the suffering was to have life cut short and – like this eunuch – to have no descendants.
Later we’re told that this person will through non-biological means have many, many descendants and that what God does through this servant will be so great that people who are sad because they are without children will burst into song.
We’re even told that the eunuchs who are part of God’s new deal with humanity will be honored, remembered, and given a better legacy than if they had had children.
Reading the scriptures, this eunuch from a far-off land sees himself in God’s story.
And Philip says to him, yes, you see yourself in God’s story, and I see you in Jesus’ story.
Philip says this suffering servant of God who bears sin, who absorbs human pain, who heals disease, who is scapegoated and humiliated, who suffers injustice and then is vindicated – Philip says, this is the life of Jesus. Jesus draws all people to God, not through celebrity, not through impressive displays of might, not through conquering at the head of an army or a multi-national capitalistic marketing endeavor. No, Jesus draws all people to God through sacrificial love, through a revelation of the beautiful character of God, and through an unleashing of the Spirit of God throughout the world.
You could say this is the meaning of faith in God through Jesus Christ. That we find ourselves, whoever we are, in God’s story. And that Jesus finds us in God’s story too.
Jesus is God for you, my new friend, Philip can tell this Ethopian eunuch. And he’s thrilled. For himself, and maybe for his whole people. You could have this debate on who the first Christian nation is – Armenians will say us, the Kerala region of India might say – no us!, and Ethiopians may tell you the same, that starting from this one court official, there’s an unbroken legacy of faith among their people, in their culture.
Who knows? But it’s an interesting but part of the legacy of this passage, and the legacy of the good news for everyone story of Jesus. That Jesus is not the possession of any one people. Jesus is certainly not a White man’s Jesus, or the gift of European colonialism to the world. Jesus is not Amerian and didn’t speak English, just as he wasn’t Ethopian and didn’t speak Amharic. And yet, to me, Jesus of course speaks English. And to this man on his way home from pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Jesus was a Black Amharic-speaking eunuch just like him. Jesus, by the Spirit of God, insists on being for everyone.
This story is actually like the heartbeat of most of the founding documents of Jesus-centered faith.
I already said that this book of Acts is structured around the words of Jesus, when he said: you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
You see this in all four biographies of Jesus in the Bible too.
In Mark, Jesus is always travelling back and forth across the sea, pushing boundaries for where God can be found, on pilgrimage north outside Judea, centering the stories of ethnic and religious outsiders, like the Syro-Phoenician woman in chapter 7, and the Roman centurions in chapters 8 and 15.
In Matthew’s story of Jesus, we start with religious and national outsiders – the Magi – coming from far away to worship Jesus, and we end with Jesus’ followers told they are to go far away themselves to share back an update with the rest of the world.
The good news about Jesus told by Luke centers the outsiders, tells a story of Jesus who is including and elevating and centering all the people from the margins.
In the last gospel, told by John, Jesus is portrayed as a human still, but also as the cosmic God of the universe made flesh. John is written under the influence of the prophet Isaiah, who came up in todays’ passage. And Isaiah is the old Hebrew work of prophecy most committed to God being God of the whole world, the God who knows and loves and includes all people.
Even the letter to the Romans, what some people think of as the densest work of Christian theology in the Bible, is a plea for Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus to learn to love each other, to be friends with one another, to eat and to worship together, together support the author – Paul – to bring good news to far off barbarians that all of them would have disdained.
No more.
The story of God is in part the story of the inclusion of all people in the honor, the dignity, and the joy of knowing we are all God’s beloved children.
So when we move toward an everyone approach to our ventures, we are fulfilling the story of God.
This is beautiful. It is important.
But it is not romantic. It is hard. To shape local communities, institutions, workplaces, churches that invite everyone, without exception, to shared belonging is to be disruptive to patterns of privilege and comfort and usual ways of doing things.
How do we make peace with God including people we can’t stand in God’s family? Not just people we don’t like, but people we find abhorrent? How do we love our enemies while not subjecting ourselves to be diminished by them?
What can our towns and cities we live in do, when we’ve practiced immense amounts of housing discrimination and exclusion in this region? When many of our communities use zoning policies to actively exclude, for instance, lower income residents?
Some of us are part of institutions that can’t include everyone, colleges that have a limit on how many students they can accept, employers that can only hire a small number of the people that apply for jobs. How can that go well? What does it mean to communicate dignity and respect and appreciation to someone when you can’t include them? How do you make sure your choices about who you include are truly equitable?
One sermon, so I get to ask the questions, not try to answer them all. But from my prayers on this question and from pouring over this passage, the Spirit of God says to me that the role of people and of human institutions isn’t to have a tight plan to manage how Jesus will love, save, dignify, uplift, transform, and empower all people That’s Jesus’ job, by the Spirit of God.
Ours is to be provoked about our tendency to exclude. Our call is to widen our embrace of others, just as we are embraced by God. Our task is to not just look at this personally, but communally, institutionally – to ask how can we participate in more of Jesus’ uplift and transformation and empowerment of people that have been marginalized.
That is why in this week’s tip for while life flourishing, I encourage you to:
Invitations to Whole Life Flourishing
Insist upon increasing equity and inclusion in your communities – take risks for people’s full, equitable inclusion in opportunity.
To whom can you be Philip, telling someone else they are loved and included by God as they are? Or opening up opportunity for someone who’s been excluded? (Who are you employing? To whom are you marketing? If you’re doing well, what kind of friend or ally are you to others? If you’re being marginalized, is this community that’s diminished you worth the fight, or is there a table you can go to where you’ll be welcomed will full honor?)
And one more thing that seems to be people’s role in facilitating Jesus’ story of inclusive, transforming love. We see it in the climax of today’s passage where the Ethiopian eunuch says – there’s water – let’s get me baptized. Our role as people is to signify to everyone who wants it that they are enfolded in God’s love in Jesus Christ. And the historical community of faith’s clearest way of doing that for centuries has been the rite of baptism.
I wrote more about baptism on our blog you can find at reservoirchurch.org, but a few words here.
Baptism is a Christian take on an ancient Jewish rite called a mikveh, which symbolizes a cleansing by God. And since the first century, for followers of Jesus, baptism has been a central rite by which we experience this inclusion in God’s love for us in Christ.
Chrisitans have done this in different ways.
Our church’s roots are in the Protestant renewalist tradition – churches in modern charismatic and Pentecostal denominations and unaffiliated churches like ours that emphasize and treasure lived, felt experience of God by faith. For these churches, baptism – usually by immersion under water – has been an opportunity to express one’s faith in Jesus. It has also been a physical experience of God’s cleansing and powerful love and a symbol of our union with Jesus, who died and is risen. In this tradition, a person chooses to be baptized as an expression of faith and eagerness for more life in God. When parents have infants or young children, they can dedicate their children and their parenting to God, but the child will choose – or not choose – baptism for themselves when they are older. That is how I was baptized.
The majority of Christian churches, both now and throughout Christian history, have also baptised children of all ages, including infants. For these churches, baptism is an expression by the community of faith that the child is known and loved by God and included in God’s family. Infant baptism is an expression of grace – that God loves and chooses us before we can love or choose God, and even when we struggle to love and choose God ourselves. Generally, when infants are baptized, they are not immersed, but a small amount of water is sprinkled or poured on their heads, with the water representing the anointing of the Holy Spirit – the loving presence of God with the child. That is how many others in our community were baptized.
I’m sure some of you have baggage with Christian rituals – and why wouldn’t you? They’ve been used by people and institutions, sometimes in heavy-handed and manipulative, historically even violent, ways.
That’s one of many reasons that Reservoir Church has never told anyone they have to be baptized. It is not a requirement for participation at Reservoir and we do not believe or teach that God requires baptism for someone to live a good life or go to heaven or anything like that.
Reservoir has also always honored anyone’s baptism, no matter where that happened, and regardless of when or how it happened. This has still be true.
We just want people to see themselves in God’s story, or to know that God sees you in God’s story as well. It’s that simple. So we love for people to experience this rite of baptism, and we’d love to make sure in the coming year that anyone who wants this experience for themselves or their children can have that.
For families that would like their child to be baptised, our pastoral staff and Board would like to offer this for infants and children of families who are part of the Reservoir community. For parents that would prefer to dedicate their child and parenting to God and let their child choose or not choose baptism after they grow older, we will continue to offer child dedications.
We will continue to offer preparation for baptism and baptism for and adults who would like to be baptised. This is not only for children, but a powerful rite for any person interested in Jesus-centered faith.
And our youth ministry team will continue to work on the best ways to prepare youth who are interested to consider baptism and help youth who were baptised as children make sense of faith and church for themselves.
Early in the new year, we will be in touch about when and how child dedication, child baptism, youth baptism, and adult baptism will be available in 2020. Our team needs some time to work through the details. But we wanted you to know that this is one way your church community is eager to extend experience of God’s loving inclusion of you and your family.
Today, though, consider what this rite might speak to you.
Spiritual Practice of the Week
Remember your baptism – how does it speak to you about your full inclusion in God’s family? If you haven’t been baptised, consider whether you would like to experience this rite of inclusion.
To Do the Impossible, You Have to See the Invisible
Reservoir Church has a partnerships team that donates ten percent of the giving to Reservoir to people and organizations doing beautiful things in the world, people and organizations we’re in relationship with as a community. Our partnerships team facilitates those relationships as well, by staying in touch with our partners, hosting them as they visit us, communicating with you about their work, and sometimes facilitating opportunities for you to visit their work as well.
One of our most significant partnerships is with the Indian public health and community development organization, Asha. Asha’s founder and director, Kiran Martin, and her husband, Asha’s associate director Freddy Martin, have become deep friends of Reservoir, and good friends of my family as well. My family have all been with them and their work in New Delhi, India, and a number of others from Reservoir have had the opportunity to learn and serve with them in Delhi’s slum communities as well. Just this past year, two leaders in our community, the psychiatrist Dr. John Peteet, and the social worker Amanda Proctor, have been able to consult with Asha on the expansion of their community mental health programming. And Reservoir members Jean Peteet and Peter Choo are both on the Board of Asha-USA, that raises funds and advocates for Asha’s work in the US. All to say, Reservoir really loves and appreciates and respects Asha.
In a few minutes, I’m going to welcome Dr. Kiran to join us and share about what Asha is doing, and the beautiful ways she sees the Spirit of our good God working in Delhi. We’re calling this Asha Sunday, because you’re going to hear from Kiran, and after the service, there are going to be friends from Reservoir who’ve spent time with Asha out at a table in the dome art gallery. They’d be glad to talk more with you about Asha, how you learn about or give to their work, or even travel to India if you would like to learn and serve in person. We also have a video up on our facebook page about our partnership with Asha that you can take a look at.
But before I welcome Dr. Martin to share with us, I’m going to give kind of a mini-sermon on faith and power for our best work in the world. It’s a response of mine to the amazing work of Asha, and a way to try to connect it to the work that Jesus has for you to do in your jobs, in your families, and in your communities.
First, let me pray for us.
One of the best mentors and leaders in my life was my boss I had in the years I was a teacher, the school’s principal, Bak Fun Wong. Bak Fun had been trained as a teacher in Hong Kong. After his immigration to the US, he rose up the ranks in the Boston Public Schools from instructional aid in an ESL classroom all the way to deputy superintendent, one of the more prominent Asian American leaders and educators in our city at the time.
And Bak Fun had big vision for the little school where I taught. When our school was just three or four years old, still adding a grade a year on our way to a 6-12 integrated middle and high school, Bak Fun started talking with me about all that we could do for the youth of Boston.
His vision was really nothing less the disruption of how we do urban education in this country. In our country’s large cities, you may know, the wealthier families who remain in those cities tend to either opt out of public education entirely or opt in to selective schools, accessible through passing exams or other kinds of recruitment or screens. This is a huge class divide in the experience of America’s youth. And there’s a racial divide overlaid on that, and a divide between native-born and immigrant Americans, and sometimes a divide between so-called regularly developing and so-called learning disabled youth as well.
So our urban public schools, especially as kids get older are poorer in both their funding and the privilege of the students’ families. They also educate more people of color, more English language learners, more students with learning disabilities, and more students in trauma. These youth are collected in a way in some schools more than others, and then we call those schools “bad schools”, rather than saying this is bad educational policy and practice we are all implicated in.
Maybe you know this as a student or a parent or a citizen. Maybe you read about it last week in The Globe’s story published last week about Newton South and Brighton High Schools.
Bak Fun was like: we’re going to change this. We’re going to give a premier education to Boston Public School students who don’t go through all those filters, who don’t move out or test out or opt out into these spaces of privilege. We’re going to show that’s possible.
I would usually be very inspired in these conversations, like what can I do? What part can I play?
But once in a while, I’d want to say: Bak Fun, have you seen one of our bathrooms? You know, one of our too small, too dirty, too foul-reeking bathrooms our kids use. Our school is a dump right now. Or I’d want to walk him to Mr. or Ms’ So-and-So’s classroom and say, Bak Fun, have you watched what happens in this room? We’ve got some amazing teachers, and you know, some less amazing ones.
How in the world will your vision ever come to pass?
And it’s then that Bak Fun would say with a gleam in his eye: To do the impossible, you have to see the invisible.
To do the impossible, you have to see the invisible.
Other people have said similar words, but they came to me through Bak Fun.
Partly this is what social workers call a strength based approach. You may see lots of problems, deficits that stand in the way of the health or success of a person or a community. I saw our school’s sub-par facilities and our uneven teaching. The public saw our students’ poverty and trauma and below average test scores.
And most of us would tend to put all that together and think: not very much is possible here.
But a strengths based approach with ourselves, with others, with our work, with communities, always asks first: what strengths are here? What obvious, visible strengths? What hidden, and so at least to some, invisible strengths, are there to work with?
Bak Fun saw the cultural wealth of our school’s diversity. He saw the resilience of our kids and their families. He saw the rich economic and educational capital of the city of Boston, and knew there were resources we could draw on there.
And Bak Fun believed that every child is made by God, and possesses dignity, talent, and potential that mirrors the glory of their unseen Maker.
To do the impossible, you have to see the invisible.
This is a strengths based approach to life and work, and it’s also a way to think about and practice the meaning of faith.
The scriptures teach:
Hebrews 11:1 (CEB)
Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.
How can you guarantee your hopes? And how can you prove the existence or the goodness of God?
Well, in one sense, you can’t. You can’t guarantee the future. And you can’t prove the invisible.
And yet, in another sense, trust makes hope real. And faith brings life to the invisible, and so proves it to us.
I think Bak Fun saw the love and support in the school culture he was promoting, and some of the other good things happening beneath the surface of our school, and thought, this is the reality of what we hope for.
I know Bak Fun believed in an impossibly good and just God of love. And Bak Fun, and many on our team, trusted that that good God inspires and cooperates in our endeavors to do what is good and just. And that was proof of what we couldn’t yet see.
Sometimes faith and hope, vision, is inspiring. And sometimes it is frustrating. Because it’s not here yet.
I was part of a team of teacher leaders who helped Bak Fun run our school, and implement growth and change. We’d develop curriculum and practices, we’d foster collaboration among our teachers and staff, we’d keep order and discipline and support for our students. We’d try to bridge the gap between our reality today and Bak Fun’s hopes for tomorrow.
And sometimes I’d want to say to him: Bak Fun, to do what’s possible, you need to see what’s visible.
Get your head out of the clouds. We’re not there yet.
And that was fair. Finding small, possible remedies for real, daily problems is important work. And finding contentment and peace with our not so great present realities is a big part of a good life, a faithful life. And there are spiritual tools for that too.
But if we only saw what was possible, that’s all we would ever have.
To see the invisible strengths in ourselves, our friends, our family, our neighbors, our workplace, our communities is to nourish hope in what we can still become.
And to trust God is with us, and that the nature of our invisible God is steadfast kindness, justice, and love is to give us a compass for our efforts, fuel for our gritty perseverance, and hope to make us strong and bold and even full of joy.
To do the impossible, we have to see the invisible.
Jesus taught about this too. One story I preached on this past Christmas:
Mark 4:30-32 (CEB)
He continued, “What’s a good image for God’s kingdom? What parable can I use to explain it? 31 Consider a mustard seed. When scattered on the ground, it’s the smallest of all the seeds on the earth; 32 but when it’s planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all vegetable plants. It produces such large branches that the birds in the sky are able to nest in its shade.”
Seeds are like this. Some of them like mustard seeds are tiny and hard. They look like waste. And yet within them is this invisible strength – the chemistry and properties of life, that with soil and sun and water and air become beautiful, fruitful trees of life. Themselves living things, and producers of life, and shelters of life – participants in healthy, fruitful, protective, nourishing ecosystems.
Jesus says God’s invisible presence on earth is like this. Unseen, or not looking like much, easy to neglect or throw away or underestimate.
The Kingdom of God is like that crappy, failing school you won’t send your kids to. With time and care and hope and skill and faith, God will make that the most beautiful of schools – producing leaders and citizens and caregivers we all need.
The Kingdom of God is like that autistic child you don’t understand. Why doesn’t he look at you or talk? Why is her thinking rigid or anxious? What you can’t see is that God made this child beautiful. There is perspective and brains and ability to be praised and cultivated that with time and care and hope and skill and faith, God will make to the most fruitful of people – a parent, a writer, a scientist, a programmer that will bless our world with their contributions.
The Kingdom of God is like a cholera-infested slum community in Northern India. It’s that crowded cluster of tenements off the roadside, where trash is sorted, where children work, where parents’ hopes and dreams and bodies die.
A young Indian pediatrician just out of medical school saw such a community through the eyes of faith and hope and love, and she set up a mobile clinic. That clinic became a public health center. Which became a women’s group and a children’s group. Which with time and care and hope and skill and faith became a series of centers of education, health care, and empowerment throughout the slums of Delhi.
Where most people saw outcasts, Dr. Kiran saw people made in the image of God that could be empowered to develop a healthy community. Where others saw communities you would never let your kids enter, Dr. Kiran saw loving neighborhoods where her own daughters made friends and played – as now my own children have had the blessing of doing so. And where their country and class saw kids who would become beggars and laborers, Asha has seen children who with time and care and skill and hope and faith, can gain entrance to the most elite universities, the most promising careers, and who can break multi-generational patterns of poverty in their communities.
To do the impossible, you have to see the invisible.
Kiran and Asha encourage me to do the same – in my prayers, in my parenting, in my friendships, in my work. And they do the impossible in accordance with their values of dignity, empowerment, justice, non violence, compassion, gratitude, generosity, optimism, joy, simplicity, and the power of touch. These 11 Asha values are an embodiment of the love of Jesus, they are a way of life I’m learning from Asha.
And I’d like to you to learn from them as well.
To share more, I welcome Dr. Kiran Martin to us.
To learn more:
- Speak to someone about Asha at the dome table.
- Give to the work of Asha, through your giving to Reservoir or at http://www.asha-usa.org/
- Contact steve@reservoirchurch about travelling to India with an Asha team.
An Invitation to Whole Life Flourishing
Cultivate your vision of the invisible in yourself, your people, and your work.
Spiritual Practice of the Week
Choose one Asha value and seek to make it a way of life in all you do this week. (dignity, empowerment, justice, non violence, compassion, gratitude, generosity, optimism, joy, simplicity, and the power of touch)
Breaking Code and Asking for Help
Good Morning! What a joy and honor it is to be here with you, together this morning. I’m Ivy and with nervous delight I’m excited to share some thoughts with you this morning, around this series that we are in right now, called Prophetic Living.
I was talking with one of my kids about this idea of prophetic living this week— what does prophetic living actually mean? It was a conversation more for me than a quiz to my child! And some point in our conversation, I rolled prophetic living back a bit to focus on what a prophet is. What can we notice about people we regard as prophets? Their characteristics? What they did? And my child said, “Oh yah, prophets are people who light things on fire and then die.”
I laughed and thought about the truth and accuracy in that statement.
And the story of perhaps the craziest of prophets, Ezekiel, came to mind. One of the many odd and strange things he did was when he used a sword to shave off his beard, dividing his hairs into thirds. He set one third on fire. He scattered another third around the city and stabbed it with his sword. He threw the remaining third into the wind. And then Ezekiel took the few hairs he saved and sewed them into his clothing—burning some of those hairs too—and a fire will spread to all of Israel. (Ezekiel 5).
This was a wild, ridiculous move of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was trained in the Jewish priesthood and Jewish priests were commanded by God not to shave their heads, as the pagan priests did. And so for Ezekiel this was not only a bold, counter-cultural move, but one that symbolized the truth of how God would move—how he was going to preserve part of Israel as his chosen people.
I just think—wow! Prophetic living, there you go. And I look out at all of you guys with beards and I think—I don’t know? Who’s to say that picture of prophetic living is completely off the table? Maybe on your way home today, you should stop and pick up a sword somewhere!
Really though, Ezekiel’s crazy move aside, I think there is something to this sentiment of prophetic living—being a way of living that sets things ablaze, that may cause a combustion of our hearts and our lives, in a way that makes way for new miracles of rebirth and of new creation that God is doing right in front of us? And how do we get to be a part of that? How do we get to tap into what God is doing here and now, and step out with imagination, with action, embodying a new reality for ourselves and the people around us and for the next generation?
I’ve been a part of an experience here in our community, just as of late called Unpack. It’s a place created for people who have been particularly hurt and wounded by the church and who are seeking a spot of safety to let these truths hit the air. We spent 6 weeks doing just that—letting the truth of pain and the truth of one’s story, full of emotions and doubt, hit the air in the hopes that the power that hurt had would be released in that holy space of speaking truth with others . The only agenda we had was to not have an agenda—to create safe space without judgement, without a need to FIX or resolve, or to rescue. And the last week we all engaged in a burning ceremony.
I invited everyone to call out and write down the lies that had woven into their stories—about who they should be, or who God should be to them… And then also asked everyone to call out and write down a hope, a value—something they still believed could be true, even if they couldn’t see it as a present reality, but could name it as something they didn’t want to let go of or sacrifice as they moved forward to the days to come.
And then we burned it all.
And I thought, my gosh, no one is shaving their beards over here, but these people are fearless truth-tellers (that calls out lies), and fearless hopers, calling out a reality that might not be present, but still dreaming for better—and is this not prophetic voice? Prophetic living in the making.
This voice is within all of us—and it comes from within the landscape of following Jesus, to believe that the good things we know of him – can be true, clung to and realized in our day.
Prophetic living requires us to get to who we are, what we hold dear, what we care about. This directs how we move in the world, with passion and meaning. It requires us to start with this question like the one we posed at the top of the service: “what does a good day look like for you?” Because it teases out powerful information of what we value and what we don’t want to sacrifice in our lives. It gets to the reasons that you are alive—why you stay in this life! And it sparks—sets ablaze—a courage in us that comes from that understanding of ourselves and God, to see this precious, unique combo as something that has been entrusted to us — who we are and who God truly is, to carry out prophetically.
Undoubtedly this prophetic living takes this kind of knowing and imagination and calls us to break code from our usual rhythms and patterns — to press against dominant culture and power — and calls us into places unknown, where comfort isn’t on the table, but wild, wacky words like “justice” or “peace” or “HELP” are.
To live prophetically, is to be a good, life-giving, disruptive force in the world around us, and this, my friends, will require us to call out this most prophetic word, “help” again and again along the way.
I want to explore this word “help” today in a way that empowers us to not lay us victims to the reality of the world around us, and empowers us to make a different way — to live more “good days” with our hearts and hopes intact, to an end that draws us deeper into the love and wisdom of God.
Stranded By The Side of the Road
I’ve been thinking a lot of what people are known for, not just remembered for after death, but what they might be known for now, while they are living. I think of friends of mine who are currently known as authors, publishing their first books! I think of a friend who is known as CEO of a non-profit organization and who uses this platform to attend to the most marginalized in our city; another friend of mine who is known as a Dean of Justice, Equity and Transformation at a local college; other people in my life who are known to light any room on fire with hilarity and wit; and others known for the seering, KIND, attention that they give to anyone who is in front of them, strangers and friends alike.
I’m proud to say, that among some friends and family I am known for running my car’s gas tank to empty as often as possible and gloat in the triumph of coming out victorious all of the time!
That’s me on the left — “we are totally fine.” Actually I still think looking at this, why is this even an image, there’s easily ¼ of a tank of gas left—that’s not cause for alarm! Wait at least til the indicator is below the E!
But anyway I’ve had this life-long record of never running out of gas.
Until of course, I did.
This December, on a bitter, cold Sunday morning, I was driving here (to Reservoir) on 93 North. I knew that at some point the day before my gas tank light had come on. But that means nothing to me! It doesn’t scare me. And I was headed in early because we did this fun, interactive service called “Dreams & Nightmares” and I was “on” for leading it that morning. So you know, there were a few things on the line.
It’s weird when you run out of gas. I totally thought the car would herk and jerk – and sputter and make a loud commotion. Mine didn’t, cruising along the highway, and it just stopped making any sounds, and I coasted in complete silence, slowly decreasing in speed, and just sort of landed on the little median of an exit off-ramp.
I put my hazards on.
And sat there.
And I called Triple AAA.
And I waited alone, for help.
It’s interesting because we are all born into this world connected to another human being. Literally — through an umbilical cord that provides us access to all the nutrients and sustenance we need for life to us. And all of us usually within a matter of moments have that umbilical cord cut. And so begins at this moment our journey of living and dying and also for crying out for help! A baby’s first cry is essentially a cry for “HELP!” — loud, declaring need for connection, comfort, and sustenance. As we grow and mature, our explicit cries for “help” likely reach a heightened clarity in our toddler years — “Can you help me tie my shoes,” “can you help me get a drink,” “can you help me jump,” “can you help me go to sleep.” And from there most of us take a deep nose-dive into less clear exclamations of “help” — more veiled in outbursts of emotion — anger! frustration, blame, defensiveness, but without that distinct word, “help.”
Or it’s just complete silence — lives that have no blinking hazard lights of “help.” Lives look put together, comfortable, serene, in control, sanitized at all the corners.
I think about the mothers I named above (by the way, I’m using the word “mother”, very broadly—beyond the traditional definition and beyond gender). So despite all the reasons by which they are known in the wider world, they are known to me as the wisest, most prophetic human beings because they consistently ask for “help” early on, at the faintest inkling of a need, and they ask often – without an attachment of shame or guilt or self-consciousness weighing them down. And there is a vitality in their lives that I notice in the midst of ALL that they hold. And I can only think that the request for “help”- is what gives them this assurance, this connection to perhaps the most life sustaining nutrients they need — the belief that they are not alone, that there is always someone on the other side of their request for “help.”
Unlike these heroic mothers, “Help” has been one of the most under-utilized words in my vocabulary. I have not historically used it often or early. In fact, in times that I have practiced using it— it often came out sideways, aimed at someone as a scornful weapon, or just as straight-up judgement. Coming home from a busy day, walking into the house and seeing that it’s a disaster, I immediately feel tiredness, frustration, underappreciation, and I can’t name those things or ask for help in them. But I can act out of that unreleased need and say, “Scott, can’t you get the kids to help me!” Help comes out sideways.
And I think, oh, I’m relieved to see that their are stories in scriptures that reflect a similar dynamic of this word “Help.” So let’s look at the story of Mary and Martha on your program in Luke:
Luke 10:38-42 (NRSV)
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
There’s so much written, so many thoughts about this poignant scripture. Often this story is used to compare and issue a value statement about someone who is contemplative or more active. To declare that Mary gets it “right”, she’s sitting with Jesus, the only place her attention should be drawn. And Martha, oh sweet Martha, she gets it “wrong” — she gives her attention to everything else in the space and misses the “better part” — Jesus — right there in her midst.
I want to give some credence to this take because it does seem wise. I think we can all be helped by slowing down and taking notice of Jesus in our midst. And also maybe there’s some reality that a lot of our lives require some action and stillness, and attention to have that more in balance is also beneficial.
I do wonder though if it helps to take in some of the cultural context of the setting, to see some different angles of this multi-faceted scripture: We see Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. It’s striking given the tenor that we are picking up — that there’s a great hustle and bustle in that house — she’s just sitting and listening. And yet it would really be striking, if we were a first-century reader, or even striking today to a reader in Turkey or the Middle East and many other parts of this world, because Mary is within the male part of the house. Rather than being kept in the back rooms with the other women. (N.T. Wright). If we were this reader, we would understand that Mary is breaking code! Cutting clean across one of the most basic social conventions — pressing against the dominant culture.
And if we read even more deeply, Mary’s “sitting at Jesus’ feet” in this context doesn’t just mean that she’s taking in all of Jesus wisdom and learning for the purpose of informing her own mind and heart, but she’s taking in all of this learning to move out into the world in order to be a teacher, a rabbi herself! (NT Wright).
And that lens, this simple moment of her being kind of a contemplative personality, is actually revealing that Mary is a major force — a good, life-giving disruptive force in this house, a prophetess in the making.
And witnessing that is undoing Martha.
For Martha this society she lives within, regardless of it’s inequity, its oppression, has conditioned her to hinge her value and self worth in how well she pleases others — what she can provide them, how swiftly and how well she cares for them — and in the constructs of a powerless system for women, I think Martha actually has used this role of hers to translate to some sense of power,a control she can have of her value and self worth.
And so in watching Mary break mold of this, I bet that Martha’s is in utter disbelief and outrage. How could this be? WHAT is her sister doing? She’s breaking all the rules. It’s one thing to listen to Jesus; probably Martha could have picked up bits and pieces of what he was saying as she walked in and out of the room. But to sit and listen and learn as a way to imagine for a new way ahead, to imagine a different path in your life, to be a force, as yourself, just as you are in the world with Jesus — this she has no gridwork for and she feels threatened.
It can be scary and maddening. When someone else reaches for more – when you don’t know how to. and specifically when you think you are doing the very right thing. Maybe, even when you think you are getting GOD right.
The Code-Breaking Side Pony-tail
When I was 9, I was getting ready to go to church one Sunday morning, and a friend’s little sister had slept over and wanted me to do her hair for church. So, I made a simple braid down the back of her hair, as one does, for church. And she looked in the mirror and immediately took it out and made her own sassy, side-pony tail. Hark! I was like, “What are you doing?” “This is not acceptable! You can not go to church looking like that!”
I remember the indignation I felt, at this move! And I was ferocious at myself, “why had I never thought to wear a side pony-tail?”, “why hadn’t I ever asked why a braid was supposedly better?” And this little 6 year old trollop just waltzes out of the house without a care, like this option was always on the table.
HERESY!
I was so uncomfortable with this break in code.
When people break code around us it can stir in us a lot of fear. A lot of discomfort.
Yet pursuing the reasons that we want to follow Jesus, the reasons we are alive, means saying “yes” to discomfort. Jesus, I think, wants Martha and us to notice this!
And yet it seems that we are more and more, culturally-conditioned to fear discomfort.
Who knows what Mary’s conversation with Jesus was as she sat at his feet. Maybe he said to her “Mary, what’s a good day look like to you? What are the reasons you want to do this life?” Let’s talk about that, let’s see where that can go.
I think Mary did choose the “better part.” Because I can believe that her response to Jesus was “Lord, you say all these amazing things – of what days could feel and be like with you, but help me — I don’t know how to do this, I don’t know how to step out of my present reality, these social constructs.
My guess is that perhaps Mary was just as uncomfortable and fearful as Martha.
The “better part,” this little word, “help,” allows for there to be connection — an umbilical cord, even in discomfort, connection with Jesus, where I think Mary can imagine for a life that wasn’t even on the table, side-pony tails and all, and what emerged, what was created, what was birthed as she sat with Jesus, was all new and all broke code.
Martha didn’t know how to have a difficult conversation with Jesus or Mary. Perhaps it felt like too much of a confrontation of where her self-worth and value was hanging, and she didn’t know how to have honest self-reflection, “what could these live emotions indicate to me? And what do I do with them?” She didn’t know how to enact this better part, early on in her discomfort – this word “help.”
It’s hard and unsettling to do so! It’s easier sometimes to stay within the framework you’ve known, even though you know you might be miserable, easier to play the part, to keep the scene clean, the counters spotless, the guests fed, the dishes stacked — to maintain the status quo, to engage in a life that feels sanitized, a faith that feels sanitized, because this is easier.
God the Helper, Not a Fixer
One of my own contemporary heroes of life and faith, and a person I like to call friend, Rachel Held Evans said:
Some like to say that the bravest thing Christians can do is defend their faith, to stand their ground and refuse to change.
But it’s easier to defend our faith than to subject it to scrutiny.
It’s easier to dig in our heels than to go exploring.
It’s easier to regurgitate answers than to ask good questions.
It’s easier cling to our beliefs than to hold them with open hands.
It’s easier to assume we’re always right than to acknowledge we may be wrong.
It’s easier for Martha in her outrage to demand Jesus to fix Mary: “Jesus fix her, and get her to help me! Get her back in line!”
Fixing, is neater. Help is messy.
Martha feels threatened and it’s easier to assert a sense of power and control through anger and pointing fingers than to stop and still ourselves, and bend to the love of God, that might just be in the Living room with us.
Jesus loves and cares for our whole well-being, all of our life — not just “fixing a part of us,” He he cares about helping us heal all of who we are — our emotions, our frailties, our mis-steps and our good steps! Mending us together, from our insides, so our work, and roles and faith can be inter-connected. God wants us to be saved, because saved means inter-connected.
If we see God as ultimate “Fixer”, than there’s no margin, no release for us when we mess up the prescribed plan. And we enter and create systems where the only:
Fix for fear is blame.
The fix for weakness is shame.
The fix for anger is judgement.
The fix for discomfort is isolation.
The fix for a life seeking perfection is utter torment.
“Help” – is the better part, because it brings all of the parts of ourselves that we section off, that we want to hide out into the light and back together.
Jesus cares for Martha — her anxiety, her distraction — he wants to hear about it, what’s going on for her! He wants her to see him as ‘helper’.
Walter Brueggemann says, “the God at work in our life will determine the shape and quality and risk at the center of our existence.”
It matters to Jesus who Martha sees him to be.
Stranded, Continued
You might know from stories I’ve told before that I hate being cold, like more than anything.
I feel angry when I’m cold; I take it personally when it’s below 50 degrees (so today, on mother’s day, I’m suspending my anger as it’s in the mid 40’s!!).
And so, I find it interesting that for the first few minutes of waiting on the side of the road, in my gas-less car in December I didn’t really notice the cold…
And I kind of went into action, as I was waiting.
I called Cate who was waiting for me here at the church, to let her know I’d be late.
I called triple A.
I called my friend Miriam, who was also headed in early to church, to see if she was ahead or behind me..
I sent a couple of emails from my phone.
I busied myself.
And then I noticed the cold creeping in the discomfort, it was 23 degrees. I found some crusty socks in the back of the car and put them on.
And I started in that discomfort to feel some things! Discomfort can talk to us, it can call to the surface feelings we’ve suspended or become numb to.
I started to ask questions of myself, and kind of put myself on the hook.
Mostly circumstantial questions to start: “when did that fuel light go on – was it yesterday or the day before?”
“Why was it that I didn’t stop for gas?”
And then this led to a little deeper line of questioning…
“Does this tell me something bigger about my life? “
“Where’s the margin in my life?”
And I sat there and reviewed my week.
Reviewed the past month.
And what those days had looked like.
And then I noticed this rising indignation inside of myself for my own line of questioning, and yelled out, “Well this is just how life is!! I’m not going to stop being a mom to 3 active children, I’m not going to stop being a pastor, I love this job and this role, I’m not going to stop being a present, loving, kind, amazing, always grace-filled wife!!”
And I kind of worked myself up!
I felt like Jesus said, “Whoa whoa, whoa – why are you so defensive? I’m not asking you to change who you are OR sacrifice what you love!”
I’m just checking in to see if you need “help.”
Aaah, the better part: to ask God for “help” had not yet been on my mind, even stranded on the side of the road.
WHY IS it so hard for to ask for help?
For me it feels like I’m giving up. And giving up a lot!!!
I hinge my worth on what I can handle, how much I can handle, my capacity..
Then I feel like I’m throwing all I’ve worked for out the window.
It feels like defeat, admitting my limitations.
And that is uncomfortable..
And I don’t like it.
I’m sympathetic to Martha — she didn’t know how to unhinge herself from the system, as messed up as it was, that had given her a sense of worth. Me too.
To surrender to Jesus’ love is not giving up;it’s a place for holy release, admitting we are human. And that’s what Jesus, called us to be after all.
My friend, Rachel Held Evans, says that “The very condition of humanity is to be wrong about God. The moment we figure God out, God ceases to be God. Maybe it’s time to embrace the mystery and let ourselves off the hook.”. (RHE)
Rachel Held Evans: Prophet
Rachel Held Evans – wrote four books in the last 10 years. And she broke code all over the place! She wrote and spoke about the reality of being human. She called truth to power, of systems and people who couldn’t hold humanity with care! She called out truth for people, particularly the marginalized and oppressed who found themselves in the trenches of Christianity where light and hope were covered by “a mask of pretending” and “exclusion.” She created space, just space human space — where people with shame, and grief and fear and doubts and questions, too heavy to bear anymore, could unload and release, and call out for “help!”
“Rachel Held Evan’s congregation was online, and her Twitter feed became her church, a gathering place for thousands” (Elizabeth Dias, New York Times)
Her platform as a writer, and prophetic voice was undoubtedly a help to people to rebuild a sense of self, and believe in God, in new ways. But it was her humanness that paved the way for so many of us to find our own way again.
She died a week ago at the age of 37. And in her short life she set more things on fire than even my 10 year old son could hope to: 1,000’s of hearts that had been covered in stone, and yet she rolled those stones away, sending prophetic words into the dark — “you are ALL welcome at the table,” “I see you,” “you are not alone” — birthing and fiercely protecting new life in those hearts as only a mother who has cried out “help,” many a times herself can.
So, I guess my child was right, prophets do set things on fire and then die. I added this scripture, in John, to the program today because it’s the continuation of Martha’s story. I want to see where this outraged, mess of a beautiful woman ends up with Jesus, and because I needed it for my own discomfort and pain I feel in the loss of Rachel Held Evans.
John 11:17-42 (NRSV)
Setting here is where Martha and Mary have called out for “help” to Jesus for their sick brother Lazarus.
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (same response as Martha’s). 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me..”
So what happens here? Martha breaks code this time! She runs out of a house full of mourners, she leaves her duties and breaks the strict Jewish law, which would have been to stay within the house for 7 days, sitting barefoot on the floor.
We see her be sad and angry and fiery with Jesus!
We see her be fully Martha and we see her be fully human!
“What are you doing?! Where have you been?! Lazarus would have been alive if you had gotten here earlier!” “Don’t take away that stone! There will be such a stench — he’s been dead four days!”
She lays it all out, doesn’t hold back with Jesus! This is what Jesus wants! When we are honest with ourselves, and with our emotions, we are close to Jesus who doesn’t say, “Clean yourself up a bit,” “or where have you been?” but who says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” You don’t have to wait for the End! I am, right now, resurrection and life to you, Martha.
Jesus helps us. He enables our well-being to live and thrive and flourish. And it starts with this messy picture of us with our hazard lights on in the cold, pulled over on the side of the road in surrender. And it starts with us running to him, with all of our raw emotions — gritty, messy, tear-stained cheeks — out of breath and bruises of faith, saying, “Help me, Jesus. Help!!”
And this is true, whether in our kitchens in the midst of doing dishes, or unto death.
And in that connection to Jesus, life to us, who is also tear-stained and flush with anger, meeting us, with us. He, himself who would soon cry out in anguish to God, unto his own death on the cross, “HELP.”
“Help” — the release valve of our humanness — into the hands and heart of love, where Jesus hands us the power and the value and the self-worth we’ve been so afraid we are losing.
Jesus says, “roll back the stone.” I like to think he invited Martha to be a part of that — engaging her active spirit, her want of “doing,” and in the process of being fully invited as her true self, with worth and strength, she rolls back the burden of shame and guilt and blame that has rolled over her own heart like a heavy stone.
And rather than encountering a dark tomb – full of stench and death..Martha encounters “the Spirit—like a womb, from which she is born again” (RHE).
She encounters life.
So may we die to the lies about who we should be or who God should be, or when we should ask for help, or shouldn’t ask for help. And may we be born again and again and again and again, as we evolve along this road of brave faith and surrender, discovering life at every turn, confirming the greatest belief that we are not alone.
Rachel Held Evans said “We live inside an unfinished story.” While we have today, we have time to imagine and act and we can hold space for those to cry for “help” and meet them, be God’s hand who reaches out, without prescriptions or plans to fix, but postures to love and to listen. This encourages the prophetic voice in all of us—to break code and say “help” often and early.
- This is lie breaking
- This is culture bending
- This is prophetic living.
May it be so.
A Tip for Whole Life Flourishing:
When you feel guilt, shame, defensiveness or fear weighing you down, greet these as indicators of a need for help and say “help”, outloud as a release valve.
Try this as a first step.
And then maybe send someone a text.
Or join a community group here.
Or email a pastor on staff.
Or reach out to a professional therapist.
Spiritual Practice of the Week:
Practice calling out for help this week as a prayer to God. Practice this prayer as frequently as you notice the need and as confidently as you can. Consider the underlying need of this prayer and what care would look like to touch it.
Prayer:
In the legacy of Rachel and all the prophets and prophetesses that have come before us – could we, as Rachel prayed, remember our
God who mourned and Jesus who wept, help us to reimagine our communities of faith, our neighborhoods and ourselves to become places and people where everyone is safe – but no one is comfortable. Help us to hold one another to this truth. Help us to create sanctuary. Be with us in this work through all seasons, those of joy, of mourning, of rage and everything in between.
-Rachel Held Evans
Who Will Remain in the Camp
24 So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
26 However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. 27 A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28 Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” 30 Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
Numbers 11:24-30
The Liberated, Loved, Gift-Giving Self
So, a couple weeks back, we highlighted this church’s community groups and invited everybody who likes to be part of one. They’re our church’s best way to connect people and to help us all make a new friend or two. I love our community groups—all of them. But one of the groups I’m especially delighted by—one that I had a chance to visit last year—is our Women of Color group. There’s so much that’s special about this group, including how they’ve done some beautiful things for others together, particularly for youth.
One of those things was when they raised money for 100 local youth of color to watch a private screening of Black Panther together, which went awesome. Turns out they were on to a trend: this happened in many places last year—around the country, there were groups of Black Americans renting out theaters to watch Black Panther together.
I found out about this trend through a podcast called Freedom Road. The host, Lisa Sharon Harper was talking with a scholar Dr. Reggie Williams, about the identity formation of Black men. And early in the podcast, Dr. Williams said that he’d seen Black Panther in a rented theater along with about 1000 other people from his very large, historically Black church in Chicago. Dr. Williams was part of that thousand along with the students from the graduate school class he was teaching. And ever since then, Reggie Williams mentioned on the podcast, he’d been watching parts of Black Panther as a spiritual practice – daily.
They talked about what an amazing movie Black Panther was, how it’s a beautiful Afrocentric work of art, how it celebrates Africa’s rich history and resources, with interesting touch points to African American history as well. All that is reason enough to like the movie, or watch it a couple extra times.
But Reggie Williams said, the reason he was watching it daily as a spiritual practice, is because it helped remind him of who he is. It speaks truth to his identity.
We’re going to watch just a little clip, not the most exciting one, but the last couple of minutes at the end. The film begins and ends in Oakland, once home to America’s own Black Panther party. And if you haven’t seen it, this is when the King of Wakanda – the great African civilization of the movie – has decided to end his nation’s isolationism and offer their great gifts to the world, and particularly to marginalized Black people. He brings his little sister to Oakland to share the big news.
This is what happens when you play show and tell with your spaceship. People stop and look, and this kid asks T’Challa, “Who are you?”
It’s a question that animates the whole film, from near the beginning, when T’Challa ascends to the throne and his mother cries out, “Show them who you are!” Through the center of the film in so many ways, right up to the final moment you just saw.
Who are you? Who are you? the film asks.
Reggie Williams says this question is worthy of daily meditation for him because as a Black man in America, he’s been given so many stories of who he is. Many of them shaped historically by White men, who have created constructions of Blackness to separate and elevate our own status.
But Reggie Williams won’t keep accepting that story. He says, I’m not the pet or the threat I’ve been told I am. I am not a possession to be used or commodified, just as I’m not a danger to be feared.
I am a free man, liberated, loved, holding within myself and my history gifts to give that will enrich and bless the world. That’s who I am.
I thought – so good, isn’t that true of us all? Many of us of course don’t share the specific identity formation experiences of a Black man, and I don’t want to take away from that particularity, but I also think there’s something for us all here. We are all – some of us more than others – but we are all fed garbage stories about who we are, diminishing stories of who we are, stories we’ve taken in without realizing it. But all of us are meant to be liberated, loved people of peace, holding gifts we can freely give to enrich and bless the world.
We’re spending 8 weeks at the start of the new year looking at the way of love at the center of the teaching and practice of Jesus and today begins two weeks of invitation to grow in an unselfish love of oneself.
Growing into our free and beloved and gift-giving identity is at the heart of Jesus-centered faith. And today, I hope that we can all begin to name the untrue stories we’ve been told about ourselves. I hope that we can better notice the oppressive stories our parents, our culture, our economy, our country, our enemies have told us about who we are. And I hope we can experience Jesus releasing us into our real identity as free people, as loved people, as people that have great gifts to give the world in love ourselves.
Can I pray for us?
Let’s read today’s passage.
Luke 8:26-39 (CEB)
26 Jesus and his disciples sailed to the Gerasenes’ land, which is across the lake from Galilee. 27 As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, a certain man met him. The man was from the city and was possessed by demons. For a long time, he had lived among the tombs, naked and homeless. 28 When he saw Jesus, he shrieked and fell down before him. Then he shouted, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 He said this because Jesus had already commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had taken possession of him, so he would be bound with leg irons and chains and placed under guard. But he would break his restraints, and the demon would force him into the wilderness.
30 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had entered him. 31 They pleaded with him not to order them to go back into the abyss. 32 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs. Jesus gave them permission, 33 and the demons left the man and entered the pigs. The herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned.
34 When those who tended the pigs saw what happened, they ran away and told the story in the city and in the countryside. 35 People came to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone. He was sitting at Jesus’ feet, fully dressed and completely sane. They were filled with awe. 36 Those people who had actually seen what had happened told them how the demon-possessed man had been delivered. 37 Then everyone gathered from the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave their area because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and returned across the lake. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged to come along with Jesus as one of his disciples. Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return home and tell the story of what God has done for you.” So he went throughout the city proclaiming what Jesus had done for him.
So there are two common readings of what happens in this story. The first, the most traditional is deliverance from demon possession. Most human cultures for most of history have in some form believed that evil or harmful spirits can take up home within a person or impact them adversely over time. Many of us in the modern scientific age have trouble with this, but we still use this language as metaphor when we talk about our inner demons. Because experience teaches us that we sometimes have less control of our thoughts and actions than we think we do.
In this reading, Jesus is what every priest or shaman wishes they could be – raw goodness and light and power. The forces that have come to control this guy become clear, and Jesus removes their influence from him. Frees and delivers him into peace and sanity.
A second reading, one that sits easier in our culture, is to see some of the first century demon language as their best way of talking about self-injurious internalized trauma and mental illness. Many of us have experienced ourselves or known friends or family whose internal struggles have led to a life of chaos and self-harm, sometimes even close to death.
On these terms, Jesus is a profoundly compassionate healer and familial presence, who in this particular encounter accelerates what’s usually a years or decades long process – clarity about the impact of trauma and pain, and profound movement toward wellness and peace of mind.
I can’t say enough that readings like these aren’t meant to make us dismiss the importance of therapy or medical care or medication for mental illness or recovery from trauma. But it does indicate that even the most extreme human suffering isn’t beyond hope or beyond touch.
Jesus is eager to see and touch this man and to restore him to peace of mind and to belonging in community as well.
And I hope these readings would move us toward compassion and hope for ourselves or for others whose demons run deep.
But I want to share with you a third reading I’ve come across, one that better notices the history and culture surrounding this passage. This region of the Gerasenes, is part of modern-day Jordan, then part of a ten-city Roman colony called the Decapolis. This was a non-Jewish, or Gentile, region. So Jesus crossing the lake to take his students there was an unusual choice for a Jewish rabbi. This may have been, for some of them, their first ever trip across the lake, away from their home turf. This field trip could have only been an intentional way to bring them out of their cultural comfort zone.
Jesus we see, is a boundary-crosser. He goes to people and places that other people ignore or stereotype or stay away from. And he says to his followers – then and now – that to follow Jesus is to yourself be a boundary-crosser, to be in relationship with people and places outside your home turf.
But sometimes, what you find when you get there. The Decapolis, and this area around Gerasa in particular, was a region that had known immense trauma and suffering. It was conquered by Alexander the Great, and then again by Rome. And experienced considerable violence under both empires. Rome, in particular, had a policy of pushing trouble out to the edges of its Empire in order to promote peace and prosperity at the center. Like our country will bomb far away lands to promote a sense of security within our borders, Rome pursued a program of brutal violence and high taxation at the edges of its empire in order to subjugate its most recently colonized residents.
This is where the practice of crucifixion came from. A brutal, public humiliation, torture, and execution of enemies of the state, so people would think twice about becoming one themselves. And wherever you had crucifixions, wherever Rome was asserting its economic and military power, you’d have a legion – a unit of the Roman army, about 5,000 soldiers.
There were sometimes legions stationed in and around Palestine and in this area of the Decapolis. And actually just after these events Luke is narrating, but before the publication of Luke’s gospel, the Roman General – later emperor – Vespasian and his legions conducted a brutal campaign in this region – killing up to a thousand young men, plundering people’s possessions, taking women and children captive, and burning whole communities.
So when Luke’s first readers heard: The Country of the Gerasenes, whether or not it was this exact site along the sea, they’d immediately think of one of the most violent, brutal, traumatic acts of war in their lifetimes. Maybe how you’d react if you heard a story set in Northern Iraq, or somewhere along the Pakistani/Afghan border. You’d be ready to be plunged into a climate of enormous violence and trauma.
And when they heard this scared, troubled man call himself Legion, they’d think, My God, he’s taken into himself the chaos and violence and oppression of the Empire. Violence, trauma, pain have become his story.
On this reading, the man Jesus goes to see has become defined by his internalized oppression. He is the deep residue of his trauma. Modern psychology has helped us understand that we carry in our memories and even in our physical bodies the impact of our trauma. Modern sociology has helped us learn that we do that throughout whole cultures as well. I heard an interview recently with the sociologist Arlie Hochschild. She has for decades studied the sociology of emotion. And she’s talked about how whole cultures carry experiences of reality she calls “deep story.” It’s like a lived framework that shapes our morals and hopes and fears and even the facts we are or aren’t willing to believe as true.
Well, it just may be that this man Jesus encounters lives a whole deep story of cultural trauma. You see this with whole peoples who have experienced great trauma and violence – how their story is attached to the worst of their experience, the reductive impact of trauma, the names they’ve been called, the script for life they’ve been given.
I see this all the time when I meet with people. They may or may not be attached to generational violence and trauma, but they’re so often operating within the script that their family, their teachers, their economy has given them. They’re living by that script even when that leads to constraint, even when it leads to more death than life.
I remember one of the students I taught. Unlike many of his cousins, he wasn’t able to test into one of Boston’s examination schools. And at every gathering of his extended family, people talked about this. They called him stupid. His own parents didn’t use that word, but they never defended him, and they never told him any differently.
This was a kid whose experience by the time he was a teenager already told him he was marginal in this society. He was poor, he was a child of immigrants, a person of color. He didn’t see people like himself represented as leaders or success stories. His interactions with authority figures left him hassled, not protected. And then this, from his own family, confirming in his mind that he was indeed a nobody.
Now as a teenager, evidence pointed to the contrary. I found this guy to be an exceptionally loyal friend, which is an extraordinary quality to have. He was also a bright student, and – once he found his voice and some technique – a gifted writer as well. I wasn’t the only one who saw these things. He was accepted into an incredible scholarship/internship program. But part of him always thought we had all picked the wrong person to believe in. He had such a hard time believing in himself and thriving because of the internalized script he’d been given that he was marginal and stupid – that identity held so much power.
How do find a truer, better identity? The first step is often to expose the bad one. To be free of these limiting scripts we carry, they need to be revealed for what they are and we need to replace them with a better, truer story we can believe in.
I had this happen for me last year, in a really small way, but one that mattered to me. One of the scripts I was given was that I was an accident prone kid. I had quite a few sets of stitches when I was young. And so the story I was given was that I was always managing to get hurt. What’s wrong with me? Which is a little thing, it’s not a script or identity born of trauma or violence. It’s even kind of funny.
But a part of me felt uncomfortable with this script, because it diminished me a little bit. In my family system, it was attached to this story that I was reckless, that I couldn’t be trusted. And even decades later, when I had enormous responsibilities over my own life and many others, my family wouldn’t trust me with some basic things.
And part of me was uncomfortable because not only was the script outdated – I wasn’t walking chaos anymore, but I wondered if the script was ever true. Just about every one of my sets of stitches happened when I was really little, when I was under the direct supervision of a caregiver, or at least should have been.
And so there was an extended family dinner last year, and someone brought up this script – ha, ha, wasn’t Steven such an accident prone child? And I think gently, politely, I just said, you know, interruption here, I’m not so sure this story is true. I don’t call myself accident prone anymore, and in fact, I’m not so sure any of those accidents when I was little were my fault at all. I was like two, three years old. I think it’s more likely that someone didn’t have their eye on me.
As you can imagine, awkward moment, no one really said anything that I can remember, and the conversation moved on.
But later, on the ride home, I was really, maybe irrationally happy. That interaction felt so good to me. Because I had exposed and interrupted this little script to my identity that was constraining. I was rewriting a truer and better story for myself that I may have been minor league neglected here and there, but that wasn’t my fault. And life’s moved on, and I am a capable, trustworthy person.
Again, a small thing, but I think we see from Jesus’ interaction with this man who calls himself Legion the significance of exposure of the false scripts we’re living by, the importance of the exposure of the stories that constrain us, no matter where they come from.
I think the whole weird thing with the pigs relates to this. Right, there’s weird moment in the story when the demons are like – Jesus, don’t send us to the abyss, and Jesus is like, fine – enter that giant herd of pigs instead. Which is a mean thing to the pigs, I get that. Not Jesus’ best moment with animal-rights.
On the one hand, as a Jew, I don’t think Jesus was raised to think much of pigs, so can cut him some slack there. But also, there’s an exposure happening. In the first century spiritual consciousness, demons came from this underground netherworld – a place of the dead, an underworld abyss – sometimes associated with the depths of the sea too. And the demons are like – we don’t want to go back there. And so Jesus lets them leave the man and go to the pigs. But then ironically, the force of their chaos drives the pigs themselves off the cliff and into the abyss anyway.
Like I said, totally weird. Very first century. But it’s exposing that this story for the man – that I am the some of the pain and trauma and violence this empire has wrought. That I am know chaotic violence and pain in my life, played out again and again – that is a violent, destructive identity. And it’s one that’s bound for death, without me.
When Jesus asks, “What is your name?” he is exposing the false identity forced onto this man, exposing the false self, and revealing it as the death-dealing force that it is. And this begins the man’s liberation.
To be liberated from the name our trauma has given us, to be liberated from the name of the deep story of our times, we need that exposed. To be freed from the burden of other’s names for us, free of the burden of trauma, shame, unfair expectations, criticism, we need to name those constraining sources of identity.
Think of what history or culture has said about your race or gender or anything else about you. If you find, as Reggie Williams did, that there are lies about you in that, Jesus wants to ask you: what is your name? And how can you be free of the false names that have become you?
If your parents or boss or teachers or anyone else in your life – present or past – has reduced you to anything less than a free and beloved child of God with great gifts to give the world, then Jesus wants to ask you: what is your name? And how can you be liberated from the false scripts that have driven your life?
Jesus travelled with his students across the sea not just to name the truth about the oppression this man had internalized, but to set him free to a liberated life and to do that for us all. To ask – what is your name? And to expose and free us from any internalized oppression.
My friend Mako Nagasawa did some writing about the theology of the Black Panther. I think Mako will join us late this spring to guest preach in a different series. But Mako highlights that in the Black Panther, and in Jesus-centered thinking, and I see in this encounter we’ve read today as well, to live our true identity is not just to expose false stories about who we are but to replace them with good ones that say, I am liberated, loved, and empowered. I am a person of peace, a person who can be sane again. And I am a person with great gifts to give the world.
The man who was named Legion – who now is free and sane and at peace – wants to join the disciples. He’s like, Jesus, let me follow you. Just before that, when we hear he’s sane again, he’s sitting at Jesus’ feet. This is first century, almost technical language for being a student of a rabbi, for being an apprentice.
Free at last, this man wants to attach himself to Jesus’ school. But Jesus says, in your case, there’s a better way to do this. Go back home and tell people everything I’ve done for you.
Go back home – be restored to your culture, be restored to community. Perhaps be a liberator of other people in this trauma-soaked land from which you come. Give them the gift of this good news that you can be free, that you can be sane again, that you are meant to be at peace, and you are a gift-giver.
To be released from being defined by trauma and defined by the oppression of the world’s criticism and shame and false stories about who we are… To be released from all of that is to have peace and be sane. This story shows us the the radical shock of a person who is truly, fully sane – less common that we might think! To be released from false stories about ourselves is also to know that we have gifts to give.
Our church has developed a close relationship with this Indian NGO called Asha, that I like to talk about, as they’ve been very influential in my life. Asha works with people in Delhi’s slum communities, people who have often experienced displacement and marginalization and trauma, who’ve been fed tremendously diminishing stories about themselves as well.
And Asha aims to liberate communities and individuals, to restore them to an empowered love of self. It’s really quite beautiful.
And Asha does this work guided by a set of ten values, expressions of Jesus-centered life that sit well within Indian culture.
I’ve decided this year to make the Asha values my touchstones for prayer for the year – one value per month, and the first Asha value, and so my key word for prayer for the month of January has been dignity.
They define dignity as “the consciousness that we deserve honor”, as “understanding who you are and taking your rightful place in the world.”
I thought that praying about human dignity in January would start with other people. After all, I’m really aware of the many times I don’t treat all kinds of people with the full dignity they deserve. My family members, my friends, strangers – I feel like I often don’t give them all the honor they deserve. I don’t fully esteem them as much as I’d like. And all this love of neighbor stuff is indeed important.
But often in my prayers around dignity this month, I’ve been drawn back to myself. Will *I* understand who I am? Will *I* take my rightful place in the world?
Not too high, not above anyone else. But also not too low, not afraid or diminished or despairing. Will I face my life and work and calling with courage and enthusiasm? Because I too have gifts to give each day, and it’s easy to shrink back and not give them.
It’s hard but beautiful and vital work, friends, to really love ourselves. This is not shallow work of puffing up our egos. This is the deep work of knowing who we are – not the image of everything our parents and cultures and pain have told us, but free, loved, sane. And this is the deep work of discovering the gifts we have to give the world, and giving them freely.
This is to love ourselves. More next week, but we’ll wrap up for today with two ways to practice.
An Invitation to Whole Life Flourishing
Our marketing, our job evaluations, our report cards, our families and cultures of origin are all telling us stories of who we are. Critically filter stories told about you. Tell better stories about others.
Spiritual Practice of the Week
Find a daily touch point for sanity and a liberated identity – whatever helps you deeply know that you are a person of peace and promise, with a gift to give the world.
Dreaming of Mercy
One of my I can’t believe this is happening in my life experiences is that somehow Grace and I have a child who is old enough to be looking at colleges and wondering where to apply next year. She’s an amazing kid, and she’ll end up somewhere great we know, but it’s kind of a scary process for a teenager to begin to imagine life out in the big world. And it’s kind of a scary process for a parent to be releasing your child into the big world, hoping things go well for them, hoping they are met with kindness and generosity and support, dreaming of mercy for them.
Getting a child ready for college also brings back for me the many years I helped other people’s teenage children prepare to leave secondary school and leave home. They too were dreaming of a good launch into a kind and just world, but it wasn’t always easy. One student I taught for multiple years had strong grades, a great track record of character and resilience and leadership, had a whole team of mentors like me ready to sing their praises, and had overcome almost impossible odds on a variety of fronts for all that to be so. But they had really, really low standardized test scores.
And when it came time for this young person to apply for higher education, college after college sent their rejections. I tried calling a few schools’ admissions officers, and one of those schools this remarkable kid applied to – just one – took my call. They asked me: what are we supposed to make of these test scores? How will this person make it in college? And I explained some things from an educator’s perspective – about time and tests and ability and disability – that I thought made a strong case for this applicant. But in the end, I remember thinking, I might have said this too. Do you want to live in a world where a young person this extraordinary can’t go to college because of a single set of exams? Is that the kind of world you want make today? Or do you want to make a more just and merciful world than that? I remember dreaming, longing for mercy for this young person. I’ll come back to that in a minute.
Last week, we had an extraordinary service together, didn’t we? It was our annual participatory liturgy in this Advent season of Light in the Darkness. Our pastor Ivy and friends created and led an extraordinary time of worship where we could respond to the dreams and the nightmares of the Christmas story, the dreams and the nightmares of our age, even the dreams and the nightmares of our own lives.
Our question of the day on our welcome cards we asked early in the service was What are you longing for? A lot of you wrote something down, more than normal. And as I read through them on Tuesday, and prayed for them, my heart broke with your longings.
Longings for companionship and friendship and acceptance and partnership.
Longings for the people who are closest to you to be kinder or gentler with you.
Longings for the world to be kinder and fairer to the people you care about.
Longings for healing, longings for restored relationship, longings for opportunity.
There was some comic relief here and there. One of you last week about this time was longing to be playing FIFA soccer on a PS4 video game console. I feel that longing.
But a lot of longing for justice and kindness in your worlds. So much dreaming of mercy.
This Advent, this season of Light in the Darkness, we’re looking at the dreams of Christmas. The week before last, I talked about Joseph’s dream of God with us. Next week, we’ll talk about Jesus’ big dream of the Kingdom of God. And today, we’ll look at Mary’s experience in the Christmas story, Mary’s calling to be the teenage mother of God, and Mary’s leading us in dreaming of mercy.
We’ll take her story in two parts. Here’s the first part, from Luke’s account of Jesus’ life, that picks up just after we heard about an unexpected pregnancy elsewhere in Mary’s family, with her older cousin Elizabeth.
Luke 1:26-38 (CEB)
26 When Elizabeth was six months pregnant, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a city in Galilee, 27to a virgin who was engaged to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David’s house. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28When the angel came to her, he said, “Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is with you!” 29She was confused by these words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30The angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Mary. God is honoring you. 31Look! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great and he will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. 33He will rule over Jacob’s house forever, and there will be no end to his kingdom.”
34Then Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen since I haven’t had sexual relations with a man?”
35The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God’s Son. 36Look, even in her old age, your relative Elizabeth has conceived a son. This woman who was labeled ‘unable to conceive’ is now six months pregnant. 37Nothing is impossible for God.”
38Then Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Wow – what an experience for a teenage girl! Now I know that male people over the centuries have obsessed about one thing in this story — what has or hasn’t to do with sex. You can imagine that in our household with preteen and teenage children, this aspect of the story comes up as well there around Christmas time. Interesting things have been said!
But this is not the only place in a Jesus-centered faith where you’ve got to come to terms with modern science and claims of the miraculous, or the super-natural, beyond natural. And there are different ways to do that, but that’s a whole other sermon, which I’d be happy to give someday. But today, I want to focus on Mary’s experience as a teenager.
Now I know that there really weren’t such things as teenagers two thousand years ago, not the way we think of that phase of life today. But still, Mary would have been somewhere in that age bracket, we think, and after this messenger of some kind says, Rejoice, you’re the favorite, God’s with you, she’s so confused. Like what?!? God’s favorite? I’m a teenager, and kind of a nobody, at that.
But the messenger says – you’re wrong! God’s chosen you for something extraordinary, for this big, big thing!
All of this sounds so scary, but God is not scared. And all of this first section of Mary’s story really emphasizes the power of God.
Greatness, the son of the most high, the throne of David, ruling over Jacob’s house forever, no end to his kingdom – all these words and phrases clustered together speak to the power of God. All this royal language spoken to a teenage girl, born in a small village, to a working class family, living on the outskirts of a tiny nation, ruled with an iron fist by a huge empire – this speaks to power of the God of the impossible.
This speaks to the capacity of God to at any time and place, to a new and wonderful work of justice and mercy. To the hope that Jesus is present with us growing a new family, a new way of being with God and with one another on this earth.
Nothing is impossible with God.
When I got off the phone with that admissions officer I told you about, it was with no assurance that they would accept my student. And I was so afraid – what if this was the end of the line for the big dream we had pumped into his head about all that could come with education and hard work.
But a couple of weeks later, he got their acceptance letter. And a month or so later, their really great financial aid package. And off he went to college. And then to honors at that college. And into employment, and graduate school, and then a part time teaching position at that graduate school, along with professional honors, civic influence. The impossible made possible.
My old student talks about this a lot, about all he’s done and all he’s gonna do in the future. And I used to find this annoying. This boasting from a person who I otherwise have so much affection for. But Grace pointed out to me once, this isn’t really bragging, it’s just the joy of overcoming. He’s got the joy of having seen the impossible become possible so many times in his life. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate that?
The Advent season affirms that life is desperately hard, that we are imprisoned by forces within and without, that so much is not as it should be in our lives and in our world, and yet the advent season also asks us to hear the words of God into that experience, to hear God say to us: Do not be afraid. Nothing is impossible for God.
I used to think it was my job to tell people how bad this world can be. I did this some in my teaching. I certainly have done it in my parenting. I think of all the ways when my kids were young that I was like – don’t do this, don’t touch that, watch out for these kind of people and these kind of situations. Be careful, because you never know when this or that awful thing might occur.
And some of that’s OK. Kids need to learn to look before they cross the street, or how to not burn their house down. But now, as we’re in that phase of getting ready to send our kids out into the world without us, more and more I feel God speaking to me that my job is to tell them and to show them that they do not need to be afraid. That I entrust them to God and to this world. That things are going to be OK, and better than OK. That God is with them, and nothing is impossible, so don’t be afraid.
Do you know that God is not scared of our world?
Hard to believe, right, because everyone else is. The right-wingers are destroying our world, and the liberals are ruining it, and Trump’s doing or saying these crazy things again, or the Russians, or big data, or artificial intelligence, or climate change is gonna get us all, and the future is bleak, bleak, but God is not scared of our world.
I’m not saying be naive, or roll over on injustice, or put your fingers in your ears and fall asleep to this age. Be awake, be engaged, do your part. But people have lived through awful things and awful times before, and God is not scared.
In fact, let’s make this more personal. God is not scared of your life. God is not scared of your debt, or your singleness, or your marriage, or your kids, or your barrenness. God is not scared of your illness or your grief. God is not scared of your worst mistakes, and God is not scared of your greatest unknowns.
Because God is a God of love and mercy, and because God retains the capacity to do what we call impossible.
Sometimes we have evidence for this, and sometimes we don’t, but it’s at the heart of an invitation to faith – to trust that God is impossibly good, and that nothing is impossible with God.
Now I’m saying all this, but Mary, what does Mary do with this encounter. She’s like: alright, God, let it be. And then the first thing she does is hightail it to her cousin’s house. She goes to see her older cousin Elizabeth we’ve heard about, the one who’s further along in pregnancy – to help her out, but surely to hide out a bit, and to gain her bearings and get some support from another woman.
You may remember from two weeks ago that her fiancee Joseph does not believe her and plans on dumping her. But when she sees her cousin, Elizabeth doesn’t shame her or take her down but affirms what God is doing in her. Says yes, you have been chosen by God for this extraordinary thing.
And in the confident that her cousin’s trust and affirmation gives her, Mary (like Elizabeth) is filled with Spirit and bursts into poetry. And this is what she says:
Luke 1:46-55 (CEB)
46 Mary said,
“With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
47 In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
48 He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
49 because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
50 He shows mercy to everyone,
from one generation to the next,
who honors him as God.
51 He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
52 He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
54 He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
remembering his mercy,
55 just as he promised to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”
Now this poetry has likely been cleaned up over the years. Other than in musicals, people don’t usually burst into verse at big moments of their lives. But I like to think this is a more poetic version of what Mary thought when she was freed from her fear.
Once again, this is not what we’d expect. Christmas is about presents and trees and candles and nostalgia, but the biggest themes of the original Christmas stories are responses to longings for justice and mercy. There’s so much about our longing for good governance, to have human rule and order be done right.
And there is so much about the reversal of the way things are in our world, so much about God turning around the unjust, unmerciful ways we have with one another and this earth, and God doing mercy.
What gets Mary excited isn’t the inner peace Jesus will give the world or the ways God will work through Jesus to help us all fulfill our potential. No, this teenager who is counted a nobody by the world, in a family and town and nation and people that are treated as nobodied, is excited about how God will work through Jesus to turn the tables. To give the low status and the hungry a winning hand for a change, to make somebodies out of nobodies.
What brings Mary joy is that God hasn’t forgotten her and her kind. God isn’t scared of her life, God isn’t scared of her world, but God has remembered God’s long promised mercy.
I’ve shared that I’m trying to tell my kids that they’re not stepping into a world they need to be afraid of. But I do know they’re entering an unmerciful one.
I can think of that in terms of economics. How the class divide in our country is growing, how social mobility is shrinking, how my kids are likely to have lower incomes and larger debts at my age than I do. All that may be true.
I can think of that in terms of the world’s injustices. How people with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations often are not scattered but get to stick together. How so often the rich get good things, and the hungry go away empty-handed.
I can even think of my kids’ experiences and my own experiences in education. I mean schools haven’t always done right by my kids. The student I told you about, one of the best I taught, was rejected by all but one college he applied to. When I look back on my career as a school administrator, I see in some of my own disciplinary choices, a lack of mercy to students who had screwed up in some way, but needed a wider net of grace, and more second and third chances than we gave them.
But Mary tells us as we wait for Christmas, that God is pushing forward an age of mercy. That God is interested in right-sizing human ambitions. That a sign that Jesus will be at work, and not just the powers of our age, will be when the over-full are emptied and the over-empty are filled.
This is a weird Christmas thing to name where we live, I’m aware of that. I don’t entirely know what to make of God’s mercy or how to teach the expression of mercy Mary proclaims in a privileged, wealth, powerful region of what still may be the most privileged, wealthy, and powerful nation in the history of the world.
Now I know life’s circumstances are complicated, and we are a diverse congregation. So there is hunger and need and suffering and experience of injustice and an unmerciful world in this congregation too, and in some ways, in all our lives.
Yet on the whole, in Cambridge, and Greater Boston, and yes, even in Reservoir, we are rich, and we are full. So frankly, I wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t in Mary’s prayer, because it’s challenging, and it’s awkward, but it’s here, so I’m saying it.
Joining Mary in dreaming of mercy doesn’t necessarily mean dreaming of a bigger footprint for ourselves. It doesn’t necessarily mean dreaming of better and more from God for me and mine. I don’t have a God’s-eye view of government or economics or the big arc of human history, so I’m the last one who can stand here an micro-analyze what dreaming of God’s mercy for all of us does mean, but I’ve got a few guesses I’ll leave you with.
I think it means getting outside of ourselves. Whatever I might want this time of year for me, or my family and friends, whatever my Christmas list might look like if I had one, Mary presses me to want as much or more for the people who made all the stuff that I want. God’s got a big and just embrace of us all that doesn’t feed my ego or selfishness, but does feed my bigger and deeper desires for justice and mercy.
I also think dream of mercy means that we don’t ever try to privatize the good news of Jesus. We don’t ever say that Jesus is just about my personal connection to God. We don’t ever say that faith has nothing to do with politics. There are bad ways of doing politics, sure, we can all get a little head in the sand about the public issues of the world, or we can get a little pig-headed partisan and stubborn about our view of how to solve those problems. But when Mary dreams of mercy, she’s got very public, in that sense very political, dreams in mind. Mercy isn’t a push for the disempowered to forgive and excuse the bad behavior of the powerful. Mercy is a push that the more powerful you are, the more responsibility you have to live mercifully and generously and kindly. And mercy pushes systems and groups and institutions to think about how we will or won’t align with these dreams of mercy.
And lastly, I think it dreaming of mercy means that as just or fair as God is, God is even more merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment, the scripture says. God’s mercy is wider and deeper than I could possibly imagine. None of us are defined by God by our worst act or our worst quality, or what we think we do or don’t deserve. We all have our being, we all are who we are through God’s love-lensed eyes of mercy.
Let me put this ever so so simply. When God looks at you, God smiles. The deep impulse of God for you isn’t pity, it isn’t disapproval or disappointment. It’s kindness. We dream of mercy, because God is mercy.
And God’s calling us to see ourselves, and see our world, and see one another with God’s eyes of mercy as well.
Can I wrap us up with our two usual invitations?
An Invitation to Whole Life Flourishing
Pray Mary’s prayer each morning for an emptying for the over-full and a filling for the over-empty. If you are prompted to welcome mercy or to extend mercy in some way, please try.
Spiritual Practice of the Week
One night, go out in silence and look at the night sky. Seeing – or not seeing – the stars above and the city lights below – imagine God telling you that God is not scared, but remembering and showing mercy from generation to generation.
Community: Meeting Jesus Face to Face
It’s great to see you again this week. It’s rare for me to have the honor of being up here two weeks in a row – and what a joy it is! Steve, our Senior Pastor, is getting the chance to watch his daughter run at her Cross Country States competition out in Western Massachusetts today. And later today I’ll get to watch my daughter swim at her high school States swimming competition at Harvard, so think of our strong, powerful girls today if it crosses your mind!
Steve, though, will be back up next week with a powerful talk to round out this sermon series. I got a little preview and it’s about both the destructive and saving power of institutions; it’s a good one! As a reminder: one service at 10:30am next Sunday and kids are with us!
Today, I’d love to continue with insights we’ve been sharing in this series called Your Faith Journey at Reservoir. We’ve been highlighting strands of Reservoir’s DNA that ensure an open, Jesus-centered approach to your faith journey. And we are taking a few weeks to talk about this to make sure the ethos of Reservoir—who we are and why we think about faith the way we do —really does shine through.
We’ve realized that it’s valuable to communicate this in a way that doesn’t leave anyone wondering if there is some “catch” attached or trade-off that’s required to feel like you belong in this community (if you want to!)
We hope to communicate that at the baseline, life with Jesus at the center is really, really good news, and it is full of personal invitations and ways to experience that goodness, like spiritual practices. And, as a bonus, your faith journey doesn’t have to be one that you forge alone, but one that you get to share with others in community!
We administered a church-wide survey a few months ago on a Sunday morning with the hopes that we’d get some constructive feedback around where there might be gaps between your desired “needs” and what we were providing, either in services, classes, or other offerings. The survey results revealed some of that—although, certainly not enough voices in that direction to say it was a big theme—but it did reveal that you are mostly a really happy bunch, and that you primarily really value and like each other. You really like being part of this community.
This, too, has been my experience. 16 years or so ago, when we first started coming to services, we orbited around this place pretty hard. Everyone was so kind! And I was so suspicious of this KINDNESS—suspicious that there would be an agenda attached to said niceness, suspicious that there would be a list of “do’s and don’ts” to adhere to, suspicious of the Nutella that was offered at the bagel table in the morning (that was definitely a suspicious , red flag). I was concerned that there was going to be a prescribed way to make sure my own holiness could be formed—a prescriptive way to really belong. Each week I was a little on edge, waiting for the conditions for me to really be welcomed to drop in my seat.
But what we found instead was that the people that make up this community of Reservoir are genuine, don’t put up much of any false front, and are indeed incredibly, suspiciously kind. And so we dared enough to stop orbiting for a second, and land long enough to inspect this kindness at a ground-level, face-to-face. And what we found through so many of you was that we got to meet Jesus face to face.
I think I could shrug at the church survey results and say meh—great. We created this big survey to try to identify our pain points, and instead found out that—surprise—we are all really kind human beings who love and follow Jesus as best we can, and we like each other.
I could look at these survey results and say “Holy Cats!” We are all really nice, kind human beings who love and follow Jesus as best we can, and we love being around each other. And that is really substantial data!
Because here at Reservoir, we don’t have the extra qualifiers, the “do’s and the don’ts”—the set of beliefs to adhere to that allow you to be “really in,” or “really lead,” or “really belong.” What we have though, is Jesus. And we take Jesus pretty seriously! We don’t compromise or divide Jesus! And we also have our unique selves that carry a host of different opinions and perspectives about life, and even on matters of faith—and yet we still want to be around each other!?
I think this survey actually points us to a deeper well of data—that what makes this posture of kindness so piercingly evident is not a result of us all being on the same page about everything, but it’s actually a marker of difference. I know that sounds weird. But I think the kindness you might encounter here in this community is actually a product of an approach we’ve infused into our ethos—one that helps us lean in to one another with goodwill and curiosity even when we disagree. And it’s called the Third Way.
Scott and I both come from faith-filled households. I kept to a lot of the rules-based, FAITH rhetoric that was ingrained in me – at an early age – all the way into my early adult years – without much investigation. By the time Scott and I met – he would have described himself as agnostic – not convinced enough to say that there was no HIGHER power – but convinced enough that perhaps we all should spend more energy on the ground, helping people in the world around us – rather than pontificating/praying/or talking about it…
We had many spirited conversations around faith – in our 3 years of being together before we got engaged. In that time – I would say we both moved fairly substantially in the ways that we thought about God, and imagined what a life journey with Him would look like.
WHen Scott asked for my parents blessing – for us to be married – he talked quite a bit with them, about what a Journey of faith with God, meant to him – that indeed it was more of a journey , more of a relationship – a discovery….. rather than a specific moment in time. My parents probably were more hopeful for the “SPECIFIC MOMENT IN TIME – ANSWER”. This view of salvation – achieved through a very specific prayer – would ensure that someone was definitely “IN” the family of God. .. Because than it would be clearer to grant blessing on a marriage -to-be that was “equally yoked”. (both proven believers).
While my parents framework and the success of their own marriage up to that point – really hinged on a more “sinner’s prayer” type of structure – for true salvation – to “really be in the family of God” – it was meaningful for them to hear of Scott’s open-ness to keep discovering the love of Jesus as he walked along his life.. And understand a bit more of where he was coming from and why….and Likewise meaningful for Scott to hear my parents reasoning for their perspective and belief.
In many ways this face-to-face conversation allowed for a Third Way, where there were differing thoughts about a life with God and the implications of a life with God – would look like. It allowed Scott and my parents a way to not remain in their “Theological” corners – being mystified and judging each other… This THIRD WAY seemed to provide a way forward, even though they didn’t necessarily see eye to eye.
And that really is what the “Third Way” approach tries to help with. It’s an approach to being together in a faith community centered around Jesus. It applies to any disputable matter – over which followers of Jesus, “agree to disagree”. The term was coined by our friend and pastor Ken Wilson, in a letter that he wrote to his congregation ..when they were navigating through the LGBTQ controversy which was proving to be a disputable matter for their community.
It’s worth a moment on what a disputable matter is – and I’ve been helped by theologian, Roger E. Olson – who makes a distinction – to start – between 3 types of biblical beliefs:
DOGMA, DOCTRINE and OPINION.
1- Dogma – is understood as the basics of human faith … statements about who God is and particularly who Jesus is, and his death and resurrection. If you differ on these points, you likely are talking about a different faith than Christianity.
– the other biblical belief is:
2-Doctrine – boils down to what you regard as implications from your dogma. The hot disputes of a given era usually fall into this category. In the example of Scott and my parents.. My parents viewpoint that “Salvation” as a moment in time event – is a key implication of their dogma of who God is. God is perfectly powerful and holy. So my parents believe that we too must achieve such holiness… by saying a specific set of words to prove that holiness. This specific way of salvation- is quite tied to their view of God, to dogma.
*So the key is to see that this viewpoint is tied to my parents dogma, but it is not itself the dogma.. Does that make sense? It’s an implication. It’s doctrine. DOCTRINAL disputes tend to be the things that cause movements or communities of Jesus followers to splinter. It’s why we have 1,000’s and 1,000’s of christian denominations.
And OPINION is everything else. We all have these! Preferences of what makes a good sermon – preferences on what the best worship music is – (while other people have the complete opposite opinion on the same thing!)
And there is nothing wrong with these opinions, even theological opinions – so long as we recognize they’re not doctrine or – DOGMA…and don’t use them as a way to exclude or to harm.
So that helps us – suss out a little more what – A DISPUTABLE MATTER is – that it
- Isn’t a matter of Chrsitian dogma,
- THat it often brings two biblical (t)ruths into dynamic tension
- And otherwise faithful followers of Jesus – disagree over it.
And in some ways I feel like – oh, this is all really helpful – and in other ways I feel like – “oh this get’s pretty complicated, pretty quickly.!”
The disputes of our time are so much more intense and fraught – divisive and woven into all of it are political lines – that affect and harm real people in our midst! How could this THIRD WAY help us in practicality with such huge matters?
I think it’s helpful to go back to the early church timeline and see what followers of Jesus wrestled with….
And I’m going to go back to the earliest version of christian community – BEFORE – the movement of churches springing forth in Acts – to when Jesus called his first disciples.
These earliest followers of Jesus, were an odd collection of humanity that came together. They came together in community to share stories of their lives, to break bread and eat together – and to encourage one another! It sounds so lovely – so straightforward and maybe like a magical era of Christianity? It must have been true that this early era of Christianity was so enraptured by the Jesus that moved and walked among them – that UNITY just naturally outflowed from them?
Um… no!
Did we skip over the part about them being an odd collection of humanity!?
There was a whole lot of difference in the earliest community of Jesus …
The first Twelve followers of Jesus infact – all came from different social backgrounds, they also represented diametrically opposed philosophical and political viewpoints. Matthew, the tax collector was content enough with Roman rule to represent the government in an official capacity. Simon the Zealot, was a member of a group that sought the expulsion of the Romans and the regaining of Jewish independence.
And yet Jesus asked them to become the initial community – the people that would represent and spread more of who Jesus was to others!
And so I think Jesus is giving us a little window into how he regards unity and difference – and perhaps how they are less opposites than we want them to be. . .
It was pretty evident from early on that unity – did not mean the same political views, or that everybody was doing and believing the same thing – singing the same hymns, observing Sabbath, or following the same diet – or reading the same scriptures or telling the same story.
The early followers of Jesus, “YES” put a great emphasis on unity among one another – but they squabbled with one another over what kind of unity they were to have.
Seems clear that even then, different implications of dogma, who they viewed God to be…presented along pretty serious disputable lines… That there was from the very beginning different ways of interpreting the fundamental message – of what following Jesus in our lives should entail – … “What does it mean of our cultural practices? How Jewish are we to be? How Greek are we to be? How do we adapt to the surrounding culture – what is the real meaning of the resurrection of Jesus? How important is the death of Jesus? Maybe it’s the sayings of Jesus that are really the important things….?”
And we see these squabbles continue to play out over time – where diverse groups of individuals and communities – feel so distinct about their way of seeing things – that they’d like everyone else to agree with them.
This is how bounded sets are birthed, right. Bounded sets – where there is a clear “You are in” – or “you are out” criteria. Most often – the ways “in” are from a generous posture. SOmeone has encountered something so good – that they want you to experience it too, just through the exact same steps that they took..
And yet, in that process – what is often overlooked is the way that their particular culture – or political viewpoint, or opinion – become intertwined with God. THat it is now God’s culture, God’s political viewpoint, etc..and that becomes the highest truth.
And that quest for sameness – that picture of UNITY (above all else) – becomes the very catalyst for division.
It wasn’t that long ago that people killed each other over biblical interpretation of baptism. “infant baptism or adult baptism – should we sprinkle, drip or douse…”… and still issues more recent in the church that have been controversial – like
whether and when, remarriage after divorce is accepted, or whether killing in war is the moral equivalent of murder, to what level women in leadership are welcomed – and whether gay marriage is supported or not – ALL of these have been highly disputed matters in faith communities. That still to this day are not resolved.
The apostle Paul, actually has some helpful things to say along the lines of disputable matters. He reflected quite a lot about the difficulties that different cultures have in working through their varying perspectives. “He’s the guy that argued that among Jesus’ most important, most central miracles was “breaking dividing walls” between cultures”… (** Blue Ocean Faith, Dave Schmelzer). . And he writes letters to these diverse churches that have formed – one of them being this church in Corinth…
Here’s what he says in one of his letters, you can read this on your program:
I Corinthians 1:10- 12 (NIV)
10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11 My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel – not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
I follow Paul.. and his way of thinking and speaking of Jesus.
I follow APollos – this Jewish man – who is well versed and eloquent in the scripture.
I follow Cephas – Peter, he lived with and spoke with and ate with Jesus.
I think Paul is saying – “I get it” – I get that you want to follow the particulars of how each of these people depict Jesus. That’s actually ok – Just don’t anchor yourself in this doctrine – don’t see it as immovable dogma. Don’t get violent about it ! OR use your position/opinion as a way to judge others or exclude others from their own view of Jesus’ face.
Because that’s actually what divides Jesus – our stake that we throw in the ground – that we’ll live or die by… versus a more humble posture of .. “well, I’m pretty sure the way Apollos speaks of scripture is the most Jesus-y… than Peter, and I’m going to follow my conscience here – but I’m open to the belief that Peter also knows and speaks of Jesus from his truest vantage point?
Eugene Peterson’s words, in his translation, The Message – of this passage, use a little more direct language – that maybe gets us to the heart of Paul’s message here: “Has the Messiah been chopped up into little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own?”
Worded this way – it’s pretty piercing right? It’s worth thinking about where and how we might be doing the chopping? That leads to a pretty splintered picture of Jesus for ourselves and anyone else.
MY STORY continued:
Scott and I got engaged pretty quickly after his conversation with my parents. And equally as quickly set a wedding date for just 3 months away.
Scott’s priest from his childhood church was booked and my childhood church required a fairly extensive pre-marital class, that we wouldn’t have time for – BUT in the state of Maine – you – like here in MA – can get a one-day designation of justice of the peace.
And so we decided to go that route…
We wanted to be thoughtful about who we asked, and ultimately decided to ask my brother if he would marry us. He was at that point contending with which seminary program he would enter into – and so we felt like he would take this role on with a degree of thoughtfulness and reverane.
And he did.
He considered our request.
And then turned us down.
He felt like God wouldn’t bless our marriage – again – revisiting a similar belief that my parents had drawn attention to – that to be a true “believer” there needed to be a declaration on Scott’s end – to this point.
Grrr – I was so mad. And so hurt.
I felt like he was SO WRONG! I mean so, so, so wrong. Not only just made a poor decision – but like FUNDAMENTALLY got Jesus wrong.
And I thought – how will we move forward? How can I look at him every time I see him at holidays – like Thanksgiving and Christmas – and actually care about him?
How can I Bless his pursuits of life – his pursuit of Jesus at seminary and beyond?
The apostle Paul had given a lot of thought to this THird Way approach – even before we read his words in the letter to Corinth. He enjoined the members of the church to “agree to disagree” over disputable matters – which in his time – were likely whether Christians could eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, or whether Sabbath observance was obligatory (big deals – because they were the first and fourth commandment issues respectively.)
*”And he called for members of the church to fully accept each other in Jesus, even if some were regarded as gravely mistaken in their beliefs or practices in the disputed matters.
He insisted that they refrain from judging each other, trusting that whatever was on the table – field of concern – was left for God.
And he actually urged them to maintain their respective convictions, honoring those who had differing ones – as long as they were sincerely seeking to move toward Jesus.” – Ken Wilson, *https://www.readthespirit.com/third-way-newsletter/third-way-nutshell-ken-wilson/.
Over the last few decades, I’ve seen controversial issues come not only to my personal, family- life – but into churches – into our community at Reservoir as well….And I’ve seen the value of this Third Way play out. Taking the lead from Paul – and Jesus – it seems we need to err on the side of inclusion – to refrain from judgement – we need to keep people at the table, even in controversial – disputable matters.
The Third Way supports community! Because it doesn’t suggest that we ignore difference … it doesn’t just make a way for those of us who may land on different sides of a disputable matter to hang out in our separate silos and never cross paths.. It actually requires us to enact Jesus’ ministry at it’s purest/most simple form. To invite people – As was true of the first disciples – to share their stories, to share bread with them – and encourage one another … WITH a posture of goodwill and understanding….
MY STORY:
I realized with my BROTHER, that I was mostly afraid. Afraid that conflict would blow us up – that I wouldn’t be able to look at him the same way again – Afraid that he would think Scott and I were some sort of false followers of Jesus.
And I couldn’t think of how to sit face to face with him – without this SUBJECT matter (which I clearly thought was JESUS and ME) being discussed, actively. And that we would have to come to the same understanding of what “salvation” and “sin” and “ Jesus” were – before we could truly love each other.
I’ve realized though that the third way doesn’t mean that we have a goal of coming out of a disputable matter BEING ON THE SAME PAGE… I think the pressure to say we have to get to some sort of “agreement” works against really understanding one another. But when we, as people that disagree with each other come together with a goal of gaining a BETTER understanding of why the other believes what they do – good things come from that and are infused into the fabric of our families and faith communities.
THIS doesn’t come without tension though – because oh, there will be tension.
This is why – I think the kindness of our community – is actually in direct representation of our ability to hold each other’s differences well… because it forces us, in the tension to rely and to trust in the God who speaks and guides. And this releases the pressure on us to be right. And shifts the work to God – where his specialty is to be all powerful and all loving.
My brother and I did not avoid the controversy – but I do think we were both faithful to God through the controversy. There’s ways even today – that I think he probably was wrong in his choice… and I’m sure there’s ways that he would still make that same choice today, and extend NO MORAL APPROVAL for us getting married when we did …. BUT i’m helped by remembering that ….
The gospel – this good news of Jesus – transcends moral approval as the basis for acceptance, belonging, or unity in the Spirit.
As a follower of Jesus – I can see that I am not called to give, demand or receive moral approval from anther.
ANd this is really helpful when I’m sitting at the table with my brother.
We don’t need to seek this approval – because we are all IN Christ – and an undivided CHRIST – who already has received the approval of GOD.
Further along in Corinthians, chapter 3, Paul circles back to the scripture we just read and he says to us:
“ Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? Everything is already yours, as a gift – whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all of it is yours, and you belong, already – so don’t divide Jesus in an effort to gain that – rest in the belief that you belong – because you are in union with Christ, who is in union with God. “
And this is what matters, my friends. This is the gift of community at REservoir that you do belong. Already. From the moment you walk in the door – because the table is big enough. God infact is big enough.
Do I BELONG anymore? THis is what bubbled up for me – in this situation with my brother? AM I still accepted – seen in the same way? My brother’s decision and his biblical backing – suggested to me – that I really didn’t belong.. . AND I Could run with that belief – pretty quickly, and start building up walls to protect myself from that perceived ejection. I could have started “writing messages on Facebook or Twitter”, that tells him how WRONG his conscience and theology is. That berates him and judges him for his perceived lack of understanding and breadth of the Scriptures.
But instead, we choose – to sit face to face. And a lot of those questions fell to the sides as I saw the face of Jesus in my brother.
HOW SHOULD WE STAY IN COMMUNITY?
Invite. Engage. Be curious of one another. This seems to be the way in practicality that we stay in community with one another.
FACE TO FACE – gah, could it be true that Jesus’ model of ministry and community – was by being in quality relationships…. Yes quality relationship between unlikely people – and meeting them face to face around a table?
Jesus’ time on earth shows us that he is not afraid to drink and eat! Scholars say that Jesus ate his way through the gospels with these “unlikely people”. Luke’s account in particular either shows Jesus going to a table, at a table, or coming from a table.’ So much so that his enemies accuse him of being ‘a glutton and a drunkard’ .
It’s in Jesus’ table ministry – that I think we truly learn how to feed one another – and be fed – and that maybe disputable matters are always a course to digest – even where we aren’t accustomed to the taste – in the ones we least expect to learn from…..…
I read something recently that said “Jesus shows us the reality that the pages of the story of Him are filled with [face to face moments] -quiet conversations, with walks in the field, with hands upon weary shoulders, with loving meals around the table. That there were wounds mended, feet that were washed, bread that was broken. And that these moments were as real and powerful and life altering as any tearful worship service prayer. HE absolutely preached on the hillsides and in the towns and in the synagogues – but if that was all he did – we’d have a far shorter New Testament” (Pavlovitz, A Bigger Table, p. 99-100). He seemed to have as much reverence for the table as he did the tabernacle”.
Jesus cares about us continuing to meet face to face. Because he cares about us getting the best picture of him possible.
If I demand that someone else think, prefer – interpret or view God in the
particular way that I do- then I splice Jesus – I chop God into tiny pieces that I stamp with my particular brand. AND this move denies the fundamental belief that God was and is a God of the whole world – (not just the world as I see it.)
It takes conscious effort and energy – to build in the trust that the seats at each other’s tables arent’ conditional – aren’t based on agreement, but extended in love. And this is an ongoing work – because we change – our lives and circumstances may suggest different ways of thinking about God – and we have to take the table seriously – so no one is fearful that the chair will be pulled out from under them – as life presents itself.
TURNS out that this does actually hinge on WHAT I BELIEVE about JESUS. … that Jesus sets a big enough table for all of us – ….for the ones that hurt us, the ones who we are convinced are wrong, the ones who may believe that we get Jesus “wrong” ….and trust that the centerpiece of that table is this big – unfractured Jesus. ANd that HE”ll do the great work of making that picture of himself be clear to the people at the table.
THe one who calls people to himself, the one who doesn’t demand that we have the right answer – about anything – EVEN HIM. But the one who shows us again and again that the CENTER OF CHRISTIAN FAITH is not necessarily a book – but A TABLE.
BIG COURAGE & LITTLE COMFORT
As we embrace these big tables. May you ENACT COURAGE. AND VULNERABILITY.as you pull up your chair.
Courage to sit with those we passionately disagree with.
Courage to lean in with a posture of understanding.
Courage to listen and resist the urge to persuade!
It is indeed a heroic effort of vulnerability – I’ve had to sit next to my brother who thinks that my marriage was not acknowledged in the eyes of God – and only with this third way approach – can I gleefully – hold and snuggle his babies – and actively care about his life and his health – and his goals and his overall purpose in God’s kingdom!
It is vulnerable to welcome – and make space for belonging over exclusion.
But I realize that I don’t want to shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. I want to continue to meet face to face with whoever it might be… and rest solidly that the person I might be in controversy with – is still sitting at the mighty, big table of Jesus with me! So that when I meet God face to face some day – our first conversation isn’t about why I kept so many people from the Kingdom of Heaven. (Dave Schmelzer p. 94).
COMMUNITY GROUPS
We are a community here – at REservoir – who enjoys being together. (if this Church survey is correct!) Who values this picture of community – a beautiful, motley crew – with wildly different backgrounds and cultures and perspectives and OPINIONS. AND we very much use Jesus’ model this OPEN TABLE invitation ….as the framework, if any of community.
Where people – make it a priority – to gather around tables every week. Where the commonality is not a shared set of perspectives or positions, or a shared conscience … the commonality is that EQUAL WELCOME is FOUND, and BELONGING without contingencies – is apparent.
The 12 disciples experienced something that was so compelling about Jesus – that they would leave their nets and sit around a table together – but still hold on to all their differences – IN THIS I think they were able to see each other fully – face-to-face and in turn see the FULL face of Jesus.
This is the great gift of community.
So I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
May Jesus, himself, be the unifying force, that bridges division and makes way for difference in our lives.
Tip for Whole Life Flourishing
If you find yourself in the tension of differing viewpoints, this week -(MAYBE AROUND THE tHANKSGIVING TABLE) – ask Jesus to help you release the agenda to persuade and embrace the posture of listening and understanding.
Spiritual Practice of the Week:
Reach out to one of the people you named in the question of the day. If you can, reach out in a way that allows for face-to-face connection and invite that person to your table.
This text is the preacher’s prepared text, and is not an exact transcript. Please forgive minor discrepancies that may exist with the recording.
Faith and the Freedom of our Bodies
(TW: sexual assault, sexual abuse)
Just a few minutes ago, we asked you, “What’s one of the first times when you were young you remember being aware of injustice?” Let me tell you mine. When I was a kid, I lived in a house with a small patch of woods behind it, and this was one of the places the kids of the neighborhood would congregate. Like every neighborhood, ours had its cast of characters, and the scariest of them all were these three siblings from the Dodge family. The two oldest were big and tough, and the youngest was little and scrappy, but they all seemed mean and hard. And one day, the oldest Dodge kid got into an argument with another guy in the neighborhood a year or two younger than him. I remember that kid had a new black jacket on, it might have been a leather jacket, and it was really cool looking. And what the Dodge boy did was he took that black jacket from the other guy, and he pushed him hard down this grassy hill, where the guy – without his jacket – tumbled over a few times, rolled to a stop, and ran all the way home. We all scattered – this was the closest thing to a brawl we’d seen in our neighborhood. And I wondered what would happen.
And here’s what I heard. That kid went home, and his parents took care of him, he said they were really nice about it and everything. And his dad even tried to talk to the Dodge boy’s father about what his son had done. But I know that kid never got his jacket back. I don’t know why, or what happened to that really cool, new black jacket, but I know that this kids’ property was never restored to him. And that made me so angry.
I watched what it did to this kid I knew too. How that experience kind of put him in his place, taught him something about himself – that no one was going to stand up for him, that he wasn’t protectable, or worthy of protection. And it taught the rest of us something about the world too: that violent people are often not restrained and they are not subject to justice.
The scriptures affirm this, that we live in a world full of violence and injustice.
Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 (NRSV)
4 Again I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed—with no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power—with no one to comfort them. 2 And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; 3 but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
People who have power often use their advantage to oppress people who don’t. People who have take from those who had less in the first place. Neighbors bully their neighbors. People with opportunity hoard yet more opportunity to themselves. Systems protect privilege.
And we see or experience this, and sometimes, we shut down a little. We feel weak, helpless, powerless, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, who wonders if life is so unjust that we’d be better off if we’d never been born into this evil world.
And there will be evil and injustice that we name today, and that can make us feel small and sad.
But sometimes, we hear of injustice, and our minds or our bodies tense up a bit, ready to fight, to take action. We get angry. I’m not always comfortable with anger, but a wise therapist once told me that when it comes to things as they shouldn’t be, don’t be afraid of anger. Angry in this case is much better than sad.
Because with anger, we can feel power and agency. We can take action. And that’s good. Along with connection, humility, freedom, and everyone, action is one of our core values at Reservoir. And I don’t know if you’ll get angry or not today, but I will encourage us to action.
Today, we’re participating in Freedom Sunday, where hundreds of churches are talking about injustice, and particularly the injustice of modern day slavery, and are stirring to action in response. Freedom Sunday is an initiative of one our partners, International Justice Mission. IJM is the world’s largest anti-slavery organization. They employ lawyers, criminal investigators, trauma social workers, and all the various admin folks that support them all around the world to protect the world’s vulnerable poor from the world’s violent. They’ve already rescued 45,000 people from oppression – stuff like child slavery, sex trafficking, unjust land seizures and imprisonment. And they’ve strengthened systems and communities to protect 150 million people from violence around the world. IJM’s vision is to rescue millions, to protect half a billion, and to make justice for the poor unstoppable. Through our partnerships team at Reservoir that gives away a tenth of all tithes, donations, and offerings entrusted to us, we support the work of IJM financially. We hosted their Boston-area prayer gathering earlier this year. And we are excited to be participating in today’s Freedom Sunday.
My hope is that today leaves us more angry than sad, informed and curious and inspired and empowered. Let me pray that this will be so, and then we’ll dive into a moment when Jesus announces his mission for justice before we hear more about the work of IJM.
The Bible’s good news memoirs of Luke record one of the moments when Jesus is launching his life’s work and announcing his plans. Jesus has just returned from a few weeks alone, on retreat, in prayer, and he’s back in his hometown on a Saturday, doing what he’d done most Saturdays of his life, attending worship in his local synagogue.
It’s apparently Jesus’ turn to open up one of the scrolls of Hebrew scripture, to read it, and say a few words. And here he goes.
Luke 4:14-21 (NRSV)
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
I imagine Jesus with a gleam in his eye, ready to shock his family and friends with something they’ve never heard. Bibles then weren’t bound in books, but each section hand copied onto scrolls you’d unroll, and Jesus is given the scroll for the book of Isaiah. And I don’t know if Jesus turns to what was the scheduled reading for the day, or if he chose this section of Isaiah himself, but he turns and reads these words, where the identity of the first person was unclear. Who is it that has this Spirit of God, empowered to reverse injustice, and bring cheer and liberation and healing and freedom? Is it Isaiah? Is it this unnamed servant of God that speaks four other times a little earlier in Isaiah’s writing? Here this person says they’re going to inaugurate a great season of liberation, what gets called the year of the Lord’s favor?
It sounds like this great year of Jubilee, which is described in Israel’s founding constitutional lawbook. This was to be a year, every fifty years, when debts were cancelled, prisoners and slaves freed, land seized and purchased returned – a great economic reset, a year of good news and justice to everyone who’s been pressed down or who had slipped behind or been left out of prosperity and good news. This Year of Jubilee commanded in Israel’s law, best as we know, never historically occurred. All that good news and justice was too much, too costly, so it was never practiced.
But Jesus stands up, in his little backwater hometown synagogue, and says – in effect – I’m the one, and the time is now. Jubilee has arrived. Freedom, justice, good news has begun. This is the year of the Lord’s favor.
We go on to find out that this was a real shocker for Jesus’ hometown. Some of them are silent, some of them turn and whisper, others – after Jesus provokes them a bit more – get aggressive and angry.
Any time you hear that justice might really be possible, that there just might be good news for the world’s most disempowered, it’s provocative.
I remember when I first learned there were people doing this work around the world. It was the late 90s, and my wife Grace and I attended an event where IJM’s founder Gary Haugen spoke. Haugen had attended Harvard University just down the street from here, after law school he worked in civil rights enforcement for the US government and eventually directed the UN’s investigation into the genocide in Rwanda. An impressive career. But Haugen was aware that Rwanda was not a one-off. It was unique in many ways, but Haugen knew that all around the world, whenever systems of law enforcement and public protection are broken, the disempowered suffer. And as a follower of Jesus, he knew that we still live in the year of God’s favor Jesus announced, that this is a time for all of humanity to know the goodness of God, to enjoy God’s love and healing and inclusion and forgiveness and presence, and to make good news happen in the lives of the poor, to liberate from slavery and oppression and violence.
So he described the work that IJM was beginning – founding national field offices, led by local leadership, where professionals would investigate and document injustices, force change in law and infrastructure, rescue victims and get them access to healing and recovery services, and bring perpetrators to justice.
Over the last 25 years, IJM has helped us see the scope of the problems of injustice in the world. 4 billion people live outside the protection of the law. More than 40 million people are held in slavery today. One in four of them is a child. Human trafficking generates revenues of about $150 billion dollars per year. Two thirds of that is from commercial sexual exploitation.
IJM is moved by Jesus, though, to push back and to liberate. IJM has rescued more than 17,000 people from forced labor slavery. They’ve rescued more than 3,600 people from commercial sex trafficking. The facts are great. But the stories are better. My family are something called Freedom Partners with IJM, which means that we send a little money their way every month, and we get to read stories again and again of liberation.
I want you to hear and see one of these stories today. So let’s cue up that five minute video we have prepared. Our church supports IJM’s field office in Ghana. When we restarted our church partnership with IJM, we had the choice to connect to the work of a particular field office, and we chose their office in Ghana to honor the number of West Africans and Americans from West Africa in our congregation at Reservoir.
The center of IJM’s work in Ghana right now is rescuing children from slavery in the country’s fishing industry. Almost 10% of Ghana’s population of 25 million people live on less than $2/day, creating some of the conditions that make children vulnerable to child slavery. I want you to see and hear the story of one child:
The Deep Place from International Justice Mission on Vimeo.
There’s something especially horrible about a child’s experience of injustice, whether it be a small thing like the neighborhood bullying I described, or a really large thing like a child pulled into slavery. And something so good about justice, dignity, and freedom brought to bear here.
And to understand why this story is such good news here, let’s pause for just a second and think about our series on an embodied faith. Imagine for a moment that you were on that rescue boat cutting across the waters of Lake Volta, the one that had the IJM and law enforcement personnel on it that rescued Foli.
What would you want to do for him? Would you want to tell him God loves him and then leave him with his uncle? Would you hope to tell him about the love of Jesus – uplift his soul in some way – but leave his body a slave? Of course not. You’d want to bring him into your boat, put your arm around him, comfort him, restore him to the safety and love of his grandfather and his hometown, to make sure he is protected and provided for. All of this you’d see as the love of God for him, right?
Well, Jesus is no different. Jesus, as the perfect image of the invisible God, the accurate, embodied, human reflection of the love and character of our eternal God, announces his mission as the year of God’s favor – a time for good news, for freedom, for healing and sight to the blind, and for liberation. Not just freedom for our souls or spirits, but for our whole persons. Remember what I taught two weeks ago – we’re all one thing. You can’t split up a person into different parts without losing something. And Jesus loves the whole of who we are and is determined to liberate and heal the whole of who we are, that all of us, in our whole personhood can know and embody all of God’s goodness and love.
If Jesus were in that boat, he would have done the same as we would. In fact, I suggest that in a way, Jesus was in that rescue boat, through the hands and feet and bodies and of Foli’s liberator. Just as Jesus was in the boat with Foli, when he suffered the pain and confusion of captivity. Because Jesus is always in the boat with us. God is with us. And Jesus is particularly in fellowship with the marginalized and oppressed and suffering, and Jesus is with the people who continue his embodied mission to bring good news, to heal, and to liberate.
You’re going to have a chance in just a little bit to join my family and to join Reservoir Church and to get behind the work of International Justice Mission today, if you like, to become what IJM calls a Freedom Partner, a participant in this work of liberation. But before I share that invitation, and a few others, I want to be clear that joining Jesus in God’s work of good news liberation is not just an *out there* issue that happens among the globally most desperately poor.
To join Jesus in this year of God’s favor, this season of Freedom Jubilee, is a daily work for us everywhere, in our minds, our bodies, and our communities.
I was with a group of clergy not long ago, and we were sharing scriptures and stories for why we do what we do, and a colleague of mine, a rabbi, told the story of his own bar mitzvah when he was coming of age as a boy. Have you ever been to a bar mitzvah? They’ve long, you know. My first one was a bat mitzvah technically, for one of our neighbor’s daughters. And Grace and I sat through like a three-hour Saturday morning service, almost entirely in Hebrew. And later on as we kind of delicately asked our neighbor if that’s how it usually went, she was like, Oh, sorry, I didn’t tell you, almost nobody stays for the whole thing. People kind of come and go, as they like, and make sure they’re there for the end, in time for when we break for the big meal.
So last time I went back to that same synagogue for another bar mitzvah, we took donut breaks and just made sure we were there for the big moment, which – at every bar mitzvah, is when the teen or preteen reads from the scriptures in Hebrew, and gives a short teaching about that scripture, how to understand it and live it in the world. Kind of like we heard Jesus do earlier. Except the kids don’t usually say, “Now’s the time. I’m the one.” Well, maybe the funny ones do. I don’t know. I haven‘t seen that.
Anyway, my colleague told us that his bar mitzvah scripture was from the prophet Micah, the sixth chapter, the eighth verse, where after the prophet tells the people that God doesn’t need all their religious practice, he says what God does want is this:
Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
And this rabbi said that his mother made him promise to add “and your fellow man” to the end of the verse. So what he actually proclaimed, in Hebrew, was “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God and your fellow man.” He told us, ever since my bar mitzvah, this has been my life story, and my life’s work.
Which was fun for me to hear today, because not being Jewish, I never got a bar mitzvah, but this line from Micah is at the heart of my life calling as well. I’ve shared many times that in my late 20s, when I was unemployed, unaccomplished, and at the peak of my vocational and financial anxieties, afraid my life would be a failure, I had this game-changing experience at sunrise along the ocean, when I had a clear sense of the inner voice of God assuring me that I already knew my life calling, that it wasn’t tied to any particular job, but that I would could a life committed to healing and justice and wellness – my own and others. And this verse was part of how I knew that to be true.
That my own life story and work was to be connected to God, not in any grandiose or overly certain way as if I had no doubt, but to stay with faith, to humbly walk with God. And that my life story was to love mercy, to get excited about love and generosity and gentleness and goodness wherever it was to be found in me, or in anyone else. And that my life story was to be part of doing justice, to be an opportunity maker, a way maker, a restorer of things lost and taken.
In this violent world, Jesus gives us the good news both that we are to be healed and liberated, and that we are to be healers and liberators.
It’s been sixteen years since that experience I refer to, and my own track record isn’t particularly accomplished or anything in living this life call. I’m no Gary Haugen history maker or anything, but what I have discovered is that injustice and the oppression of our bodies isn’t just found in far-off, dark corners of the world, but all around us. And so the opportunity to be freedom makers and liberators abounds as well.
This is true in our city, in our workplaces, on our computer and phone screens, and even in our mirrors.
We learned about Foli’s story today, but do you know where the greatest amount of human slavery, and child slavery occurs in our world today? Certainly the industry in which human slavery is generating the most profits?
It’s in the human sex trafficking industry. Where every day, poor families in debt are tricked to turning over their children to traffickers, where kids are lured into child brothels, or increasingly more common, into rooms where they disrobe or perform sexual acts on camera for pornography consumers all around the world.
IJM works on freeing people from the sex trafficking industry too. Our Boston prayer event earlier this year zeroed in on this issue. But even without supporting IJM, each of us can contribute to the reduction of child slavery and sex trafficking by simply not being a consumer of pornography. That actually helps.
I’m not a big fan of pornography’s impact on users. From research and sadly, from a little experience as well, I’m convinced that porn has a corrupting influence on our sexuality. It makes it more misogynistic, more selfish, more compulsive, less relational, and generous. But apart from that, the research and writing seems clear that porn consumption drives world sex trafficking. Your clicks and streaming on your phone or laptop are part of an economic chain that drives rape, abuse, oppression, and slavery.
So listen, I don’t want to shame anyone here, but what we do or don’t do with our technology and our sexuality has an impact on other people’s freedom or slavery. I think we need to know that if we want to be good news, freedom partners.
Once we embrace an embodied faith, and once we own justice and mercy as central to God’s life for us, once we understand that Jesus is still on mission with the year of God’s favor and freedom, we can see the opportunity to be freedom partners, and justice makers everywhere we go.
In our companies’ HR and benefit offices. In our town’s zoning policies and local schools. In this fall’s elections. Maybe even in your mirror. I’ve been kind of obsessed for the past twelve months with the accounts of those of us who have had harm done to our bodies. I have my own experience with sexual abuse, and there’s been #metoo, and #churchtoo, and our own Speak Out Sunday about sexual assault and violence at Reservoir, and now this past week another wave of stories about violence done to our bodies and what happens when apologies are made or not, when amends are made or not, when the truth comes out and justice is done, or not.
For those of us who had done violence to someone else’s body, and that’s some of you – you’re terrified to admit it because of the fear and the shame, but for those who have done harm to someone else’s body, there’s no freedom for you without some kind of confession and attempt at justice or amends. This may be super-complicated, but I’ve said this before, if that’s you than as your pastor, I want to talk to you. You need to see me.
And for those of us who have had harm done to our bodies, and that’s many of us, freedom might even come when we look in the mirror, and with the help of God and friends and therapy try to see our body as beautiful and sacred again. It might come when we recover our voice and tell our story, when we learn that our truth is worth hearing, when we find an area to fight and gain our strength again.
If that’s your story, this is a sermon, not trauma therapy, so I want to leave it at that for now, but know that you have the fellowship of a tender mother God who will hold and comfort you. You have the fellowship of Jesus, God in our body, who knows the experience of violation, and is close with us as our friend and advocate.
Know too that you are loved and valued in this community. Know that you have the support and the prayers of your pastors. And know that we’ll believe you when you speak out.
Let me close before we pray. Take out your programs again. Two invitations for you. The first:
A Tip for Whole Life Flourishing:
Humbly walk with Jesus by pursuing freedom and justice in your home, in your workplace, in your city, and in your world. See today’s half sheet for specific next steps.
Take a look at that half sheet. We’ve given you ways to give. This is how you become a freedom partner, it’s like $24/month or more of steady giving to IJM. This is a joy for my family, I hope it will be for you. There are ways to show up. Our church will be organizing for criminal justice reform, for protection for immigrants, for equitable health care costs, and more in Greater Boston this fall, and we’d love for you to be part of those efforts. And there are ways to learn more. You can get an overview of what Reservoir is up to on the “Neighboring and Justice” part of our website, or join your community group in some Bible studies and materials our pastors have prepared to engage our community in learning, talking, and praying about being part of Jesus’ call to freedom, justice, and mercy.
Please don’t drop this half sheet in the recycling on the way out. Hold onto it, pray about it, do something with it.
And lastly, our
Spiritual Practice of the Week:
Dare to see each human body you see this week as sacred, worthy of love, mercy, and protection.