Speaker: Ivy Anthony

“Peace Be With You”

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

Today was our Graduation Sunday in Virch. Congratulations, Graduates of 2020! We love you!

Click YouTube link to watch our virtual service, with a special video just for our grads.

Part 1: Wounded Nation

Good morning, my friends. It’s good to be with you today. 

We are in the midst of two pandemics.  The Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of at least 107,000 people in the United States.  

And we are in the midst of a racism pandemic. 

And we grieve. Oh we grieve, the exponential loss of black lives.  We grieve so recently the loss of Breonna Taylor – who’s 27th birthday, would have been this past Friday.  We remember and say her name once again today, Breonna Taylor. 

This racism pandemic is one that has plagued our nation since it’s birth.

And so not surprisingly the vulnerabilities and inequities laid bare by the covid pandemic have fallen hardest on Black bodies.  Revealing to us how we have long been deeply sick as a nation, with no balm for the aching.  

As the delayed waves and ripples of awareness make their way across our country uncovering where we have left the wounds of black people raw and untreated,  for 400+ years  – we have a lot to learn about the power and the tenderness of wounds. …how to let our black siblings rest – and how to get at the underlying work of dressing those wounds. 

 

We are a wounded nation. And we have long been a wounded nation.

 

On Monday this week our family talked of vigils, rallies, marches which ones we would be a part of in the days to come – realizing what a privilege it is to have the luxury of choice.  A part of – what that means… to be in solidarity to be an ally?  What we could be a part of changing…. We talked around all of these points – but hadn’t acutely brought Jesus into the conversation.
 

My daughter interrupted and asked, “But does it really matter if we pray?  I mean it’s been so long, people have been praying for so long – and it seems like nothing has changed – nothing is working. So does it matter?”

 

Scott and I reflexively went into a discourse on prayer, “well – it depends on how you think about prayer,  action v. sitting at the periphery… blah, blah, blah…and how our own experiences of faith in our past have led us down these different paths of prayer.”

 

And she interrupted again and said, “Stop – I want you to answer my question – does prayer matter?”

 

Such a disruptive question. 

 

A question that holds within it the bewilderment of what she bears witness to.  Such deep pain, wounding in the world – and the truth of what she knows of God – to help… and yet calling out that this mode of prayer  – does not seem TO WORK. 

We need to start paying attention to, and listening to the voices that say, “Things aren’t working”… whether it’s a 13 yr old – or the wounded crying out in pandemics – or a disciple like Thomas, (who we will spend more time with this morning).  Because these voices will be what HELPS us into building/creating alternative landscapes of care in our world – that hold both the power of the resurrected and wounded Jesus.  

 

[PRAYER] God, show us what’s in these wounds. Invite us into the most intimate, deepest, HARD & messiest parts of ourselves and others. Help us to keep pressing in – to listen and learn – so we can move trusting that this is where you reside also.  

 

Part II: Scripture
Let’s read together the story of the disciple, Thomas.  I invite you into this ancient story this morning – to see how it translates to your own unique, story… let’s read together:

 

John 20:19–29 (NIV)

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger [IN] where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
****

Jesus has just died. The disciples’ wounds of grief, and despair are so raw. And they are sheltering themselves in a room, they have retreated in fear of the leaders who demanded Jesus’ death, and are still circling – looking for Jesus followers.  And so the disciples go back to the last place they were with Jesus alive.  To find peace. ..

You see these disciples had imagined and believed for a world that was not governed by state-sponsored violence. They had dared to dream and to hope for a world where flourishing of humanity would lend itself to equitable life…a world where healing could be realized for everyone.   

They believed IN resurrection.  

Yet instead they saw death.  Death on the cross of their friend and teacher, their rabbi. And with his death, the dying of their own vision and dreams – for this new kin-dom of God.

And so here they are in a liminal, in-between space, this waiting room.   WAITING. 
Their grief is so much though, and maybe doubt is creeping in too –  this waiting space between death and hope is hard to be in – when everything is atrociously the same as it was the day before. 

What the disciples want in this waiting room is, “peace”.  A version of peace that allows them an escape from the loud threats, a place to quiet their inner turmoil and grief, a temporary loss of sensation – some numbing agent – some anesthesia. They want a version of resurrection to burst into that room, like the sun – shining with warmth and permeating, obvious hope… not a version of resurrection that in it’s sunbeams reveals the injustice and suffering of the world, as abundant as dust particles.  And they ask their own disrupting questions at that familiar table, “What is resurrection then? What is peace?”

And then their answer comes.  Jesus appears to them from behind these locked doors. Resurrection in the flesh. With Bleeding, Open, Raw wounds  – embodying the very thing they don’t want to see aymore – the wounds of injustice… but saying the very thing they hoped for, “Peace be WITH you”.   A bewildering picture, but one they immediately notice as their Lord.


Part I(b) – revisited:  US

We too – are in a waiting room my friends.  This inbetween place… Where  like the disciples we are witnessing death and waiting for resurrection.   

The kind of resurrection that Jesus brings is one with the promise for tomorrow, a way forward when it only looks like dead-ends – an upheaval of unjust systems – flipping tables and turning everything on its head…it’s hope. It’s resurrection. 

But it’s messy and gritty and it will require us to be close to pain.  Now for . And move. And act in love. 

Jesus likes to disturb, surprise and provoke- to roll back stones, and bust through walls .

He asks us to do the same.  He breathes the HOLY Spirit on to these disciples – to send them out into the world – to create a new humanity – to birth something different. New.
And so, instead of “waiting” behind closed doors – Jesus shows us in this scripture how to bring resurrection to our world… and that is to not give in to despair -and not deny the pain – but to get close to the wounds – “proximate to pain”, as Bryan Stevenson the author of Just Mercy tells us.   
Many of you who inhabit black bodies, know this pain by lived experience.  And my words to come are not to ask you to inspect your pain – you know it so well.  My words are for my white siblings to come and lean in closer – but not by probing black people for information,  adding a fresh layer of trauma – 

But by asking one another these disrupting fundamental questions – like “does prayer matter?”, “Is America possible?” “what do i feel or not feel?” “ IS Jesus alive?”

And with the breath of the Spirit, discover the answers – by walking them out – by going into the wounds of our country, by getting closer,  to look at them deeper in ourselves – and follow Jesus in standing in solidarity with the pain of the world around us.  We need to try to continue to agitate ourselves to be proximate to the pain.

So that we can look at such pain, such wounds in Jesus’ hands, his feet, his sides… such pain in our nation,   and say STILL  – HE IS ALIVE… that is resurrection. 

Because to be proximate and ask questions – will help bust down long standing walls and structures.  And seeing the risen Jesus reminds us that the power of love can not be deadened within us.

Part III: Thomas & doubt:

Thomas loved Jesus so much.  He cared so much for the power of resurrection that could be brought to the world..  And he does not shy away from asking the uncomfortable questions  – earlier in this gospel, he says to Jesus, “NO, I don’t know where you are going?  How are we to know where you are going?”  And here in this scripture we see Thomas say to his friends, “Really? You have seen the Lord?  Is it so that Jesus is alive?  I must see it for myself.” 
Because, I doubt it. 

This is vulnerable work.  He too, witnessed the injustice, the violence the brutality  -the death of his teacher, Jesus.  And he too knows that Jesus said he would come back, resurrect.  He cares so much that this be true, for himself and humanity – that he can’t just stand on the outside and passively accept it as true.

So he says, “I must see and touch the wounds.”  The power of vulnerability, how to not just go close to pain and injustice, but to know more about it – to press into it…. 

A friend of mine says that, “Doubt is the friend of questions and the teacher of truth”. (Padraig O’Tuama).  Perhaps Thomas’ disruptive question here, “Is Jesus alive?” – unveils the truth – that yes, Jesus is alive – and this alive-ness looks like resurrection and woundedness.   

Doubt, questions are vulnerable – because they challenge the status quo.  The word vulnerable from the Latin word, “vulnus” – means “wound.”

 

So it makes sense that Jesus’ response to Thomas’ doubt, invites him to touch his wounds, a vulnerable action. If we re-read the words of Jesus – in these verses – we see that Thomas’ need for proof didn’t strike Jesus as a challenge – but was an invitation for Thomas to open up, to be vulnerable to go deeper. “Put your finger [IN] here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it INTO my side. Stop doubting and believe.”  COME IN, Thomas. COME IN from the periphery of the room, the periphery of your faith. Faith in me, is getting close to the pain, the wounding, – within yourself too.. because from here is where the gospel resides and goes forth. 

Doubt, our disruptive questions….. are our faculties for understanding what’s about to happen and where we need to go.  Jesus says, go to the “wounds”.  Go to the places, the people, the cracks where hurt is, pain, discomfort is – and embody Jesus there. BE a prayer there.

Our prayers, our dreams, our hope are birthed often from the spaces where wounds are, where we’ve paid attention to what’s hurting, learned of the injustices, how these wounds were caused. 

My daughter’s question at the table – revealed to me, a peripheral version of prayer.  A way to shelter behind a word, like the disciples, locked behind doors – hoping for  “hollow peace”.. .removed from the debris, the noise, the ache of life. ..” These words prayer, peace – hold no vision if they aren’t embodied…

Proverbs 29:18 says that, “where there is no vision, the people perish” – but Jesus reminds me as he busts through locked doors and hearts –  that he and WE can embody both resurrection and woundedness –  we can call for justice and peace – and in this people LIVE.

Thomas shows us that the vision that he and his fellow disciples had for the kin-dom of God ..the dreams they held of sharing the good news with so many – the hope they had for a more just world… would only be birthed when they became embodied….  When they took on flesh, broken, wounded flesh. 

 

Today I ask to touch Jesus’ wounds  – his hands his feet his side.  Because I grieve today – I have grief upon grief … because I need to know that he is tender, and alive in this crazy waiting room of life  – where I strain to see resurrection.   And I ask to touch Jesus’ wounds as a prayer – to draw me from the periphery of my “stilted” faith, to active faith.


How many of you today, are walking around with fresh wounds? 
How many of you have wounds that have been gaping and aching for a long, long time?

Part IV: “Peace be with you”
Jesus says, “Peace be with you.”  “Peace be with you.”

This peace goes beyond what the disciples were hoping for when they went into that upper room.  This peace is a deep call, an embodied prayer.  Birthed from known places of woundedness and injustice.  And from a place where the HOLY SPIRIT breathes her powerful breath. 

I invite as Jesus does – for those black siblings among us who need peace to be REST.. to rest.  To find peace in the  familiarity and comfort of trusted friends.   And I am inviting those who CAN to find peace in action.  To act, to go out and disturb unjust peace – on behalf of those who need rest.  

Peace be with you, as you move OR as you rest.  For those of us who move – know that peace is not an escape from what is hard, or from what is loud, or  painful – but it is a way into the wounds with hearts and eyes and ears wide open. It’s not a word to shelter under, to stay separate from the world.  It is what we pray for to STAND IN the wounds, it’s what we pray for to CALL out injustice, it’s what we embody when we get proximate to those who ache, are tired and hopeless.  PEACE is a strong, powerful, ACTIVE force that generates and binds us to one another, that helps us resist numbness and keeps us intimately engaged.

So many of us wish to return to normal, rush to regain a sense of previous familiarity.  But if the therapists among us are right – we will not return to “normal,” ever again..we will forever be marked by this time…    And if the black voices among us are right – we should not want to return to “normal” ever again.  


So it is time for us to come close to Jesus, with our  doubt, to get intimate, vulnerable, to be uncomfortable….  Not just intellectualize or create policy or laws to help thwart pain and injustices… BUT use our bodies to  speak  -and drive justice…to change hearts and heal.  THIS IS why I think JEsus says “peace be with you.”  We can’t feel that peace, without justice… and we can’t feel that justice without going to the source of the pain..

What will we shape, imagine, dream, vision for – and how will we pray? What will we embody?

What do our mouths ask for? – and how will our own bodies/our flesh be part of the answer?

Thomas shows us where to begin – with the wounded, resurrected Jesus.  

The one who holds the whole world in his hands.  The  pain and joy and trauma and beauty – and asks US to also hold it too –  asks US to embody him in the world .  

May we greet today as resurrected and wounded people, and may we be greeted by Jesus at every turn saying “peace be with you”.  “Peace be with you.”

 

Ending Prayer:

I’m thankful today for how my daughter pushes me to pray connected to wounds and resurrection in my body….  and how the scriptures echo her thoughts, “not to pray like the hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues – (and in front of churches) – and on the street corners to (merely) be seen by others.” Matthew 6:5…..but to pray,

9 “Oh God, Divine parent of us all – *in whom is heaven* (New Zealand Prayer Book).

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

May your love be enacted in this world THROUGH us.
and may you be our LIVING guide to create the world now, and as we imagine it to be.
11 Give us what we need to do this work – today, our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,  as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us – Oh God, deliver us –  from the evil one.’

Peace be with you.  Peace be with you.  Peace be with you – today, my friends.

Listening to the Voice of God in Chaos

What does Resurrection and reflecting on Jesus’ water baptism teach us during pandemic? Our Virch service allowed us the time and space to worship, examine our highs and lows, and reflect on God bringing us  – sometimes through water, wind, and chaos – to better understand our identity as loved and called forward.

Click PDF above for this week’s slideshow.

Sermon:

Good morning folks, it is an honor to share this time with all of you. I’m Ivy – a Pastor here at Reservoir Church.  We are for the next few weeks, going to be sharing thoughts about Resurrection – where life and love persist to emerge each and every day..


In our days as they are now, signs of death and separation seem most prevalent… And yet I want us to consider that the voice of God is inviting us to new life, new beginnings even in the most chaotic of times – and that we can find God’s VOICE and direction in the most foundational ways – through the wind and water.  

 

Growing up we had 5 or so steps that led up to the front door of our house … a door that we never really used.. There was too much of a draft caused by that big, old door, and with no system of heat in our house, we had to seal shut where any wind could find its way in.. Walls of plastic weathering material and some mixture of sheets or blankets were hung to block any of that breeze..  BUT on the most blustery of nights  –  the wind would still make its way through whatever cracks or fault lines we had missed –  or I guess, the fault lines we knew, but just accepted. 

 

On breezy nights like these – I’d find my mom out on that little 5 step platform – often taking a long slow drag off her cigarette, and lingering to enjoy the gusts of wind –  leaning back in a plastic chair she had pulled off the lawn.  I never remember joining her – whether I knew not to intuitively – or whether it had been a directive from her, I’m not sure … but I remember pausing, watching, and being captivated by the picture of her there in the midst of such power, such wild wind – as if she had dipped into something profoundly holy – if just for a few moments. 

 

When I talked to my mom this week, I asked her about the accuracy of these memories… she confirmed, and said the wind for her was like a “bubble bath without the trouble” – and I sort of laughed at that, but listened as she said the wind brought order to the chaos of whatever day she had had, and in some way re-ordered her, internally too – a moment of pause –  allowing her to find her bearings in some sense and enter back into our house, (which often times still held quite a bit of chaos). 

 

WIND

You may have noticed that it’s been pretty windy here in Massachusetts, these last few weeks…  MUCH windy-er than normal… In March and April we have experienced nearly double the average mph gusts.  Where I live in Milton – we clocked the highest wind gust at 80 mph this month… Branches and whole trees have been taken down, power to folks across the region has been lost…and these strong winds, of course brought with them delightful elements – like snow, hail and soaking rains. 

 

Which all seems to somehow match the greater chaotic tenor of our lives right now. 

 

In some ways we are….much like that old front door of mine… being exposed to the fault lines in our society’s framework by this coronavirus.  It is exposing where we have for a long time been symptomatic – sick with injustice and inequalities  – running a race to be the best, most powerful….

 

AND with the world shutting down – in this forced pause, we as a whole, are revisiting what it means to be human… that we aren’t impenetrable, that we are not invincible.  

We are coming to terms with what, and how, productivity should be gauged – realizing that the demands of our work, our schedules, our activities, our academics, our DOING – our ALWAYS DOING – for so long was actually inhumane. 

And we are feeling this disturbance as the wind blows through the cracks of homes – our systems, our organizations…..
(healthcare systems or justice systems, our family systems – and education systems… )

 

It’s scary – because, as many of you have shared, it feels: 

APOCALYPTIC…ghostlike streets

CHAOTIC… overwhelmed hospitals, epicenters of pain and suffering.

DISORDERED…..days, and rhythms and schedules.

 

so much of our regular ways of making meaning and purpose for our lives feels right now, 

FORMLESS
SHAPELESS

 

Leaving us feeling

VULNERABLE

UNPROTECTED. 

 

Leaving – as I find – many of the cracks within myself equally exposed!

 

And this widespread cracking – fracturing… feels like with one stiff blow of the wind – it could all come crashing down.   

 

… Our choice it seems – is to, 

  1. See it all as the end of the world as we know it..
  2. Or to see it as the beginning of the world as we can make it. . 

 

Option #2 means we go to the cracks.. we see what is up with the wind blowing in, we pay attention to the disruption of this draft…

And we listen…

Because maybe we find God hovering over this chaotic time and speaking to us, inviting us back to our very beginnings, what it is to be human …  who we really are, what we are made of, and made for …Giving us direction and anchoring  – reminding us that we too are made of wily and wild, and unrelenting forces… forces that love, shape, imagine, and find cracks to be our most fertile starting points .. lined both with CHAOS and the Spirit of God..

 

Prayer:  OH GOD – invite us to hear your voice in the chaos.  To see that your Spirit blows wherever it wishes, and invite us to tune in – to hear its sound, to trust it….whether we know where it comes from or where it goes. And may we find our own (new) beginnings as we enter into these wild and powerful currents. 

 

My Story:  The chaos I’m feeling these days is not as much in the big highs and lows of emotions that I cycle through on any given day – That seems quite normal actually for what’s going on -given that we are in a pandemic… 

 

But these unique days are exposing a fundamental crack in my being, I think – where my internal gauge of whether I’m doing a good job at life – actually has been lost…AND this is what I find to be chaotic.  Because the energy that I expend – and have expended…. to pivot and turn – and look and seek, and be so dependent on external feedback as a barometer of my worth –  is scattered all over the place..  And my own sense of self has scattered with it… So in these times of  quarantine –  I’m trying to find the pieces of myself. .. and it’s unmooring because I thought I had taken great strides in this area – that I had sealed the cracks. 

 

And yet the wind is blowing through these days, moving that great blanket I hung over this section of my heart – and I find the Spirit of God hovering close to me – and inviting me to wade in DEEP waters, not to find the next CREATIVE WORK that I can DO, and  feel really good about,  but to FIRST RECOVER “Who I am” – and  what fundamental truths I have in my soul –  Even in times of chaos.

 

Because chaos it seems, is where God does indeed hover.

  1. Genesis 1:1-3

The first verses in Genesis – tell us a story that beginnings often look like chaos.  That at the beginning of creation there was a watery chaos – and ALSO that there was a great wind blowing, the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters.. AND out of this combo – comes the world, with God’s voice sealing it all saying: “This is good.” (Being Christian, Rowan Williams – Archbishop of Canterbury).

 

A pattern built into our very world – a pattern of beginnings … chaos… wind… and the voice of God…

 

MOM
I totally dismissed my mom’s comment the other day –  that moments in the wind were for her like “a bubble bath without the trouble”, (mostly because I was like  yah, of course there were 7 of us – and one bathroom)…  but as I was thinking about this embedded, fundamental pattern of creation – of chaos, wind and the voice of God – as a starting point of new beginnings – it actually felt her comment was pretty profound. 

 

That somehow every night as she sat in a plastic chair, in the wind – she was baptized. 

Immersed fully in the depths, the messiness of her human-ness, the chaos of her day – AND was met with the deep, hovering LOVE of the Spirit of God.  

This is baptism – it sheds us of any falsehood that we can climb our way- produce enough to gain worthiness or holiness…and it just invites us to “die and resurrect” – over and over again, day after day”.. Filtering out the old crust of the day, the things that didn’t work, the versions of ourselves that don’t match the heart of God – and rising again with a new filter,  that we are “good” and honored recipients of God’s love. 

 

The voice that spoke into an empty cosmos at the very beginning, that brought shape and form, direction to the world …  is the same voice that we can find today in the wind,  

 

The same voice that said long ago, “this is good”.  

Is the same voice that says to us, even in our chaos… 

“YOU are GOOD.”

 

“GOODNESS” is a fundamental beginning point for us.  AND it is a message that Jesus himself needed to hear…

 

In the gospel of Mark we see the story of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, it says… 

2) Mark 1:10-11
10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the wind of the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, my beloved, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 

Chaos… the wind… and the voice of God. 

A new beginning… 

 

Jesus has not yet launched his crowd-gathering, miracle performing, great teaching movement yet…  he’s here standing in front of John, fully human… and we watch him dip into the mystery of death and love and life – to the depths of where it all begins. 

And we hear this VOICE TAKE JESUS into the depths of his own soul, 

“YOU are loved, you are good, IN you I am so pleased” (already with no “earning” or “striving”).

I take such delight in you.

You matter.

I believe in you. 

 

This is the deep baptismal message to us – that we need to be dunked in over and over and over again – AND we don’t have anywhere to begin –  if we don’t have this. 

 

Maybe we are all in a time of baptism my friends, as much as we are in a time of pandemic. 

 

Baptism – as Jesus shows us here – that is much more than separating ourselves out as privileged – elite – or holy…. 

…but baptism shows us how to go into the depths of human chaos – to be flesh (as Jesus took on).  “To be vulnerable and fully human in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world” (Rowan Williams). 

 

AND to do the great, productive work of remembering that as we wade into those waters, we can “reach out our hands from the depths of chaos to be touched by the deep loving hand of God.” (Rowan Williams)

Jesus doesn’t ask us to be all sealed up – free of cracks – .. .but He does call us to recognize the Holy Spirit whose voice flows through those cracks… to recognize what is being exposed at those fault lines.

 

Baptism affords us the surrender to not fear chaos or be free of it – but to find each other (and be connected to one another), in the neighborhood of chaos – “to be near to those places where humanity is most at risk, where humanity is most disordered and needy.” (Rowan Williams).

 

It’s in these depths that we find the Spirit is re-creating and refreshing our lives!… calling parts of ourselves out of the grave of self-doubt, apathy, prejudice, hurt, pride and despair and into the garden where we recognize his voice, where Jesus says, “I’m so proud of you…”   “I’m so incredibly proud of you.”   This returning –  to the beginning – allows us THEN to move, to love, to act in this world – in ways that are clear, that GENERATE the founding message of this world, as God’s vectors we say,  “THIS IS GOOD”.  Rather than divide, destroy or turn a blind eye.

So right now I am trying to find a way to be sealed in the voice of God.  This returning to who I am …  To reorder my relationship to myself and my vocation – whether in normal or abnormal times to see it as larger than any individual job description I’m given, (or ascribe to).  

To see that I already have God’s love – and when I can fully allow this love – to be the meaning, direction and purpose of my life – then I’m DRENCHed in my humanity and DIVINENESS as I was made to be –  I am baptized.

 

“This type of baptism restores my human identity and the potential for it to be overlaid by anything” (Williams)…. Baptism takes us right to where Jesus is, IN US, where something keeps coming alive in – where we can see that the cracks in us afford new birth, new sights, new creation in us – for the very work that our fractured world needs.

 

And maybe our work in this time – or in any time really is to say, “hold up – before you race to do that next project, or submit that proposal, or try to help your kids with on-line school…….take a moment, pause in the wind…
 “Do you remember who you are?”
 “Do you remember the call in the wind? 

The direction in those deep waters….”  

THIS RECALLING of who we are in God, gives us the direction, the guidance to do the great work of no longer just accepting where the cracks are – in our neighborhoods, communities, society – but to do the work of asking the question,  “Do you remember what you were meant to be?” 

 

This time of pandemic is ripe and rich with the possibility for change now and in the future.  How will we act in love? Many of our community groups are considering this question right now – across their own neighborhoods and cities – but I think it will take us fully entering the baptism of our times – – finding the voice of God that actually asks us to go, “Back to the beginning, back to where it all comes from.. Pleading with us to try and listen again to what God first said to us…” 

“This is good.”

“You are good.”

 

I don’t know what my mom heard in those small moments of sitting in the wind – what the voice of God specifically said to her, (but she must have said something to my mom), – but I do know that she entered back into our tiny, drafty chaotic house – and she showed us love – great love… and how to walk humbly and show mercy.   And I know that she returned to that chair again and again – to be baptized in the truth of who GOd made her to be… 

 

So my friends, may we FIND ourselves again – and OUR deep PURPOSE again- in these days –  on porch steps, in plastic chairs, as we wash our hands, in living rooms, on sidewalks as we sit at tables, or in the wind – and hear the truth GOD speaks to us, “that we were created by the wind and the water”, and we only need to turn an ear to hear the quiet, persistent refrain, in it – “that we are greatly loved – and that in us – God is greatly pleased.”

 

End Prayer:
Dear Jesus, may we all drink from the holy waters of your One Spirit.. And rise from chaos with your power of resurrection embedded deeply in our souls. 

 

Resource: Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer by Rowan Williams

 

 

 

The Brittle Story of Victimization

Last in the Series, Seven Stories: Jesus’ Big Story, and the Other Stories by Which We Live

Welcome everyone!  I’m Ivy, Cate mentioned. It’s so great to be with you this morning – so lovely to have a room full with the texture of many of you who regard yourselves as young at heart – and many of you who are just, well – young…. Our kid’s programming takes a break once and awhile – and this Sunday is one of them – so welcome all you toddlers and kids! It’s a joy to have you, and your voices and energy in the room this morning!

Next week we will enter the season of Lent, these few weeks leading up to Easter.   We’ll spend these weeks as a community considering the centrality of the cross – and we’ll explore this through a myriad of ways; a daily reflection guide – (that includes Bible and poetry), some thoughts on our blog around “Why did Jesus Die?”, authored by Pastor Steve , sermons of course, special services, Ash Wednesday 2/26, a participatory liturgy, and Good Friday service.   It is a rich season which I’m looking forward to pressing into with all of you – and if you are looking to explore this season with others, beyond a Sunday morning experience – it’s also a great time to consider joining a community group (booklets in lobby, me, website). 

Today though, we are wrapping up our winter series, Seven Stories. We’ve spent the last few weeks exploring 5 primary stories that authors Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins suggest we’ve been telling and listening to for far too long – stories that don’t seem to usher in connection, liberation, creativity or peace for us all.  We’ve looked at the stories of domination, redemptive violence, isolation, purification and accumulation. We’ve told stories, and read scripture, posed reflective questions and gave helpful spiritual practice tips to help us pause and consider just how these stories are woven into our beings. Not just stories we can witness or identify – somewhere OUT there – but WHERE, IN US these stories live… and WHY…. And how on earth, these stories are told with our words and lips and bodies – and HOW we go about the work of unearthing them, shifting them, and yes, (changing direction), repenting from the ways we perpetuate these stories.

Today – as is true every time I stand here – I  preach to myself first. . .. because I am still WAKING up to some of these stories , still acknowledging and owning responsibility for where I participate in telling them,  and I’m still trying to do the work and effort it takes to change them. I’m finding that these stories, (maybe not so surprisingly), DEMAND our trust in the extraordinary, supernatural story of Jesus to shake our constitutions again – to bring us to our knees with the belief in the  power of the miraculous spirit of love , “to see that the movement of the Spirit of God  – often call us to act against the spirit of our times, [these prominent stories of our days], with wisdom, humility, and courage ….” (Howard Thurman).

And to “learn once again  – as Howard Thurman says, how to put at the disposal of the limitless demands of our [painful experiences]- the boundless resources of God – to see that instead of just enduring [being a victim to] this life,  that we can float it.” (Thurman, 173).

The story of victimization, which I’ll talk more about today – tells the truth of the pain we incur in this life and also the lie that life is nothing more than pain…. (and that we are powerless to it). 

Now where we move from being a real victim of injustice, to a mentality of victimhood – that holds us prisoner to our pain – is sometimes hard to parse out.  How much time must go by? A month? 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? I guess the question is less about time and more about what we do with the pain we all experience as humans. Do we tell the truth about this pain – and let it transform us? Or do we as Richard Rohr is known for saying, “transmit the pain” out into the world through defensiveness, anger, fear.  This is a big question, particularly for those of us – like myself, who are white – and enjoy high status, high pay, high privilege, power and authority.  So I invite you to let this question roll around throughout the sermon toda,y and see if it is relevant to you. 

The story of victimization is a story woven in, and a product of all the other stories, I mentioned earlier.  It’s a tangle of knots and harm and lies – of structures, and people’s actual lives, our children, and institutions and  dreams and nightmares – all contorted to fit into boxes of “us v. them”, upon which we’ve built a world, a way of being.  

“Us versus them.

Us versus some of us.

Us in spite of them.

Us away from them.

Us competing with them to get more “stuff”.” (McLaren & Higgins)

We can not untie one story from the other – without being willing to look and face the full entirety of it’s mess.   This is why it’s so daunting to start. What thread do we pull first? What’s the entry point?

Humanity has never known what to do with unjust suffering – yet is our universal experience on this earth.  We are all wounded. We have wounded, and we have been wounded. Wounder/woundee. And to be wounded, harmed, to suffer – all of it is unjust, and to be a victim is to endure unjust suffering.  “Spiritual masters teach us that it is not what happens that causes us to suffer, but the stories we tell about it” (McLaren & Higgins, 133).   So maybe the starting line  – the way into these complex network of stories, is the locus within ourselves that holds ‘yes’ the pain – but also the possibility for transformation of that pain, Jesus’ deep, powerful love. 

Today, I invite you to start with yourself.  To consider what pain you might be in and where that pain resides right now? What have you done with it? Where have you placed it? What are the challenges the barriers? What story are you telling about this pain?

Prayer:  Jesus we/I plead for your help. Where answers are so scarce – We ask for your mercy – as we stumble to create them –  could you listen to us? Could you guide us to our hearts, where our pain is lodged, and also where your love resides. 

MY STORY:  A couple of weeks ago I spoke about the story of isolation and in that I shared more than I ever have about the particulars of growing up in a small mill town in Maine.  I shared that the ethic of this town was built around this paper mill culture – where generational pride and loyalty spun out of working really hard and making an honest living – and held the nexus of where people formed their identities and found belonging.  (the lore is that many people who graduated from the local high school say on a Thursday – would work their first shift at the mill on a Friday – this is how deeply the mill’s story was entrenched into “who people were”). 

The suffering that people endured however, due to poisons and toxins from these mills – found in the erosion of their land, water, air and decaying, cancer-ridde-bodies – – was not acknowledged even as attention to this link grew greater.    Even as the EFFECTS of this suffering and pain was impactful and noticeable in their real lives. 

People lost their jobs.

Healthcare coverage.

Houses.

Land.

Families.

Businesses closed.

Schools closed.

People moved away.

Depression and deaths of despair grew:

Opioid related deaths.

Suicide.

Harm, pain and suffering grew.

People were hurt….. And people were victims of injustice at the hands of this great, powerful institution the paper mill.   Which continued to spill out evil with threats of slashing healthcare coverage, over-time on Sundays and all holidays, even as people were dying of mill-related diseases.

 

Not knowing really what to do with all this pain, 

People isolated, because they didn’t want to be hurt again in that way…   And they turned to each other in these bunkers for protection and safety, and they asked the questions of PAIN; “Why me?”  “How could my livelihood be so disrupted?” “How could my dreams for my family and my life – be so sidelined?” “I’ve worked so hard.” “I’ve been so good!” 

This was a strong thru-line in my town – and perhaps nationally – that  bad things couldn’t happen to good, hard-working, people.”

Such valid questions, and feelings… 

People were looking for a meaning for their suffering. 

An answer that could provide:

A release valve, something to inoculate the pain. 

A place to deposit the tears, the outrage, the fear.  

An answer that would be a remedy to the exhausting plight of poverty that echoed in their bones.  

Pain charges and fires all of the receptors in our bodies and it communicates to our brains, “I am being dealt with in a manner that is ruthless because this suffering ignores my private world of concerns!” (Thurman 171). 

There wasn’t an answer, or for that matter much redemption on the horizon for folks in this mill town.  And where there is an alarming deficit of good/hope/joy people tend to give up on life, and each other. This hopelessness manifests often in cynicism, bitterness, negativity and blaming as a substitute to looking squarely at the pain – and it’s not a bad approach because it provides immediate satisfaction.

With the amped tensions and fears in my town  – and with no direct acknowledgement of pain, victim- mentality set up strong and ran deep.  People felt as though suffering would and could only be the only story in their lives – there was no way out  – and they felt powerless in this.  This is a scary place to be with little resources, with shame and failure, as new, thick words in your vocabulary.

Our primal instincts kick in when we are in pain – and they cause us to fight or flight.  Many people in my home town (and surrounding towns), enacted the “flight” mode – isolating – separating themselves.

But many others also chose to FIGHT.  The first step in fighting – is to identify the enemy, the bad guy, the source of harm –  who will I blame for the pain? We create the scapegoat.

“Philosopher René Girard sees this tendency to scapegoat others as the central story line of human history. Why? Because it works. The scapegoat mechanism was almost perfectly ritualized by the Israelites. They enacted placing their sins on a poor goat and sending it off into the wilderness to die, thus the name, scapegoat”. (Richard Rohr). 

When we can find our scapegoat  – it acts as a relief valve initially, it brings about a sense of justified peace – and gives us a sense of satisfaction.  And for those of us who are used to holding power – the satisfaction allows us to have that familiar scent of power again, to be in control again –  and we get to deposit our fear, our hate, our frustration on SOMEONE else.

Many mill workers stood up to the institution that brought harm to so many.  1200 mill employees decided to strike to bring truth to power for the ways the mill continued to pump pain into people’s lives.    The mill responded with fear and defensiveness and fired all of these workers.     

The mill also replaced all of these workers with new workers.  Many, as it turns out were family members, friends, neighbors of those who originally struck.  Folks in town were desperate to make ends meet, the mill paid well above the hourly wage, and many jumped at the chance to get in at the mill, even if temporarily while the strike was active.   The strike lasted 16 months and when it was over not one of the original strikers got their jobs back. The replacement workers were permanent.

This, created new schisms, fractures, new enemies – and fresh scapegoats. Life was bleaker, more pained, and now riddled with a deeper story-line of victimization for many.    Not only had the town quickly divided over that stretch of time – they had also VERY quickly, “accepted violence as a natural expression of pain”.  Epithets, rocks, ball bearings fired from sling-shots were hurled at strikers…   And those who did not support the strike were taunted with curses, and men whose closest brush with the law had been no more than a parking ticket started carrying guns and baseball bats in their vehicles.   Kids in my classes at school – faced bullying at the power of teachers – who may have had relatives or friends – that were on the other side of the strike line. It became a tangle of these primary stories. 

Playing the victim is a way to deal with pain indirectly. “You blame someone else, and your pain becomes your personal ticket to power and control. …because it gives you a false sense of moral superiority and of having been offended”(Rohr).  But it doesn’t catalyze anything except more fear, more pain, more defensiveness and a brittleness of always being on edge.

It also creates a very fragile system of people.  Because now – not only is the institution the source of your personal pain – but the possibility that your  neighbor, friend, family member is now also on the table – there’s no one to trust. We are always the victim.  

With this posture, the side-eye that someone gives you in the check-out line, the push that someone gives you on the soccer field, the fact that someone didn’t pick up your phone call -or email you right back, or the feedback you got at that meeting, or the feedback you didn’t get at that meeting – it all lands personally, as an attack, and your wound stays fresh. 

Richard Rohr says, “We are all tempted to project our problems on someone or something else rather than dealing with it in ourselves….because it takes away our inner shame and anxiety and gives us a false sense of innocence.” 

But he says it “doesn’t ask us to grow, or to change, or transform.  You don’t have to grow up, you don’t have to pray, you don’t have to let go, you don’t have to forgive or surrender—you just have to accuse someone else of being worse than you are. And sadly that becomes our very fragile identity, which always needs more reinforcement.”

Again – here’s a snippet of my small-mill-town-story, and if it doesn’t resonate or feel relevant to you – than so be it… But I think it points to the greater patterns we enter into – when we take on a victim mentality, when we scapegoat and perpetuate harm.  And it’s how we get into loops of conversation that I hear so often, “my pain is greater than your pain”, or “I’m a victim too”, or “oh, I haven’t oppressed you”, and this is all symptomatic of evading our pain. Which actually leads to deepening the trenches of our own wounds –  keeping them raw and bleeding – far away from healing. 

All throughout the Bible we see this play out  – people in pain – threatened – stressed – wounded – and Jesus gives us countless models of how to transform our pain – How to not just be wounded – but to maybe be wounded and healers at the same time.. These models often incorporate an invitation to reorient to Him – the source of abundant love, healing and good news for everyone.

So I’d love for us to look at the scripture on your program, which gives us some texture in this regard:

Matthew 15:21-28 (NLT)

21 Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.”

23 But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.”

24 Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.”

25 But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, “Lord, help me!”

26 Jesus responded, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”

27 She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps, the crumbs, that fall beneath their masters’ table.”

28 “Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.

OOOOF – Jesus.  Challenging picture here.

Again the message that I know of the good news of Jesus  – is that He is the central source from which we have hope to transform our pain, to heal, to feel comfort when we are victims of injustice…at our most vulnerable.  It’s a message that says Jesus is good, loving .. always. Always. always. Except, here,  when he’s not?  When he’s insulting and mean?

I am absolutely not going to make sense of all the possible interpretations of this passage, there are so many… but I’ll offer some perspective, which is not to be taken as the RIGHT way of interpreting what’s going on here – but as a possible lens through which you could explore for yourself, one that might open up something you hadn’t seen, or read or heard. 

At a baseline I think there are some power dynamics going on here… that this story invites us to consider in our own lives  – 

This woman is from a Gentile region, so Jesus and the disciples moved into areas that most Jews would have considered unclean. This region, in particular has a long history of paganism and opposition to the Jews.  In addition, this woman herself is regarded as unclean because of her demon possessed daughter. So she is facing, “ xenophobia, sexism, classism and social discrimination”, as her daily existance. (Gonzalez, 125).

Jesus comes into this region not with tremendous power – he’s a working class Israelite under Roman occupation – from a town of lower status – BUT  – he still holds a fair amount of social power as it relates particularly to this woman. He is an able-bodied man, he is an Israelite with Israelite lands – he’s known as a respected teacher.   And yet, what this woman seems most interested in – is not necessarily the power represented in those social strati – but the power he has access to, the power that she’s heard of from afar, that’s traveled over the lands and into her town – the power that she’s so compelled to find, despite her barriers – and this is the power to heal – the power that Jesus holds, to free this woman’s daughter or not, as he chooses.  

He is part of a religious system that holds this power, as far as she’s concerned – and she needs it, she is suffering. 

And here is the set up for humanity, right?  

Power held by some, and needed by so many. 

Howard Thurman says that, “there is something about such suffering that seems to be degrading, that seems to insult the human spirit.  There is something about it that is unclean and demonic (171)” .

Suffering in and of itself – is already isolating, degrading, and insulting.  And this woman is pushing through that suffering, oppression, marginalization –  laying herself flat – desperate – crying out, on her knees… for HELP , JESUS!

And we see her rush to engage with Jesus – a source that could offer her relief, and healing…  and what happens? He seems to add to the rejection, heap on degradation and injure with insult.

 This religious system – that she thought might hold something different than all the other systems she’s been prey to – that might hold in it a healing power to expel the demonic and ravaging forces of suffering that her daughter and herself have endured – seems to offer nothing different, as she is also held victim to the words and actions of Jesus…..

This confirms for her, that his power is bound by the religious institution he is part of – his complicity with it.

Here is where I would have jumped right into a victim mentality… I would have thought, “this is enough – there’s nothing else.  There’s no power that I can have access to, touch – if it’s not found in you, Jesus”… “I”m powerless, all of life will only be this suffering.”

And I do, do this often.   

Just recently I had my brother and my sister-in-laws’ four kids, (all under the age of 10), for a few days in December – while they went on a trip.

Mercifully they let me use their van to transport our collective 7 children around.  And the first day the kids were here – we all filed into the van, and I clicked a zillion seatbelts and carseats into place – and off we went to drop off one of my kids at practice.

On our way home we stopped at a beach on the south shore – where I enlisted all of them to collect and transport 100’s of rocks for an element in our Advent participatory liturgy service that we had in December.

(Surprisingly small children LOVE picking up rocks!)

Things were going so well, I thought I’ll stop at Dunkin’ Donuts and get everyone a treat :). 

So we did, and as we drove out of the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot,  with a munchkin in each hand – I thought about how sweet life is. How thankful I am to be trusted with watching these little guys – and what a real delight it is for me, even though it was in the midst of a really busy season for me.

And then I feel something funny – at the back of the van – feels like the back end is sliding a bit –  I ask the 10 yr old if she notices anything. She’s says, “Eh, this van is on it’s 3rd leg – it’s so broken down – everything sounds and feels funny all the time.”

And I thought, “Solid point”.  Most of that van had things that were patched together to make do… gas tank, glove compartment…

But the sound and the feeling gets more pronounced and I decide to stop about ½ way home at a gas station.
Intending to top off the tires with some air.

I get outside and the back rear tire is FLAT to the ground, I mean on the rim!

I go to look for the spare tire – but we have 100’s of ROCKS covering the vestibule where it lives… 

  • And instantly I’m like, “You know what? Life is really crappy!” 

And the monologue just continues: 

“Everytime I try to do something nice – BAM! something bad happens.

Life is soooo tiring – and – exhausting – unforgiving.

Life is never just smooth, easy , free of “tragic events.”

I work so hard and never get recognized for it. 

Never get any accolades.

Life just keeps giving it’s crappy  – crap – crap – storyline to me over and over again.”

And there it is – it’s this old mill town story-line playing out in my life. The victim hood mentality that rears it’s head – that I can’t quite shake fully from my being.  IN fact I really need to pay attention when I start telling that story to even realize that’s the story I’m writing. The story that says, “there’s no God here, I have no access to power, I’m powerless.”


The beauty of this scripture is that this woman doesn’t  play the victim – or pull out the blame card – and she has every good reason to – but she did neither!  She, “wouldn’t allow the events of her life to make her their prisoner.” (Thurman 179)  And she stands firmly, strongly in front of Jesus. She doesn’t shame or yell or hurl insults back.   

But she challenges him, I think, “Jesus what exactly are you trying to communicate here?”

“I hear of these great stories of healing that you’ve done – even of Gentiles and women (!)  That seems greater than any power I’ve witnessed of a system! So how is it that the stories you tell through your lips and your hands communicate equality and healing – but you can be a part of a religious institution that systematically doles out elitism and exclusion?”


“And how is it I stand in front of you today pleading for mercy, healing and help –  and you call me a dog?” (Which by the way in English, Greek or Aramaic calling a woman a dog is not a term of endearment – it’s an insult – a slur). 

“How is it that your lips and your actions communicate harshness, and prejudice – but are supposed to build, with power,  a KIN-DOM full of acceptance, freedom, wholeness, justice?”

I don’t get it – Jesus, where’s that picture of power – that everyone I’ve heard of is telling is so compelling ? the power of love?  It seems like in either case you are throwing it away.

Don’t’ you see, that even the crumbs – Jesus – even the crumbs of love, could feed a dog like me.   I followed those crumbs, here to you – today.  That’s how powerful they are…..”

This woman speaks directly to Jesus and upholds his dignity,  calls OUT his divinity – by naming him Lord all throughout the exchange…  AND she also sees him as human.
And I think this is where we might stumble with this passage – it’s where we forget that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. 

But I think if we see his humanness here, we can be helped in our own.

What if fully human Jesus is a product of his system the way all humans are, and a fully DIVINE Jesus teaches us how to overcome those systems? 

I think he does both here.

I do think he learned about his own prejudices from this woman. 

And I do think he learned that he can perpetuate these prejudices, this harm that resides in the religious system he’s a part of – EVEN when He’s trying to build upon and fill out that very system with love and acceptance.

It is important to me that Matthew (and Mark) include the words that Jesus says – as much as they discomfort and challenge our picture of a loving Jesus.   It shows how strong, and how insidious the tug of power is – of how privilege, even when enacted OFTEN in a compassionate manner – still has the propensity to continue the story lines of oppression and pain.

As much as blowing the tire out on my brother’s van,  really stunk that day. The gas station that I drove up to – was thankfully also an auto mechanic garage… and the mechanic mercifully took me in immediately, just 10 minutes before they closed.  He plugged the tire, charged me $25 – and my 6 children, were happy to take turns spinning each other around in an office chair – in the tiny vestibule at the side of the garage.  

Hurray ! Glorious ending!
Hurray! Glorious ending – as a result of my whiteness and my privilege.

As much as I was a victim of this car breaking.  And as much as I was a victim of poverty many years ago – I  have to acknowledge and see that doors were opened for me – (literally that day) as a beneficiary of the system of racism – where doors were closed to two other people of color who came into have their cars serviced just a smidge after me –  were turned away. 

It feels relevant to me to think about how Jesus invites me to consider the reality that  I’m not just a “representative” of systems of oppression – but how I am an active part of it… even if I don’t believe in racism or promote ideologies, the systems built on whiteness  still perpetuate racist outcomes. 

I think this is the use of power that Jesus might show us in this passage.   That we have other options than to fight or flight. We don’t need to exclude or find a scapegoat, or play the victim. OUR energy trying to convince people that “I’m a victim too” – or that “I’m not racist” – is damaging to others and creates brittle inner landscapes, avoids responsibility and effects no change.  Furthermore – it doesn’t get to this woman’s main desire – AND perhaps what we all come to Jesus to find; the power of love, the hope of healing, of transforming our pain. Where is it found, how can I access it? I think Jesus is showing us that we can’t get there unless we take steps at unharming – where we have harmed. 

This poet I love, Nayyirah Waheed wrote these few lines (on your program):

unharm someone

by

telling the truth you could not face

when you

struck instead of tended.

– put the fire out (unburn)


Healing it seems – can only come from telling the truth. The truth about our pain – our sense of self – our worth – …   The truth of stepping out of the victimization story – uncentering ourselves – and owning where we have harmed.  Jesus shows us how to do this. 

This is the mercy for us, that Jesus shows us his very humn moments in this story.  He’s ignoring, he’s defensive, he doesn’t want to take time for this woman – he doesn’t want to be interrupted, he wants to find somewhere quiet… he tries his hardest to reject her,  with exclusion and slurs – AND he uses his power for harm, instead of healing…

This woman helps him orient back to the true source of His power – not dictated in this religious system, but imparted to him by God. 

This is divine power.  (She is divine).

The divine power that helps him listen, reflect and repent.

This is the divine power of Jesus not only found in the healing of the daughter at the end of this story… 

BUT found in Jesus’ repentance.

Now the word “repentance”, can make some of us bristle – it’s been twisted and used as a weapon – but like the words Steve spoke on a few weeks ago of “covenant” and “sacrament” – I think it is a religious word , that just might be worth recovering. 


“The Greek word for repentance, translated to English is metanoia. Meta means “beyond” and noia means “thought” or “mind” .. together it means to change your thoughts or your mind, to turn in a new direction, to reverse a direction and go a different way.” (O’Tuama 200). 

Jesus shows us here how to repent – when we’ve wielded our power in hurtful ways.  He shows us how to grow up. To take responsibility – repent of the things that we can, to start the process of unharming, to be healers.

“To be open to the possibility of repentance is a sign of the goodness of humanity.”  (O’Tuama 200).

Jesus showed us his change of direction – his mind opening to the resistance of this woman AND not in the privacy of a quiet meeting, but in the public field… where his power mattered.   

Where he could show that his power really wasfor people, rather than over  them… 

Here, he showed us how to take steps to “unharm”. 

To listen.

To receive feedback without defensiveness and brittleness.

Here in the public sphere  is where the story of this woman will continue to be told, the one who bested Jesus in a conversation – not to make him look foolish or to compromise his following (as others in power tried), but to help him be better and healthier, and more divine.  

Here in the public sphere is where stories of her daughter, liberated from the possession of a demonic spirit would be told… and where lines of logic and heart will follow -to see that pain was no longer transmitted into her lineage.

To tell the story that freedom is the fruit and product of systems of faith that are built on love, healing, listening, justice and repentance – and it’s how the demonic spirits of violence, dominance, isolation, purification, accumulation and victimization will be loosed.

Spiritual Practice for Whole Life Flourishing:
Read the scripture with an imaginative spirit this week:

Who are you in this story? The one wounded, oppressed and marginalized? The one who holds authority and power? The one who watches from the crowd? 
Ask Jesus to direct your speaking up and/or your stepping back to listen, repent and aid in healing.


Read this poem this week:

unharm someone

by

telling the truth you could not face

when you

struck instead of tended.

– put the fire out (unburn)

— Nayyirah Waheed, Salt. (2013)


Who have you harmed? What truth have you not spoken yet? Or faced? Take steps to acknowledge, repent and aid in healing.

Prayer:

I need to repent in front of God and all of you here today,  of the ways that I’ve knowingly and unknowingly benefited from my whiteness – where I’ve used my privilege to see – and not see – act and not act… And even more than that I need to ask for transformation  – of my heart – and my words and my actions. 

Sources: 

Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins. Seven Stories, E-book.  

Padraig O’Tuama. “In The Shelter”, 200.

Karen Gonzalez. “The God Who Sees, Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong,” 125. 

Richard Rohr On Transformation (Franciscan Media: 1997), disc 1, (adapted from ).

Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press: 2001), 19-20, 22-24.

Howard Thurman.“The Growing Edge.”171, 173, 179.

Nayyirah Waheed, “Salt”, 2013. 

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:

 

 

*Book: Mill Town Reckoning with What Remains, coming out 9/1/2020

A Free Community Anchored in Love

Good Morning!

Today, I’d love to continue with insights we’ve been sharing in this sermon series, called Your Faith Journey at Reservoir.   We’ve been highlighting our five core values –  that make way for an open, Jesus-centered approach to your faith journey. These values; Connection, Action, Everyone, Freedom and Humility form the ethos of Reservoir – who we are and why/how we think about faith the way we do. We’ve realized that it’s worthwhile to be intentional each year to communicate this in a clear way –  that doesn’t leave anyone wondering – if there is some “catch” attached or trade-off that’s required – to belong in this community.

Today we’ll take a closer look  at the value of freedom.  I’m eager to talk about freedom – not as a stand alone value, that we exercise to engage and showcase our own individualism  – but one that orchestrates our deep connection to one another in community.   I think freedom – at its most beautiful expression in a faith community – is not seen in us traveling down our own very distinct freedom paths – (what I believe, experience or know of God) – that never intersect with one another.  I think freedom is what calls our paths to intersect – to collaborate – to learn from one another and move forward in this world together. 

Our individual freedom is necessary to a vibrant and healthy experience of faith  – but it benefits from being situated in relationship with others, even if the freedom expressed by others is strikingly different than our own… 

….and the only way to do this is to be anchored in a unifying, divine source of love – which we find in Jesus.  

I’ve come to believe that Jesus alone is perfect theology (hat tip to Brad Jersack)- Period.  The way I think about and approach the Bible, or prayer, or community – all flow from Jesus. I’m being reverent here.  As a pastor of this community – I hope to communicate that at a baseline – life with Jesus at the center is really, really good news.  It’s why we’ve taken time to define our values the way we do – and why we define freedom here at Reservoir as: “honest exploration of faith over conformity of belief or behavior, trusting that the Holy Spirit reveals truth to all who seek God.”

Freedom is a value that we encourage here at Reservoir NOT ONLY  because it allows us movement toward Jesus – BUT because it also CALLS us to be an active participant in keeping ACCESS to JESUS, FREE AND CLEAR FOR ALL without hindrance – and this means that even our freedom can’t overtake someone else’s view of Jesus. 

Over the last month or so we’ve queried our community groups – to give voice to where and how they’ve found Jesus to be good and real in their lives…. And how Reservoir has helped facilitate the experience of the love of Jesus.  And out of this process has come deep, deep insight and wisdom, the greatest theme being that people experience the love of Jesus …..through BAGELS… (I’m not joking). Sesame bagels, everything bagels, chocolate chip bagels – they are all mentioned…many, many times.  

And second to the holy wonder of bagels were themes that hit at all of the 5 core values we’ve been talking about. And the table that I sat at expressed their thoughts by saying, 

“What we feel is that Reservoir seems committed to the struggle of keeping the widest most open doors possible. Our church is willing to sit in risk and vulnerability and open belief statements such as ‘we don’t know,’ or ‘what do you think?’ All of this leads to a room full of FREE, diverse people where love thrives in the multiplicity of human beings and all they bring to the community.”  

I think, “Oh my goodness that’s so beautiful” … and simultaneously, “Aaah, Here is where freedom gets real and messy and gritty – as we actually live it out alongside one another…” Here is where freedom shows the prowess of its value…the complexity of it – because   IT IS A STRUGGLE my friends to uphold freedom, the widest doors possible – WITH JESUS SMACK DAB IN THE CENTER _ alongside values of humility, alongside a value of connection, alongside the value of everyone – and REALLY mean it. It takes risk, and vulnerability and trust of the whole community. 

And as much as we regard Freedom as a powerful means for individual rights- when this value is found in the context of a faith community – it demands a higher standard – it demands a higher centering than our self wants or needs or perception – and that is the standard of love, found in Jesus. 

Both of my parents became followers of Jesus, when my mom was pregnant with me.  

The “good news” came to them through a traveling gospel salesman who came on foot – and knocked on their door and “Led them to the Lord,” as they say.

I was born into a community of faith that had found its legs in legalism, setting deep grooves of expected adherence to belief, Bible, prayer, behavior, dress …. but never spoken of course – on those terms – but spoken in terms of love and freedom in Jesus. 

It was expected that kids sit through all services, there were many services – and they were often (very) LONG!   And at the age of 5 or 6, myself and a friend – drew up a survival plan – which was to diligently find in our Bibles – every scripture that was referenced in the sermon – and copy it down as fast as possible – verse by verse… before the next one was mentioned!  My favorite scripture for a long time was the story in Matthew ….”where Jesus calls a little child to him, and then said to those around him,  “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. If anyone causes one of these kids to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” [taken from Matthew 18:5-6]

I LOVED that scripture! 🙂

I would use that scripture  anytime I could at home – especially when I felt like my rights – my freedom was getting stepped on by my parents. Which – of course as a child was ALL THE TIME. 

I wouldn’t understand for many years how  this unassuming method of utilizing scripture to make it through a boring service was maybe less my unique individualism at play, and more an absorption of compliant behavior I understood of my environs. Scripture would prove to be an effective mode in my faith journey –  by which I would learn to follow the prescription to my “goodness”/my holiness – which could then lead to my experience of Freedom in Jesus. 

Throughout the history of American society we see these great markers of power  and freedom – that may for equality and brought to light injustice:

Starting with the Declaration of Independence

The Bill of Rights

The Abolition of Slavery

The Era of Immigration “learning to breathe free,” from 1880 – 1920

The 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote

The Civil Rights Act 1964

2015 – Supreme Court decision for same-sex couples to marry.

Nestled in these historical moments is ‘freedom’ born out of community.  A communal voice expressed – of human beings valuing connection to one another that is unified by a hope and a dream to “change the world‘: to create a new society,  to make a better life for everyone…. And somehow through communal effort  – change is effected.

(And sure, we are revisiting some of these freedom moments and finding problems that require us to go back to the patriarchal systems and structures they were born out of –  we need to critically engage – and move forward with new ideas.)

I think the same can be said at times of faith communities, that there is a deep communal bond that allows the church the freedom to be and become – The freedom to collectively create an ever-evolving body or church, a new kin-dom of God here and now.

But we also know –  from history and experience – that freedom is not always easy to navigate, doesn’t always bubble up as a widespread, agreed upon value, and is often met with struggle and resistance.

And to add to that struggle is the subtle, shifting definition of freedom over time.

Brad Jersack the author of “A More Christ-Like God” (a book we read as a staff), says that freedom has moved in American culture to be defined by society as “Getting what I want, by doing what I want”– but has shifted even more so, in the last 20 years toward “keeping what I have – by doing what I must.” This definition relays a more defensive stance – a guarding and a protective stance – and one that has taken up greater claim. And it’s hard  when we feel like our freedom – our rights-  or our security is threatened. It calls up in us that need to defend and guard freedom –  often vehemently in Jesus’ very name.

As a young, young child I was taught just how great God’s love for me was – how grateful and thankful I should be for such a display of this expansive display of love –  especially for someone like me who didn’t deserve it.  The greatest thing I could do to touch or honor such love – was to adhere, comply, obey the beliefs that my community purported of God.   My own worth and belonging in this faith journey depended on my firm grasp, the ability to articulate…to defend my faith, and uphold this great God against inevitable attacks.

As I mentioned I took to scribing all the scriptures spoken in service – and as I mentioned so many of these services went really long.   My Dad was a deacon and I helped him often set up the metal, folding chairs at the back of the room where the overflow, the “latecomers” would sit.  It was also where we sat, because we were humble servants of the Lord.  

On one of those evenings, I was close to finishing copying the Scripture into my little book – the one I loved to take to school the next day and read to people, (because I took it as my role to grow the field of Jesus followers single-handedly).  But I was also battling my need to go to the bathroom.  I was trying so hard to get those last few verses to paper – AFRAID that if I left for the bathroom, I would surely miss the next Bible reference….and so I stood my ground, I didn’t move.   I didn’t make it to the bathroom. I peed in the folding chair. (Which is VERY noticeable by the way, when it’s a metal chair, and you have to fold it up and walk it to the stack of chairs in the corner of the room).

Sorry if that story was T.M.I. (too much information!)

It’s a memory that wouldn’t let go of me as I was framing this sermon – sometimes the littlest of moments, the smallest of memories – hold the deepest truths.  This deep truth still lives in my body: that at the age of 6 years old, I was in an environment of faith where I really wasn’t free.  I was anxiety-ridden, nervous, fearful. And the container of my experience of faith was hinged on “power,” not love. The focus was compliance and control of belief and behavior. 

Where compliance is heralded –  anxiety and fear reign.

Compliance: Comply to the behavior expected – ex/ Don’t get up in service.  Learn all the scripture you can (this is critical), because…

Anxiety:  If you don’t have all the scripture written down – you will be ill-equipped the next day at school.  This woul be unfortunate because you need to make sure everyone else knows the prescription of holiness to get to God. A pervasive tone of anxiety of whether I was taking in or doing enough. Was I enough? 

Fear to move: I was literally unwilling to move, driven by fear. For me it manifested in a physical manner. But maybe you can see the more universal commonality here in this small story – that plays out in broader strokes around you. Of how the need to “stick and defend your ground, at all costs,” becomes the standard of belonging. Of how the capacity to be unwavering, immoveable is somehow a sign of taking your freedom and love of Jesus seriously. 

In this pursuit of freedom – where a defensive and protective stance is taken up – and anxiety and fear reign as the contributing forces, we often end up separating from community, losing sight of our bonding VISION (of JESUS)… AND even within our communities we categorize who’s “in” or “out”… who’s against “us” or with “us”… those who aren’t deemed as “with us” – who might approach God differently – or interpret the Bible in a “wrong” way – or just display too much difference. In an effort to ensure their compliant behavior and get them “back on track” – we end up stepping on their “rights and freedoms and violate their peace and security” (Jersack, 52). When we craft a road to freedom that rests on self-will and preservation, it craves mastery and power. 

Jesus and his apostles thankfully give us a different definition of freedom – a freedom that doesn’t require any defending  – and is found in Jesus, his very body. 

Let’s read Paul’s words in Ephesians, found on your program:

Ephesians 4:1-6, 15, 16 (CEB)

1Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. 4 You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.

“..by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, 16 who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part”.

Paul writes from prison to the church of Ephesus.  He speaks of this “one-ness of God” – at first this can sound incredibly exclusionary, not a field for honest exploration. ONE way, one faith, one track – play into the defensive posture people are inclined to take? Maybe at first blush.

But Paul is actually communicating something quite different – quite freeing –  God has soaked the world with GOD’s self – there is one-ness throughout all the rituals, the path, the cultures,  the differences… God is in the cosmos – throughout every human heart – one-ness is already there… the love of God. 

This message, for this community of Ephesus is  radical for the 1st century. “BE FREE”!  

EVERYONE  – Jew or Gentile – circumcised or uncircumcised – wealthy or poor, it doesn’t matter who your mother is, or what your blood is, conservative or liberal- you are welcome with freedom to orient to God – and HE’S pretty clear right – not from separate silos – but from an integrated, functioning, interdependent, collaborative community.  This is a radical picture of human family – 2,000 years ago and (my!), isn’t it still radical today? (Reference: Alexander Shaia)

Paul says, “The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love – as each one does its part.” …AS EACH of us do our part…WITH FREEDOM from anxiety, with freedom from judgment.  God is the head. God is not asking us to be the head. God is not asking us to be God. God is asking us to be who we ARE – the elbow, the shin, the earlobe. BE THAT!  Because God sent JESUS to help us to be HUMAN – to engage our full human bodies on this earth. To greet other human beings on this earth – with humility, gentleness and patience…   NOT to ensure that we ourselves, or those around us achieve the holiness of GOD.

When we veer toward setting moral codes as the standard for freedom, it actually becomes a tool of dismemberment.

It creates a sick, toxic body – with tools of shame and judgment as the method of control and mastery.   The “most, wide-open doors” – the doors that say “Everyone is welcome with freedom” above them – becomes but a pinhole by which moral approval is the key to enter.

The role of being “Moral approver” makes us so tired and weary.  So much energy is used in surveying the border -securing the border of our faith – demanding proof from people – “show me your papers” – the credentials of how you are a follower of Jesus or not?  WE start patrolling each other’s behavior and narrowing the expanse of “one-ness” and mislabeling “Freedom.” One-ness starts to be defined as preserving a set of conforming beliefs, versus as it says in this scripture, preserving the unity of the Spirit with treasured diversity.  This is not freedom, it’s bondage.  We forget that Freedom is love – not power to control.

The gospel – this good news of Jesus –  transcends moral approval as the basis for acceptance, belonging, or unity in the Spirit.  The good news – the love of Jesus is FREEDOM. 

As a follower of Jesus – I can see that it is not my role, it is not upholding the value of  freedom to give, demand or receive moral approval from another – that’s serving self-interests, that’s feeding my own anxiety – and dismembering the unity of the body of Christ.

Often Paul’s words here in Ephesians –  are helpful in thinking about how to navigate conflict and get along – AND I think Paul is ALSO  reminding us – that Jesus is the center of our lives – all of our lives, and that center is LOVE.

And that love is generative beyond our construction. It multiplies in community, it grows.  That love is binding, that love breaks apart moral exoskeleton’s that we try to prop ourselves up on.

…and this love calls us to work…..it calls us to hard work.

It’s not lost on me that Paul uses this image of a body as metaphor for a functioning, healthy community.  Because a physical body moves when it’s healthy, and a community of faith, anchored in the oneness of the Spirit of God is also called to motion. 

When we work for the values of everyone, freedom, connection, diversity and authenticity, humility  to be upheld… there will always be work to do – to keep us moving forward. 

There is no standing still in “oneness.”

We value love, relationship, intimacy that safe-keeps (not guards!),  our own free view and relationship with Jesus. 

And we value with TRUE freedom our zesty voices and perspectives – and we TRUST THAT GOD doesn’t need defending, and that God can SPEAK for GOD’s(her)- self.

MANNA Community

To honestly explore – and experience God, with freedom – from our own unique vantage point.  A God who is completely loving – whose nature is pure goodness – gives us the capacity to emulate God by exemplifying love. 

Last week I had the honor to hear from someone whose work and calling exemplifies LOVE, the chaplain of the MANNA community, a ministry of, and with, the homeless community in downtown Boston. 

MANNA’s mission is not only to welcome folks across differences of class, wealth, culture, race and mental ability, but to empower all people to claim their place as essential members of the community. MANNA believes that everyone has gifts to give and to receive. (https://www.stpaulboston.org/manna)

And that there’s a need – a deep soul need –  of each other to function in this relational way. This community gathers each week to serve, to pray, and to create together.

This chaplain that I was talking to  – runs The CoffeeKlatsch a community that gathers for an hour on Sunday mornings, to connect over the realities of their lives – the extreme adversity they face on the streets and to find hope in connection with one another.  It is open and honest conversation – which with all the diversity in the space often results in very opinionated/very BIG  – robust conversations. Conversations that are offensive and just generally very hard.

I asked this chaplain – HOW do you do this?  HOw do you hold space for this? In a way that freedom is upheld – the right to act/say/believe what you have – and have an eye for the community…?  In a way that keeps it moving? Functioning? 

First she said, “Well we have two ground rules:”

  1. “No violence or harm done to another.   
  2. “Can’t be high or drunk when engaged in the community.”

Pretty important rules.

The chaplain then added that she and her colleagues operate on this guiding principle – this word, “remain.” 

Listening more as she spoke, I realized it’s similar to what the love of God facilitates here at Reservoir – that to “remain” in the love of God, allows MANNA to honor the freedom and integrity of everyone who walks through their doors.

That MANNA too, remains committed to the struggle of keeping the widest most open doors possible. 

They remain  committed to the mission – this unifying spirit… that there’s an essential part for everyone to play in this greater community.

And they remain in the posture of welcome – for anyone and everyone.  

Even if they pee in a chair.

This word “remain” spoke to me of such sincere love.  Love at the heart of this MANNA community – and maybe the heart of all communities that move and greet this world with all that it presents – even if we feel , experience it – or see it differently than someone else – EVEN if what it is – is God. 

I John 4:11-13 (CEB)

11 My dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God [comment: NO ONE can put a stake or a claim or a border around GOD]. If we love each other, God remains in us and God’s love is made perfect in us. [comment: we don’t need to strive for ‘holiness” (or some external standard] 13 This is how we know we remain in God and God remains in us, because God has given us a measure of the Spirit.

How do we uphold FREEDOM, with difference – and with an eye toward community?

WE REMAIN – WE REMAIN – WE REMAIN in God’s LOVE. 

This is our guiding principle too. This LOVE of God, this pure view of God – IF anything, is what we get to safe-keep.

Freedom is not found in organization structures  or external expectations, but rather is found in centering the shared life and love with Jesus in community.

Perhaps the ground rules of MANNA are similar to ours too –

 

  • No violence/harm to one another – and by violence I mean in exercising your own freedom – you must have an eye to whether or not you are “violating the identity and integrity of another person.” (taken from Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness)
  • And a commitment to being aware of when we veer toward fixing, saving, advising or rescuing someone else.  To recognize we are entering territory that might not be ours to walk through. (We can listen and ask honest and open questions).

 

Our role is to:

 

  • LET GOD be GOD.

 

    • Take seriously our freedom to explore who God is to us.   
    • Take seriously our freedom as it fits in the body – the whole of community.

 

  • GIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT her rightful PLACE to reveal all she hopes to reveal to you and those around you.

Invitation to Whole Life Flourishing:

Look for opportunities to express freedom in your daily life, with a leaning toward others, taking on a generous and self-giving posture (of humility, patience and gentleness) in your heart and actions.

Spiritual Practice: 

Ask God this week to help you notice where your freedom intersects with others around you?  Reflect on whether this intersection hinders access to Jesus, or makes way for the widest, most open doors to Jesus.

Would you join us in being COMMITTED TO THE STRUGGLE of  MAKING THE WIDEST, MOST OPEN DOORS POSSIBLE? 

On the Brink of Encounter

Hi everyone- it’s lovely to be here with all of you. 

I’m Ivy as Steve mentioned. “Happy October!” 

I love summer so much – that it is very stretching for me to use those two words “Happy” and “October”, so close in a sentence together.  September however, did a fine job of setting up October – in a way that I can genuinely and excitedly say, “Happy October”. 

I’m also excited for our Fall season here at Reservoir, and I’m enjoying the sermon series we are in called, “On the Brink of Everything”. Inspired by a little book by author, and quaker, Parker Palmer.  It’s a series that we felt would work well as a way to explore what it is to live in these fracturing times. If you’ve been around the last few weeks you’ve heard Steve and Lydia talk along these themes, of being on the brink of “chaos”, the brink of “overwhelm” and on the brink of “nothing” – and I’ve been thankful for this small phrase in the ways that it allows us to touch the baseline trauma we may be experiencing in our days.   This little book though, also helps us to imagine embodying the “fiercely honest and gracious wholeness that is ours to claim at every stage of life,” (Krista Tippett).  Parker Palmer himself, is looking out at the horizon of getting older – and his book was also inspired by a conversation with a friend of his – who has a toddler and also observing a young one looking out at the horizon of life.  

Today, I’d love to take us in a direction – where we really consider that “fierce, and honest and gracious wholeness”, and how it is that we can really claim that with Jesus..  So I want to talk about being on the Brink of Encounter. Encountering, a living God at every turn in our lives. Because, I think we are always on the brink of falling deeper into ourselves and deeper into knowing God in a way that has real power – power that can be game-changing in our fractured world.  Encounters with God can reveal to us that we have built within us a “survival kit” that includes surprising tools like vulnerability, intimacy and imagination.

If God is a God who is abundant in eternal, transformative love and tenderness and power – then it’s pretty WILD to think that it is available for us to touch and utilize in our LIVED experiences.   And so I think God’s invitation is to keep mining and discovering it, to not assume that we’ve had our fill, or know all the ways to encounter God… but that we could always be engaged with more. And it’s this ever-evolving display of God’s-self that God wants us to be in constant contact with. 

So for those of you today, who are comfortable with the ways you encounter Jesus, AND for those of you who are done trying to encounter God … and all of us in between –   I want to challenge you to be open to surprise, to engage your imagination and be willing to stretch beyond what is already familiar to you – and to dip into the great mystery of God’s presence. 

I think the implications of that posture, are huge – and also breathtaking. 

We can learn from history – and get a constant pulse through the daily news — how easily we forget what it means to be human.  We can forget that underneath every inequity, every act of  racism, and oppression and violence and sickness and hurdles to access of healthcare and education – is a human being.  Real life people with stories and souls, and voices and families that we live alongside. Yet, even in our most genuine efforts to bring about change (which are valid and needed),  we are quick to bundle people up under policies, and laws and votes, ideologies – losing track of the face of the one we hoped to help.   

I heard and learned a lot about how to “help people” in my faith community growing up.  It focused a great deal on biblical literacy and the accompanying moral rules that would construct a good life, (some explicitly told and some powerfully inferred).  We read a lot about Jesus. We read all the wild stories of Jesus doing strange and unexpected things in ways that seemingly helped the people that encountered him. And I would spend a fair amount of time doing this –  weekly – sometimes twice a week.

And then after each meeting of study, we all went home. 

And come back the next week – to learn and to study Jesus more.

The picture for me of what “help” and “power” could look like with Jesus  – was found in the pages of the Bible. And I’m so thankful in many ways for this foundation…

But I think I knew  in my small, young self that God had a greater, more vast ambience and resonance than what was being presented in my faith experience…. Because the dissonance between the picture of this vivid, lively Jesus in the scripture I read- was distinct – as compared to what seemed to be a “sleepy” Jesus in my life. 

I didn’t know how to enact all my knowledge of Jesus – to wake up either myself – or – him – in an experiential way.  And yet I had a hunch that ‘experience’ had to be at the heart of spirituality.

The prejudice of our modern minds, somehow comes into play…  Because it often suggests that knowledge must be something we can possess  – and often as a prerequisite to experience. To be informed – to be well resourced with data,  IS TO BE prepared for what any encounter might bring – including (in my experience) encounters with God.  

If you go out for a trek in the woods – it is good to be prepared for what experience could occur – it is wise to have the (bottles of water, extra dry-wicking sweater, carabiner, the duct tape… )… or in my case – the whiskey ….. just in case something should happen.


We want to possess knowledge, to circumvent any surprises.

We don’t love the idea deep down- of the  unknown, of surprise, of having our “heart be caught off guard and blown wide open” (as the poet Seamus Henney says). That all sounds frightening to us – I think. 

Knowledge that we can possess, (available to us at our very fingertips) – allows us to feel in control, to suppress the unmooring feeling of being caught off guard.  What we also suppress is wonder, and awe and vulnerability and intimacy. 

My friend Sarah awhile ago made a simple comment in a community group that we were both in, that has really stuck with me. We were in the midst of “studying a story about Jesus” – and it was really enlightening and rich, in a lot of ways.  And at some point, Sarah leaned back and said, “you know what I would really like? Is for Jesus to just show up in my car, and sit in the passenger seat next to me. That’s the kind of Jesus I’d be really into right now.” 

Her comment cut through all the discussion we were having, about Jesus that was primarily heady – and nailed me right in the heart.  And it got me in touch with my own hunger of that kind of knowing, of that kind of imagination, of wanting that type of encounter with Jesus to be true. 

An encounter with Jesus, requires a kind of knowing, that emerges from our imagination  – that we can’t predict, prove, or stamp as true.  But one that will bring us and Jesus back into a co-present reality… even if we imagine our way there.   

About 5 years ago I preached my first sermon here.   I talked about the love of God (shocker!), and in particular a moment – a memory that I had of my Dad, when I was young. We were driving along a familiar road at twilight – I spotted some deer in a field and he turned the car around to view them – and then turned to me in the car and said “Nice eyes, Ivy”.  

As I drove here that morning – to preach my first sermon – down my own familiar road – re-working some transitions in the talk – a deer stepped out into the middle of the road, from the side woods.   And my heart skipped 1,000 beats – because I was startled – and also because I knew I had encountered God. 

A friend of mine has told the story of his mother, who was bedded with grief following the death of her own mother.  And where upon waking from a nap – she met Mary, the mother of God. She woke to the sound of this woman coming into her room – dressed in tweed and soft clothes, in her 70’s, grey hair.  She described the depression she felt of the mattress, from the weight of this woman – as she sat down on the bed where she lay (Padraig O’Tuama, In the Shelter). 

I have friends tell me they encounter God on a mountain top. 

I have friends tell me they encounter God on the side of a trail – panting for air – before they get to the mountain top.

A woman named Mary Magdalene encountered Jesus as a gardener.

My brother, in his 8th year of life – had been sick for 3 months – bed ridden. Muscles atrophied. He hadn’t walked in weeks. The doctors were puzzled.  Prayers gushed into his story, from far and wide.. He woke one night – convinced he was going to die… and encountered God. 

The next morning – he bounded into my room, up a flight of stairs  and declared his hope to go to the beach that day.

An old testament prophet, Elijah – encountered God not in the powerful wind, or earthquake or fire – as prophets had KNOWN to encounter God, but in a thin, quiet voice that came to him.

I encounter God these days, in a pair of golden finches – these birds that peck and find their way through the sunflowers in my front yard.

The vividness, and strangeness and unbelievable-ness of the stories we read in scripture of people encountering God – are true too – in our own stories today. 

And yet you might have a myriad of responses listening to these “encounter” vignettes:  Were those encounters really with God? Are they historically accurate? Were they fabricated over time?  A result of a high fever perhaps? Isn’t that just maybe imagination run wild?  Or a result of relying too much on your feelings?

See somewhere along the line – we have become afraid of the unknown, of surprise – – of getting something wrong in the mix – God forbid – we would get God wrong.  And what we are doubting when we ask for proof – or the truth – is our own self and intuition, which perhaps is where truth actually resides. 

Somewhere we have been swept into the binary way of believing that if we FEEL something we are not THINKING… and if we THINK something than we are not really experiencing it – but I’ve been helped by the words of John O’Donohue.  I spent some time in a tiny county of Ireland, recently, where he was a priest for many years… and he says, 

“True thought is full of feeling and feeling is luminous with thought”, which means that the “the act of knowing – is a function of the imagination” (John O’Donohue).

Infact, imagination IS where the human and the divine are co-present!

So maybe the generative question isn’t whether or not,  the encounters we call into question are true or not…maybe the generative question instead is whether IT IS TRUE that the encounter helped (adapted from Padraig O’Tuama).

“Did it help?”

And if “yes” – then maybe it doesn’t matter how it happened.

AND THIS IS where I want to go DEEP into scripture for a moment – because encounters with God at a baseline HELP US.  They help us become more fully HUMAN — more in touch with our feelings – with intimacy and vulnerability – and encounter with God, helps us continue to grow and evolve and transform, not only for ourselves – but for the whole of humankind.

I invite all of you to  encounter God in this LIVING word of scripture:

Mark 5:25-34 (NIV)

25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Here we have a Biblical story of a nameless woman who encounters Jesus.

She has bled for 12 years. Marginalized on multiple accounts; she’s a woman – with no male relative to support or advocate for her – she is financially destitute, she is religiously “unclean”, and makes anything or anyone she touches “impure”. By cultural norms, she is unfit to live within city limits. So she exists in isolation, disempowered and shrouded in shame.  The laws and traditions of her time – have dehumanized her. She has no identity.
She is human to no one.  

And while I’m thankful for the written account that Mark gives us here (and Matthew and Luke who give us of this same story in the other gospels)… I would LOVE to imagine this morning of how this woman would tell her own story of encountering Jesus.  Of how she’d tell her story to her kids –  that might have surprisingly become part of her on-going story.  Or how she’d tell her story to her only human contacts – the lepers, or prostitutes, or the young rich men – or the tax collectors, who had also encountered Jesus.

Maybe she started by telling her part of the story – that comes before the story we read here in print – of how for those 12 years of suffering and bleeding – she imagined.  How she imagined every evening that the shadows moving along the stones in the street where she slept – were God.   And how those shadows comforted her, built in her a belief that God could be One who was consistently present and close in her pain.  How she imagined that in the call of the golden finches that greeted her every morning – was a song that told of joy and a promise of healing  – sung to her by God.   And maybe she’d tell of how that ability to imagine a God like this – built in her the capacity to trust herself, to be resilient …..and to imagine the not -yet-realized presence of a surprising and unexpected incarnate God – who just might, someday walk down a crowded, familiar, street in her neighborhood.  

Maybe she tells the part of the story where she admits that she had grown comfortable being out of the sight of society, comfortable being invisible.  Of how living behind the backs of people became more comfortable than seeing faces.  Of how the earth, became her temple of dirt, and dust and stone and blood.

Maybe she told how surprising it was that when she encountered Jesus he didn’t lecture her, or the crowd,  about personal sins or specific religious views and practices – or how to get back to the holy – but instead invited her back to the ordinary.   He invited her to tell her “whole truth”- Her STORY! “Why was she there? What did she hope for? Why did she long to touch his clothes?”

Maybe she’d tell of how achy and vulnerable it was for her to become visible again.

Maybe she would tell how the roots of her faith – were found in the holiest of places –  in the shadows, in the dust, in the birds, and in the grit – of life.

Maybe she tells lastly, the part of her story of how she had forgotten her name – of how long it had been since anyone had called her by name.  Maybe she’d be shy in sharing how she’d taken up the spiritual practice of imagining names for herself… Ones that she loved, but names she also needed for survival: First of course, “Eve” – because it means “to live”… and “Ruth” too, which means, “friend & companion”,  and “Rebekah” which means to “join a family.” 

Maybe she told how her forgotten name, was what terrified her most about going and touching Jesus – because she didn’t know how to identify herself, if he asked. 

And maybe she became embarrassed still, to tell her children the intimate parts of the story –  where she knows that she turned crimson red – as Jesus turned to her in the crowd – where in his face and his eyes – she recovered long lost words of her vocabulary – not only her name, but words like “tenderness” and “gentleness” and “touch”.  And how she trembled with a sensation, a feeling of overwhelming love as she touched his clothes, the intimate exchange of His love and power, as it poured out of his body – and moved into her skin.  And how in His voice, her heart was caught off guard and blown wide open with the name he gave her, of  “Daughter”… stunned that he could encapsulate all she had hoped for in a name, “to live, to be befriended, to belong in a family”, to be human again.  The power of name. 

I hope she told these parts of her story – and more parts that she’d discover over time to everyone she met….  I hope she made her kids yawn with boredom at how much she repeated these stories of God’s goodness and realness and truth to her…I hope if any questions arose it was, “mom – were you helped?” I hope she had a thousand new names given to her, like “prophet”, “courageous”, “informed”, “critical” and “imaginative”..

I hope those names are names that we can give to ourselves as we continue to encounter God. 

We are all on the brink of  ENCOUNTER with God. An encounter that sometimes gives us immediate healing… and sometimes is a long, long road of accompanied grief,  and sometimes is a mere, but fleeting feeling …..  

But all experience builds in us the survival kit – for our wild hike of life – with intimacy, vulnerability and imagination. 

Here is where we free fall into our fiercely honest and gracious wholeness that God helps us claim. 

And with that……. a knowledge that surpasses all understanding planted deep in our souls.

I think my friend Sarah has it right – to hunger for a presence of God  – close, real and in our ordinary lives. ANd it trains in ourselves an ability to trust our intuition – to recognize Jesus wherever he might show up – and to utilize our hopes and dreams of who God could be to us, and BE SURPRISED by who he reveals us to be in the encounter!…  

To believe that God could be in our passenger seat, is a stretch of the imagination – but not that much of a stretch if we believe that he is not just as a silent observer of our life – but as one who eagerly engages and  buckles up next to us…

And one who offers to hold all the stuff we drag into the car…. He takes into his lap our ½ eaten egg sandwich – our bags of messages that we’ve ingested from society, with our sense of loneliness and our own self-deprecating dialogue – he holds it all.. and invites us to tell him more of our “whole truth”, our story – meanwhile likely complimenting us on our song choice in the car, humming along – driving down our familiar roads,  calling us by name at every turn … “Ivy – you are doing just great”, or “Nice eyes, Ivy”.

This is the kind of knowledge that is so intimate and so vulnerable, to express as TRUTH.  And it’s disorienting because it’s not the kind of knowledge that we can possess first – it’s the kind of knowledge that WE gain by encountering God –
“it is the kind of knowledge that possesses us and infuses a knowing within us” (Richard Rohr).

I don’t think I can read, or imagine the story of this bleeding woman without hearing my own story echoed in it  … and I don’t think we can read this story without imagining the freedom and power it is to be called by God….. to be our exactly human selves. To bring back into view – our full, visible humanity.

This is the power of encounter.  To be deeply aware of who we are …To be deeply anchored in the presence of God. This has transformative power as we act and walk and move in our lives – it has the power to “stop people from their superficial assumptions, from their efforts to damage, marginalize and hurt others (Mary Moore, p. 44), because truth of this degree is a living force.  

I wonder as the bleeding woman made her way out of the crowd that day –  how many people saw her? As she made her way back to her familiar road – I wonder how many people reached out to touch her, stopped her to ask if it really happened? And how many people stopped her to see if she could help them become human again. 

This is what truth does, it articulates, exposes, restores, and surprises us.

The challenge for us today, is to believe that all of this is truth.  That we do indeed encounter God in so many beautiful, known ways – in prayer – with a candle in silence, or in loud, charismatic ways – or in worship songs – or in Scripture study – or in wildlife – or at the top of a mountain – or in the rut and grit and dirt of life…. and also that we can encounter God in a host of other surprising ways we cannot yet name, or know….  

“Peace I give to you”…. He says to this woman and to us- “Peace I give to you”.    In wellness and in wholeness. So do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid”. (John 14:27) – and “do let your hearts be caught off guard – and blown wide open.” (Seamus Henney)

Spiritual Practice & Reflection: 

  1. Practice expectancy with prayer: “God help me to let go of any assumptions or expectations that I may have of you, and today could you catch my heart off guard and blow it wide open?”
  2. Reflect: “Where did I encounter God today?”  and “how did it help?”

Maybe the helpful knowing of Jesus loving you deeply, in your life – helps you lead with compassion and tenderness to see the human beings in your midst. 

Practical:

  1. Discover the human beings in your midst. Start by making eye contact and learn their names and their pronouns.

Call into view someone else’s “whole truth.”

Dear God could you  remind us this morning – that on any crowded street, on any familiar road  – we can encounter you. Could you help us GOD to know – that we are not just imagining a life that could be good and powerful with you in it – but that we are actively,  presently living it. 

Rebellious Joy

Hi! Good morning everyone. I’m Ivy, as Michaiah mentioned. I hope your week was full of moments that you are grateful for – some that maybe let awe and wonder grab you for a second. Some that allowed you a moment of rest – to renew for whatever work lay ahead of you. I know I’m thankful for this moment with all of you, together, collectively creating a service on this Sunday morning that is still to unfold. So thanks for being here in this moment right now!

We are in the midst of summer here at Reservoir, marked in a myriad of ways, in part by our sermons.

Throughout most of the year – our sermons are more thematic and series driven, but over the summer we form them out of a mix of assigned Scripture readings that Christian traditions have used for centuries – called the lectionary.

Preaching out of the lectionary allows us as speakers some freedom, giving us the chance to talk about something that’s been on our mind that maybe didn’t fit directly into a series. If you were here last week, you heard Steve talk about something he’s wanted to talk about for awhile – “Hell” – and for me today, it’s a chance to talk about something I’ve been wanting to talk about – Joy!

Seriously though, I was really helped by Steve’s sermon last week – and I think in a lot of ways what we think about Hell is directly related to how we access joy. Because how we experience God, who we think God to be, and how we live out our life in response to that picture of God is critical. Do we think God is an angry God? Or a joy-filled God?

And I suppose, in some ways it’s as bold to speak about “hell” as it is to speak about “joy” these days. To talk about joy in these times, I think can feel frustrating for people – “Really, joy? We are going to talk about joy? Isn’t that just a way to evade the deep reality of pain in our world? Will joy make an effective difference? Aren’t there a whole host of other, really direct ways to effect change?” And I totally hear that – I get that – and yet I think JOY is a deep call of Jesus’, for all of our lives and for the growth and flourishing of ourselves, as well as for our nation and world.

If you’ve noticed we start every Sunday morning service with a welcome that includes the line, “We hope you discover the Love of God, the gift of community and the JOY OF LIVING.” In some ways that can sound just like a nice tag-line, but we mention it because we really believe that a good God – a fundamentally LOVING God – invites us into a life that is not just survive-able,but one that we are excited to LIVE, fully as our good selves, in partnership with a God whose longing is to love us and to be a joy-filled restorer and healer. And so we start our services with this, because we believe that joy does make a difference.

I’m so happy it’s summer – it’s a season that I greet with a little bit of a slower internal pace – and gives me a little more stretch at the margins, where I can experiment and try out some things that have been stirring in the back of my mind.

And recently that has looked like starting this Developing Racial Conscious group here at Reservoir, in partnership with Dorothy Hanna and Trecia Reavis. We’ve been reading a series of books recommended by people of color who’ve come to this gathering and outside of the gathering… One of which we read recently entitled, Eloquent Rage – A Black Feminist Discovers her Superpower, written by this woman, Brittney Cooper, who is a professor at Rutgers.

And in reading her story as a black woman, one would pick up pretty quickly that given the levels of racism and misogyny that she’s encountered  joy would be very far from her lived experience. And as is true to the title of her book, she shares deeply on how rage has been a useful means of clarification for her – allowing her to really press in and question, what is wrong in this world? Why does it bother me? How does it affect me? And what do I want to do about it? It’s given her focus and her energy a landing point – of what needs to be taken apart in the world, what’s unjust. And ALSO what needs to be built up – and with what tools.

Brittney ends her book by offering a benediction, those good words spoken at the end of a service that “imbued you with power to go out and live out the good things you’ve just learned about”(p. 274). She refers to herself as a church girl – her stepfather being her first pastor. And it’s in her benediction that she offers a critical tool to help bring about change, and build things you want to see in this world – JOY.

Her first line of her benediction is, “MAY YOU HAVE JOY”! JOY, as she makes the distinction, “is different from happiness, because happiness is predicated on ”happenings” – on what’s occurring, on whether your life is going right and whether all is well. But joy arises from an internal place – where there resides a clarity about our purpose here in life.”

Joy is found in an internal place – an internal holy, protected and ever-present place, where Jesus resides as well. This is what we need to access…. to sustain us for the long work ahead. It is important to know our way there – so that we don’t, as Brittney says, let the “messed-up state of the world steal our joy” (p. 274).

So I will talk a little bit today, about the messed up state of our world… and talk a WHOLE lot more about how joy found in Jesus – may just be this tool of strength, of rebellion, and resilience that allows us to keep moving and thriving in a world where we may indeed be hard-pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted and struck down – but where we will not be destroyed because of the joy that is gifted to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Brittney Cooper points us to a joy that is deeper than a temporary feeling of happiness, but she refers to joy as a way of being in the world – an approach and posture to all of whatever life may hold for us.

I think we are helped by this distinction as we can see that God had great big plans for us – as he deposited joy in every corner of the earth… As we can see that God WOVE it into the fabric of the world, of creation.

The first psalm on your program says:

“Those who live at the ends of the earth
stand in awe of your wonders.
From where the sun rises to where it sets,
you inspire shouts of joy.” – Psalm 65:8 (NLT)

Joy is present wherever the sun rises and wherever the sun sets, which I’m pretty sure is everywhere. Where there is light and where there is darkness, joy is present. Joy can hold both – inclusive of our every breath, our every minute here on Earth.

Joy is a steady, constant source that touches the edges of all of the earth – a flow, a current that bends with all of our life through walls and challenges that block our way – the ups and the downs – always available, always present.

And isn’t that so beautiful and so poetic!? Simultaneously, I think, “yes it is – but it sure doesn’t feel true to my lived experience at all!”

Ice Cream Story

Last Friday I took my kids to the beach. It was our first moment of being all together this summer at a beach. We got to the beach early, hardly anyone there. It was SOOO beautiful, so serene. My kids were laughing and willingly played with each other. My daughter Mae, who broke her leg late this spring was able to get in the ocean and float around a bit, and I felt so joyful. So joyful, in fact, that ice cream seemed like the natural way to keep this joy stream going, and so we stopped on the way home.

I pulled out of the ice cream shop – with still a fair bit of ice cream on my cone… and feeling so joyful and aware of the world around me and compassionate, I paused in traffic to let a driver in the opposite direction – turn left across my lane of traffic. I saw this driver with compassionate eyes and said in my heart, “Oh – hi! driver. I love you – sure go ahead!”

The traffic light ahead of me was red, so I felt no pressure to be speedy.
HOWEVER, the person behind me was clearly not sharing my moment of joy and ice cream bliss and started LAYING on his horn at me – aggressively, and obnoxiously and incessantly, and was also shouting some choice words in my direction.

And in the moment, I paused and I thought…. “where the sun shines and the sun sets – so will I shout for joy!”

NO! That is not how I responded – that isn’t what I did – nor was I shouting anything that resembled “joy”.

I started waving my arms and gesturing wildly – and in my anger all of the sprinkles on my cone were flying all over the car, and with my melting ice cream so was my joy gone, dissipated from the car.

And so much of our moments are like this, right? High on “joy” when all is going well, and then plummet when reality hits. This is a subjective joy.

A friend of mine after service last week I thought encapsulated this up & down well. I asked “how he was doing?” He showed me this beautiful picture on his phone, of his toddler and himself making french toast that morning. And I thought, awe – yes, what joy! The mastering of flipping french toast. But my friend continued, “yes – and then a few seconds later my child burnt his hand on the griddle.”

Walking into your esteemed job that you’ve worked so hard for, in the morning – to find yourself walking out a few hours later – laid off.

Engaged to get married – engagement broken off.

Having a healthy body for decades – to having a body that stops functioning and be in need of repair.

A brain that pierces the science realm with premiere research and insight – slowly starts to forget the names of their closest loved one and partner.

A belonging you found in community – to realize you were never really fully welcomed.

Joy is hard to be harnessed in the reality of life….and not only is it hard – it can veer toward feeling myopic and selfish to seek it while such suffering and brutality is widespread across our world.

It’s why we can’t skip over this pretty powerful verse in Psalm 65:8 that says:
“God inspires the shouts of joy”. GOD inspires. And thank goodness, because otherwise JOY would be a luxury. If joy is only a reaction to pleasing homeostasis in our lives – then only the ones with resources and power could claim it.
God-inspired joy, however, is to be found in every part of creation. It’s GOD’s union with the earth, and God’s presence with us – IN US – wherever we are, in whatever circumstances, without exception.

Through scriptures we see this to be true – that JOY is an internal orientation to God.

Ps, 4:7 “OH God, fill my heart with joy.”
Psalm. 16:9 “my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure”

In fact letters that the apostle Paul writes in the New Testament to early followers of Jesus reveal the suffering evident” Thessalonians 1:6 You became followers of Jesus, you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

Joy – if we hang it on an external circumstance – will always be bumped off by someone’s loud beeping.

Joy as a GIFT from the Holy Spirit, transcends our circumstances. The work of striving for happiness, if it’s solely up to us, is exhaustive. (Examples: your first bite of ice cream – a jolt of joy! But your 25th ice cream won’t usher that much joy – it dwindles with each experience of succession – for most of us!) Divine Joy, is not exhaustive. It’s an everlasting well within us. It gives us the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life that pervades all the emotional states – sadness and rage included – without pushing them out, but without letting those emotions own us or overtake us. It stretches our hearts’ capacity – OPENS us up to being more aware of God’s presence in all of life, full of joy and love.

The Psalms are such potent songs, and poems and stories of God’s people with their emotions on fine display – no FILTER (no sepia or clarendon) – just straight up “REAL transparency.” In so many of the Psalms, we see people exclaiming with great joy and excitement for all of what God has done, and then seemingly in the very next moment there’s this toggle to complete despair – “WHERE ARE YOU GOD?” HAVE YOU EVER BEEN HERE???” – I love this, because it feels so true to my own life.

C. Big Scripture – Psalm 85
So let’s read together one of them – here on your program:

85:1 LORD, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

85:2 You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin.

85:3 You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.

So we get a picture here, of who God has been to these people, of what God has done in their lives. How valuable it is for us to remember A God who is favorable, restorative, forgiving, abounding in mercy, absent of wrath and anger – a God who loves.

I can imagine that God’s people felt pretty joyful during this time – when all was well – And yet, the people of Israel are returning from exile, and the land they return to is not as they remembered. The conditions have declined, the land is unprotected and life is not easy – home is not like it use to be.

4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us.

5 Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

6 Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?

“GOD, what happened? You use to be nice!?”

Will you not restore us? Revive us with JOY!?

“CLEARLY given our present circumstances – our daily lives that are so hard – you must be mad at us, we must be in your disfavor!”

Very quickly our hearts can turn to fear and despair – where our “golden times” with God of life are distant. Very quickly it’s easy for us to focus on the way our lives hold disappointment, are depressing, are hard, and it’s then harder to see the good, true, beautiful, and life-giving forces at play – including a good God.
I think the restoration and resuscitation that God’s people clamor for  is not of their circumstantial setting, but of their heart belief and desire to feel the truth of who God once was to them.

And I think God is answering them as they speak. We see in the next few verses a pivoting of heart for God’s people – an integration of memory and present reality – that opens and turns their ears, eyes and hearts to God.

7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.

8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.

9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear/honor him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

Show us! Let us hear you, come dwell with us – we want you close! And as they can name that what they really want, what their deep desire is – MORE OF GOD – their joy is found again.

True for us too. How important it is to lay it all out there and dialogue with God. Hey God, I don’t know what you are doing, I thought I knew you as this, but right now  I don’t know where you are. Show me! Remind me! Dwell with me! –
IT is a plea of salvation – save me from the despair of my own thoughts…

Monastery Story

At the end of May. I went for a morning walk with a friend around the Charles.
It was one of those just mean, bitterly cold, late May days that we had. I remember feeling saturated with drizzle, cold on my fingertips and nose. I had also forgotten my socks which of course made the rawness all the more penetrating.

And my friend mid-walk invited me to check out the monastery that’s on Memorial Drive. I was game, but maybe a little unconvinced that it would feel like a reprieve from the dreariness of outside.

I was also walking in maybe as these Israelites felt – a little weary, heavy-hearted.
And similar questions roaming around in my heart, “God where are you? Where is your attention TO ME, your care for me?” I walked in – took in the scope of the place, realized that no one else was there. I went straight to the candle lighting station – and said a prayer of the deepest desire on my heart. A short two word prayer. I chose one of the wooden chairs with no cushions to sit on – all lined up in perfect rows of 5.

With no expectation I sat. No plan of what I was going to do, or how I would use my time. I just entered the simplicity of the space. And I soon felt warmth. Realizing my nose and fingertips weren’t cold anymore. Perfect warmth, all-encompassing warmth.
And more than that, I felt Perfectly comforted.
A then I noticed the Perfect essence of incense in the room.
Perfect hard chair.
Perfect amount of light.
Perfect stone walls that I thought would only usher out more coldness.

And a perfect kneeling cushion nearby that had embroidered words, “blessed are you woman of honor”.

And as I sat there this awareness grew in me of all of this goodness coming out of this room, out of creation, like it was alive! It felt like:
A place had been prepared with attention to me – with no rush – with perfect care.

Overwhelming sense of peace, of “blessed assurance.” Not an answer to my prayer, but something deeper – an experiential union with God.. an inner realization that God was with me and wouldn’t leave me.
And I felt as though my heart “leapt for joy”.

“For God will speak peace to me, as I turn toward him in my heart.

And his glory – his presence – will dwell where I sit. “

That moment in the monastery allowed a re-membering to happen, much like in the Psalm we just read. A past picture of God reconciling with a current reality and picture of God in my life, who shakes out to be the same steadfast God who loves me shaking sprinkles of ice cream in my car in anger, or sitting in stillness and peace in a monastery.

That LOVE – creates JOY.

God showed me, spoke to me – God let me feel, with warmth, God’s presence.
To me it was salvation to my soul, an unshakeable promise of God being present again and again and again to me wherever I am.

Joy is an active agent that opens and clears out the clutter in my heart – and prepares my mind, spirit and body for more of God’s presence, no matter what the day may hold.

I felt like that moment in the monastery was a premiere experience of joy for me. It’s honestly the only time I can remember of comprehensively feeling saturated at all angles by the gentle, love of God’s presence. It was so dear, and so near.

I yet I would learn – later that day – that I had only skimmed the surface, of the depths of what joy really is. And that joy doesn’t occur just in the perfect setting of a monastery. It’s power is felt and discovered in the imperfections of life.

Mae’s Leg Story

After the monastery, I worked a couple of hours – headed home for some home front duties, including dropping my daughter, Mae off at her dance studio. They’d be practicing for several hours for the end of season recital. I headed back into work her for a group I was facilitating. All was well – the joy I had experienced intact, visceral still – I shared about the monastery visit at this group I was running.

At the end of my meeting, I noticed I had missed a few calls from Mae. She had been calling from a practice room in the dance studio – where she had fallen en pointe and broken her tibia.

And the hours that were to come in the ER of Children’s hospital – revealed more depths of joy. I could feel the creeping in of panic – not of whether Mae would be ok or not, I mean kids break sometimes, but more circumstantially what does this mean for the summer? What about our coverage? Her psyche? And all the spokes of my brain started to charge in those directions.

But the power of Divine joy – is to stay planted in the present. Even as I watched pain in another human being that I loved. And as I stayed present, my joy expanded. My joy expanded as I watched 2 different nurses struggle multiple times at getting an IV in Mae. My joy expanded as I watched Mae’s eyes roll back in her head, as they put her under anesthesia. My joy expanded as fatigue hit us all at 4am. My joy expanded because in all those moments – I could internally say, with blessed assurance, “yes, God – it’s true from where the sun rises to where it sets, you GOD are here beside me and here holding my daughter’s hand, and you inspire my heart to shout for joy.”

It is a mystery in the midst of struggle to turn your heart and feel the peace of God. It’s indescribable really, but every time it happened that evening in the hospital – I was struck with awe and wonder – “OH GOD, you are here” – and “What a surprise! And what JOY that you are!”

And that JOY in it’s full unabashed, outstretched self IS a powerful force, a rebellious force that stands up to the pain and suffering in our lives and doesn’t waiver, doesn’t fold, and only generates more currents of truth, beauty, and goodness into the fabric of our world.

And that joy it turns out is more than the absence of pain or conflict — but it is a positive presence of well being in the midst of it ! JOY is a wholeness, centered around the belief that God is good and with you.

I discovered in the monastery and in the ER that joy is bigger than suffering. Joy is warmer and brighter and more pervasive than our cold world offers us. Divine joy connects us to a peace that passeth all understanding – it is a gift by which we DELIGHT in unwrapping again and again.

The Future

This Psalm we are reading, is a petition from God’s people for the restoration of their right relationship to their land and God – a hope to be a just, peaceful and prosperous society. And they petition for JOY – because the future they dream can be so beautiful and good:

The Psalm finishes up with these hopes outlined:

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.

12 The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.

13 Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

Another set of incredible poetry. Many scholars say this was a vision that this Psalmist had of the future – that it wasn’t necessarily forecasting the Messiah to come, but a beautiful, harmonic picture dreamed for of the future.

We read these verses today often with the same lens – “Oh to come someday – some far off, distant future – will be the union of love and truth and justice and peace – they’ll all reunite like long lost friends that have been separated for so long.” That in the future – we will all walk on the paths in the Kin-dom of God. We’ll witness the touching of heaven and earth. What a day it will be when the union of God and human will happen. FORGETTING that it has happened.

Jesus has come to fulfill this hope already. Jesus is in us. So maybe the future, that far off in the distance – someday” is actually right now. Maybe the union of heaven and earth – the kin-dom of God – is here and now. The path of justice for us to follow, the satchel of all of God’s goodness for our land and our beings, is occurring and available to us NOW.

And maybe the critical petition in this Psalm, “WILL YOU REVIVE OUR JOY, GOD?” is ours today as well. Because we have work to do and we need it!

Because we are the GOD carriers that get to carve this path of justice and peace and love. We are the ones that get to bring kiss after kiss after joyful kiss to this world.

So how do we that? How do we claim joy in the incongruencies of our messy world – how do we claim these future words of the Psalmist as our here and now reality?

I don’t really know. I don’t have the exact plan. I don’t know if any of us do. BUT I do know that’s why JOY Is this critical tool – it’s why God plants joy into all of creation, it’s why Brittney Cooper says, “MAY YOU HAVE JOY.” So that whatever we try, or vision, and hope can contain this indestructible force.

So my friends may I offer you my own benediction today:

May you have joy, today
May you have joy so light that it rolls off the edges of your tongue with laughter
And may you have joy so heavy that it anchors you to the deep immovable love of Jesus
And may you have joy in stillness and in messy loudness.
And may you who live in the stretches of this city’s borders and beyond
Stand in awe of the wonder of God today.
“May you as the sun sets this evening, and rises tomorrow
Be inspired to shout for joy.” – Psalm 65:8 (NLT)
By the power of the Holy Spirit.

Whole-life flourishing tip & Spiritual Practice

In challenging moments this week that are void of joy, orient your heart to God. Ask God to restore and revive your joy, as a rebellious rising against suffering, melancholy, hate and darkness. In gratitude and awe, give thanks to God. *Repeat as often as you can.*

A Summer of Touching, Feeling and Seeing Jesus

Good morning! What a joy it is to be here with all of you today, and what a joy it is to be together!

We are in full summer mode here at Reservoir marked by this 10:30am service and also from a preaching perspective we also shift a little bit for the summer.  We organize less around a topic based 6-8 week sermon series, but instead preach out of a grab bag of scriptures or what many Christian traditions call the Lectionary — an assigned assortment of readings for each day. And last week Pastor Lydia kicked us off with this, and preached from the scriptures of Galatians. And I’ll follow today with some continued insights from Paul,  the author of Galatians, that he offered to early churches, and that through the inspired work of the Holy Spirit are still very potent for us today. 

To Cherish — Soccer Nights

First though – I want to pause and give thanks to some folks in the room for the experience of Soccer Nights!   If you’ve been around even a tiny bit here at Reservoir – you’ve probably heard us mention this free soccer camp that we offer for 200 or so kids in the greater Cambridge area.  We just concluded on Friday our 12th year of soccer nights!

And I was just struck again by the enormity of what it is to pull off a feat of organizing 200 kiddos, with equipment and snacks and demonstrating drills, CORI checks, and hospitality tables and communication, and little kids entertainment and logistics and hosting side events like volunteer soccer games – or moms soccer games and icecream and organizing crew and all the while not losing one kid!

Is just heroic, and it’s due in great measure to the 100 or so volunteers that helped Soccer Nights be a place of beauty, of safety, and to really showcase the vitality/richness and spirit of humanity coming together.

This is my 2nd year of preaching at the end of Soccer Nights. I’m so grateful for that!  I realized that it also coincides with my kids first full week of no school. Where each year, I purposefully do not sign them up for any structured programming to give them a little break. I think I imagine such a beautiful, peaceful scene of us being alongside one another, where my kids read book upon book upon meaningful, life-enriching book, and I pound out great work and perhaps a content-rich sermon.

And then I realize, “Oh my goodness that is completely delusional!”  That has never happened! I don’t know why I don’t go back into the resources of my memories to grab concrete data there.

Don’t get me wrong – it was still lovely time with my kids – just totally different than that picture! 

So as the week ticked on this past week, I got a little nervous as to how exactly I would find at least a couple of hours for words to hit the page in a slightly coherent way!

And about mid week, right before I walked on the field,  I was like alright Jesus we need to talk about this, and I felt pretty quickly a nudge from him to just relax a little (not in a condescending way – but just an invitation to relax INTO God).
As I walked onto the field, Coach Michaiah (Pastor Michaiah to many of you),  led us in warm-ups and stretches. 

She instructed us to do this cross-arm stretch..

And as I did, I looked up at the sky, which was brilliant blue, and the myriad of cloud formations,  and I felt a surge of peace. 

And then Coach Michaiah said, “give yourself a little hug”…

And I totally got teary……it felt like a physical invitation from God, “Do you accept the love I have for you, right now?  ALL the LOVE I have for you”.

With this rush of God’s love – shifted something in me and allowed me to relax and be present to the time with my kids and to the kids on my team at soccer nights, and to release worry about content for my kids entertainment in their days,  or for a sermon.

And it was such a simple moment, but a powerful one that felt like God’s message to me was: “Embody the gospel, Ivy.” Like, “take this seriously,  keep your eyes on what the good news really entails — you know, the content of your days, of your life – of sermons – is not an assignment or an obligation to fulfill. The content is found in being present, through your lived experience of touching, feeling and seeing me through the people that you encounter in your days. That’s the simple and potent gospel right there.”

And so this morning, I invite you into a simple reflection throughout this time – of where you will touch, feel and see Jesus this summer.

 

My Grandmother, Love, and Lotion

My experience of Soccer Nights opened up for me a lot of memories of the centrality of what it is to love and LIVE with Jesus — why HIS story actually matters to me. 

For 2 summers in my high school years,  I spent nights at my grandmother’s camp on a pond, roughly 2 miles or so from my house.  And from my earliest memory of her, she was always in a wheelchair. She had Multiple Sclerosis – and in my high school years, the disease had progressed enough that she couldn’t use her arms or hands, so independent movement wasn’t on the table for her.

I spent the nights with her to assure her that someone else could help, should she need it.   I made sure all the electrical appliances were unplugged, the coffee maker, the toaster – her fear of being caught in a fire was paramount.  And on some mornings, after the nursing aide would come in and help her into her wheelchair, I would push her down the front ramp of the house, up to this tiny patch of sun – that broke through the cover of these tall, pine trees.

She’d delight in the warmth of the sun, turning her face upward. And I’d sit alongside in a chair, making braided chains out of pine needles — a pretty peaceful and serene setting, but what I felt was a lot of dissonance.  Internally I was wondering at what point it would be less rude for me to leave. 10 minutes? 30 minutes? I remember being wracked with impatience and wanting to get to a friends house, and to be honest a little angry about it all.

On one of those mornings where I hadn’t retreated yet, she asked me if I wouldn’t mind rubbing some lotion onto her legs. 

And I remember internally freezing.

This ask — this specific display of need, this request for touch, for intimacy — made me feel embarrassed and entirely awkward.  It was a distinct request that broke pattern from our usual way of relating, watching soap operas together, or sitting in the yard, or waiting for the nurse to come.

I knew it would shift our relationship, it would create a different connection, it would in fact be a display of love, and of deeper, tender care then had yet been evident.

And I didn’t know from where that vulnerability would come from within myself.

So I just kind of slathered some lotion on and rubbed it in really quickly and then took the bottle of lotion inside the camp. 

Perhaps this resonates with some of you. Maybe there’s been someone you’ve known for a really long time with one particular lens, or one particular way of engaging.

But often something shifts, right? The full humanity of a person may start to break through, whether it’s in vulnerable need, or weakness, or a flaw you had never seen.

And there’s a new thing out there between you and this other person. 

And to touch that, you will have to recognize the fullness of your own humanity.  Which requires us to identify and accept that we too, have pain, weaknesses, wounding and fears. 

This is so vulnerable because it gets us in touch with our deepest needs and desires, “What we’ve been looking for,” to be loved.

That is exactly what I had been looking for with my grandmother for so many years – LOVE.   I could look at her and see a sign, in bright lights above her that said “GRANDMOTHER!” – and I knew I was supposed to feel something special but I didn’t know how to get there – how to experience that love with her. 

In her request to rub moisturizer on her legs – I think I knew this was the way.  But the admittance was hard, because to touch, to feel and to really see was so unknown and scary to me.

I want to start with a little warm-up scripture (it’s not in the lectionary), but one that I think opens up and holds together all of what we are thinking about today. So here it is on your program in John.  We see John the Baptist, one who has been making way for Jesus — teaching and calling people close to listen to who Jesus is.  Here in this scripture we see the long awaited Jesus appear on the scene:

John 1:35 -39 (NRSV)

35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” 

What an interesting question Jesus poses to these 2 disciples … 

“What are you looking for?”

Do you know who you are following?

Why is that you following me?

I think this question of Jesus’ is him trying to suss out where the disciples hearts are at. Are they just looking for a sign that says “JESUS is HERE!” – or are they looking for relationship? They could have answered Jesus’ question “What are you looking for?”, by saying:

“Well, JESUS you are the Lamb of God!…John just said so!”

…and Jesus would have said, “and what are you looking for in that?”

“Well we know that the law was given through Moses; but it’s said that truth and grace would come through you”

…and Jesus would have said, “and what does that mean to you?”

“Well, you are the one and only Son,”

….”and WHY does that matter to you?”

“BECAUSE!  You are the one who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father…You are, God’s Chosen One…..”

…and Jesus would have asked again, “and what does that mean for you? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”

It matters to Jesus what we are looking for, in Him, and he will ask us again and again!

This question of Jesus’ forges a relationship with these 2 disciples. It’s a question he asks us today that we all might answer in a myriad of ways.  We all have our reasons for prioritizing a life with Jesus, of why it matters that we too, are part of the story, but maybe at the deepest baseline is the truth that we are ALL LOOKING for LOVE — for relationship where we can believe that we are loveable and capable of loving.

It is the question that envelopes and breaks open the disciples hearts to not just stand outside of Jesus and read a sign that says, “LOOK! The lamb of God”  but one that draws them into a reflection of what they long for, what they desire with Him.

The first day of Soccer Nights this past week,  I said to my team, Super Flash

“Hey guys WE ARE GOING TO SCRIMMAGE in a few minutes!!”

And before I could even finish the kids went wild — jumping, cheering, falling on the ground (and all over each other), with excitement…  and then one kid boldly asked, “what does scrimmage mean?”    

And then all the others say, “yah, what does that mean?”…  

They knew they were suppose to love it – but hadn’t ever experienced it.

Oh, right!  “Come and see” – “come and see” I’ll show you.

It is easy to flash words and sentiments without considering why it matters to us and how we are going to live it out:

“LOOK! HERE IS the LAMB of God”

“Look! Here is the kin-dom of God”

“Look I love Jesus”

“Look, here is our church that says “All here are welcome!”

They are hollow words, about God, about LOVE, without the backing of an embodiment of them in our hearts – our actions, our presence, our words , our communities, our charters, our visions, our boards.

Jesus wants us to get this, to embody the gospel  – but HE KNOWS that it will be hard for us!

And I think that’s why he poses this very tender question to the disciples:  “what is it you are looking for?” And how do the disciples respond?  I think it’s a really great one. At first blush it feels a little bit too literal, but they say:

“Show us where you live.”

Show us a little bit more of who you are. It’s one of the first questions I’ll ask of someone new, “oh so do you live nearby?”

It’s an entrance into getting to know someone more … to see the setting of what they touch, and feel and see … and the surroundings that make them more relatable and human.

Jesus says, YES! YES! COME and SEE Jesus says.  “Come and see..where I live”!

And my goodness, what a journey they would be on – Come and see: lepers, tax collectors, religious authorities, widows, orphans, ostracized, marginalized, adulterers, children, the blind — “This is where I live and love.”

It’s really important that we see where Jesus lives – because that’s where we too, will find what we are looking for — love and relationship, through touching, feeling and seeing all that is in our path.

The embodiment and presence of Jesus’ love in all of our lives is not just a holy sentiment ..  it is a heart-wrenching, challenging and vulnerable path necessary for our own growth and transformation.   To love one another as we love ourselves – is the only way we tap into the transformative love of Jesus.  Because when you love people, you want to be with them, you want to be together – there is no obligation – only freedom. 

Which is why Jesus is saying, this whole thing, this whole gospel has to hang on Love.

Paul, the author of Galatians, speaks about the transformative power of God’s LOVE here on your program in Galatians:

Galatians 5:13-25 (NLT)

13 For you were called to freedom , siblings; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.  

This is the life I’m looking for – the life of the Spirit.  Paul says, “let’s make sure that we don’t just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives”. (5:25, MSG – Euguene Peterson)

And the implications are hard – when we confront real life, right?  We get hurt, we get wounded, we want to retreat to our own devices.   This is where Paul warns us – we face danger – where we bite and devour one another.   When we separate and disconnect from from the universal source of goodness that is found in the deep love of God.   That’s when we start to hide our weakness and our pain – and further disconnect from those around us.

During Paul’s lifetime, the church was not yet an institution or structural grouping of common practices and beliefs. The church was a living organism that communicated the good news of Jesus, through relationships…(Richard Rohr)

He speaks from his own profound transformative experience of Jesus’ love…  Once a persecutor and murderer of Christians, one who presided over the execution of the disciple Stephen….. To one who was totally transformed by the love of Jesus.  Love that threw him to the ground and brought new sight to his life and all that he touched and felt and saw.  All because Jesus came to him and told him again and again, “You are loved”.   It’s transformative. 

And thank goodness because,  relationships are REALLY hard.  Even with tiniest of humans.

Soccer Nights Kiddo

I got to coach 1st and 2nd graders this past week at Soccer Nights.  And we had one challenging little human on our team. Who with each passing night seemed to up the ante in personally (I felt),  testing the fruits of the spirit in me. This kiddo would rage and smash their body into their teammates, this one would punt the ball as far as possible across the field,  they’d destroy anything that had been meaningfully picked up at the end of the night.. And I just thought, “holy cats! This is going to be hard.” 

And I so badly wanted to break connection with this kid.  And as I entertained what that could look like — to just let this kid run wherever they wanted to, to convince myself that it wasn’t worth it to work that hard for one kid, to just not give a care, I could feel the rising anger in myself, the self-indulgent posture of elitism, of hatred really.  But mercifully with that stretching moment with Coach Michaiah – where I was FLOODED WITH THE LOVE OF GOD – I felt like, “OH, I can be present to this kid, I can deal with his anger and hurt, because I can see, and feel, and recognize this hurt and rage and pain in MYSELF.  I have the same stuff.
And no it’s not worth it to work so hard to keep a kid in line, but it is worth it to work that hard to LOVE (this kid). And so I will run the length of the field to find this child, and hold his hand tenderly and fold him back with our team.

Our interior landscape holds a lot!  We all have violence in ourselves, depression, not being able to access our real emotions/feelings, tendencies to isolate and be defensive. But I think Paul is saying as you stay connected to the source of Jesus’ love,  this can help you work on discovering the origins of where it all comes from and see how that energy can be transformed, and greet the fruits of the Spirit. And this is meaningful, not just with the goal of changing or Fixing ourselves, but because it allows us to stay connected as we see it in others, and this connection is where transformation is afoot!

Learning to Cherish

Over time with my grandmother and many opportunities to put lotion on her legs.  We grew in vulnerability and connection and relationship with each other. I heard more about her days.

The feelings of embarrassment and impatience still rumbled, but not as loudly as the Spirit’s gifts of kindness, generosity and patience. Again and again, Jesus whispered to me, “Come and see. This is important, Ivy”

“Come and touch these legs that once were strong and bent as a midwife along mothers who labored”

“Come and feel what it is to believe that you are a burden and helpless”

“Come and see what it is to live a life with a terminal disease”

 

And in those times – I was thrown to the earth as Saul was, with the crushing love of Jesus. I learned to cherish, to look up at the sky as my grandmother did, to look for Jesus in those I wouldn’t normally see. And I learned that it wasn’t about giving or doing things for my grandmother.

But I learned,  it was in THE WAY I gave her water and THE WAY I touched her body with lotion..

With respect.

With love.

With honor.

… because her body was the temple of the Holy Spirit and because Jesus lived within her. (Jean Vanier, 81)

The fruits of the Spirit matter – and can only be found and demonstrated in relationship, with other people.  We can’t be more loving on our own.. It’s really easy to be peaceful by ourselves … It’s really easy to be patient when we don’t have to deal with actual people… right?

 But Jesus calls us out – to live with others, to show us that we need each other to find these fruits of the spirit –  and live as if HE is actually alive!

The healing, the love, the transformation that is in Jesus – is also in us.

So may we embrace:

  •  the chaotic, beauty and whimsy of life – like on a soccer  field
  • And may we under-gird all of our actions and words with generosity and humility.
  • May we administer moisturizer,  slowly and intentionally on the areas of our lives and others that are parched for nutrients and tenderness.
  • May we seek justice, may we love mercy
  • May we comfort those who suffer, who hurt – because we ourselves do too.
  • And may we celebrate and give thanks to JESUS  who cherishes us ALL – always and forever.

I invite you to let the Holy Spirit be your guide this summer…

Invitation to Self Reflection

Take time to reflect on Jesus’ question to you, “what are you looking for?”

 Pay attention to what rises up for you – desires, longings challenges or blocks?   

And keep your senses engaged to notice when He says:  

“Look! Here’s love!” (in the safe touch of someone you know well )

“Look! Here’s love!” (in a stranger, a doctor, tenderly putting a cast on a child)…

“Look! Here is what you are looking for!”(as the clouds reflect off the water at Walden Pond)…

“Look! And here it is……..and here it is!”

…AND here I am!”

“Here’s where I live!”…  

“In the expanse of your whole life”.

“Come and see”.. And then….

“Go and touch, and feel, and love”. 

Because this is how all will know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for one another.” (John 13:35).

Spiritual Practice of the Week

Imagine Jesus as your guide this week, saying “come and see!” as you touch, feel and see Jesus wherever you are.

Invite people to stand.  

 

*a sermon inspired by the great work and life of Jean Vanier.  In particular his latest book, “We Need Each Other”. 

The Steadiness of Improvising

Happy Pride! Happy glorious sunshine and happy morning!

This morning I want to start with some words that have helped me, specifically over the last year, that have really been a guiding force for me in my vocation as a pastor, but really in all of life—words that came to me long before we thought of this “Prophetic Living” sermon series that we are in. They are words from one of the world’s greatest teachers on the prophets, Walter Brueggemann.  I read at some point last year a great swath of his work and I felt like he spoke directly to me when he said that good preachers and teachers help other people make sense of God by helping them “pause long enough” to take in who God is to them. And he said to do this, we need to indulge the metaphors and imagery of God that we’ve gleaned from scripture: “the giver of the biggest dinner party ever,” “father,” “mother,” “divine,” “king,”  “ a powerful sea monster,” “a gentle nursemaid,” a tender friend “who wipes away every tear from all faces” and so on (December 20, 2011 On Being).

Mr. Brueggemann says that what preachers and teachers and the church as a whole succeed at doing however, is often flattening out “all the images and metaphors of God,  to make it fit in a nice little formulation” that works within creeds and doctrines ⁠— a little cleaner. But of course, a formulaic approach to God comes at a loss, because it allows for no flexible, relational connection to God, who we hope is a real and living, loving, moving spirit in our midst.

So his real charge, to me, was that we have to figure out a way to “take time to sit with these images and relish them and let them become a part of your prayer life and your vocabulary and your conceptual frame,” if we want more than a formula bound God. The use of poetry and imagery that scripture and people around us and the whole of this life offers us demands our imagination, and, if we can call it forth, will actually give us more access to God!  It’s the pathway to growth, the deep spiritual formation we are seeking and wanting.

But this growth won’t abide by a linear graph. It’s not a straightforward trajectory, an “up and to the right” picture.

This spiritual life ⁠— that Jesus absolutely calls us to live ⁠— is far beyond what could be mapped out.

It requires us to go into spaces unknown, to take a journey, to open doorways that haven’t been opened, to say things that haven’t been put to air and imagine and explore new ways forward that have not yet been carved into the ground in front of us, to listen and pay attention to the fullness of the world around us (as it’s ever-changing).

This life, with God in the mix,  requires us to IMPROVISE. And this is what I want to spend some time digging into this morning, this improvisation life we get to live.

I’ve been surprised at how defensive I am to this word “improvise.” it calls up so much fear. My most vivid nightmares to this day are walking up on stage without a plan, no sermon text, not knowing where I’m going.

This is just unwise, and disrespectful, and irreverent.  

So I want to clarify today what holding our lives open to improvising can look like ⁠—to dispel the sense, maybe, that it’s a complete free-for-all, and to pitch that to improvise calls us into deep listening of one another and God and allows us to create new pathways.  We can draw from a rich, vibrant history, a bedrock of faithful improvisors ⁠— the prophets and prophetesses that have gone before us, who held their lives open to God’s story in a way that steadied their posture for the future unseen, in an unpredictable world.

Jesus calls us to this life ⁠— a life designed to be improvised ⁠— because our foundation is as true as the great prophets, with this knowing ⁠— the knowing of who we are and who God is to us, (as best we can tell).  This is all we need for the script of life, to move forward with improvisational and transformative ways… that gives shape to our days and the world around us.

Young Ivy ⁠— Improviser

The first two years of my elementary education were spent at a Christian school – where my main takeaway after that time was to memorize everything I could. That seemed to be what we spend most of our days doing! We memorized multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, and songs, and chapters upon chapters of the Bible, and some poetry.

To visually take in our growth in these areas, the teacher displayed construction paper cut-out balloons on the wall, for each student in a multitude of colors, with our names on each of them.

If you succeeded in passing your oratory tests with the teacher in front of the class, than your balloon moved in an upward direction.

If you did not succeed, your error would be represented by a tack* in your balloon.

And if you got three tacks in your balloon in one day, you got a spank with a wooden paddle.

((*you could also get tacks for lots of other things – beyond just getting things wrong on a tests.))

I was TERRIFIED of getting spanked ⁠— what humiliation.  So I always studied the crap out of whatever we were tasked with memorizing.  

I became very, very good at memorizing.  I loved words, and I loved having my aptitude tracked!

But as my 2nd year at that school went on, I was tiring of straight memorization. I started to imagine and mingle selections that we had to memorize.  I once took the story of the disciples in the boat during the storm and inter-wove it with a poem we had to memorize called Wynken, Blynken and Nod.

And I remember so clearly, reciting the verses in King James Version, :

24 “And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but Jesus was asleep”.(Matthew 8 KJV)

And then going off script (a little bit):

The old moon laughed and sang a song,

  As they rocked in the wooden shoe;

And the wind that sped them all night long

  Ruffled the waves of dew;

The little stars were the herring-fish

  That lived in the beautiful sea.

“Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—

  Never afraid are we!”

  So cried the stars to the fishermen three,

           Wynken,

           Blynken,

           And Nod. – (Eugene Fields)

 

I’m not sure if I was testing the limits or not, but it kind of made sense to my 2nd grade imagination to try to make a scary, fearful scene of waves and storm where Jesus is asleep be a more expansive scene where God could be the moon or stars, touching and talking to these fisherman in their little wooden boat.

And I remember those words like they were yesterday, but that little creative burst, that shining moment of improv got me my first ever 3rd tack in my balloon.

Now, I actually didn’t get spanked. The teacher did take me out back, but had mercy on me for my good track record.  But it instilled in me a fear of going off script. And my teacher gave me a distinct lecture of how to think about “learning” and “knowing” specifically, God. Growth on those fronts, could only be found in following and keeping to the plan.

The sting of that moment wore off as I left that school and continued my education elsewhere. And I actually warmed to the idea of taking control of my own trajectory.   It seemed easy enough ⁠— learn material required, demonstrate proficiency, move balloon higher than the rest ⁠— a workable formula for a great life.  Get yourself into this school, get this degree, get this job,  gain power, knowledge and success, which then equals triumph of this whole arc and produces a sense of well-being, ease, and prosperity.

Of course as I grew up and experienced more of life and witnessed the reality of life for a lot of my friends, I realized that this way of thinking and living was actually quite privileged ⁠— this linear advancement.

It assumes at its baseline that things will go our way, things will be in our control (and that we all have equal access to resources). And this is just not reality for most people.  God calls us into an improvisational way of thinking and living because God knows that to be made human, means our life comes with limitations, whether we are born into them, or crash into  them ⁠— a life where things go wrong, off-plan.

And so the the credentials that God wants us to come around to, that are required for this life, are a deep yet evolving knowing of ourselves and God.

I’m so helped by revisiting the stories that still live on in our midst ⁠— the lives of those who took in God’s story in ways that shaped them, and the world around them. And it’s why today I’d love to look at the prophetess Miriam.

Miriam ⁠— Improviser

We are going to read a bit of her story here on your program in Exodus… And where we enter this story is a setting found in ancient Egypt, where the Pharoah of the time, has become frustrated with the rising Hebrew population.  He’s concerned that they are becoming too powerful, despite his efforts to keep them down through forced labor and slavery…. So his next attempt, as we enter into here, is that he has just ordered midwives to kill all male babies born to Hebrew women – by drowning them.  

So let’s read this together:

Exodus 2:1-9 (NLT)

1 About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son (the son’s name was Moses). She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put Moses in the basket and laid him among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister, MIRIAM, then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.

5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.

7 Then the baby’s sister, Miriam, approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked.

8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother.

9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him.

Miriam was born at a time when the bitter enslavement of her people was reaching its depths of despair. The constraints of her life by the hands of the Egyptians were strong with inequity, entrenched in power dynamics, and systems that were oppressing and abusing her people. Any concept of a linear path for her life was certainly not in the cards! Her credentials were only, it seems, this deep knowing of God.  A God that maybe her mother had whispered to her of a God that loved her and her people, one that would provide and raise them up out of slavery one day to become a great nation.  Her only training seems to come out of that foundation, the steadiness of who she can believe God to be. And so she trains her imagination as a young girl without pedigree to imagine a world where someday these promises could be true. And it seems that this foundation, of tradition and imagination  is enough to propel her into the Scriptural canons of high regard as the first female prophet, and the mother of all female prophets to come.

And it seems to me, she gets there by improvising.  Holding her life open, flexible, just as it is – to the story of God.

In the world of music, most notably jazz, to improvise is to not be a showy, solo act, that attracts all the attention. It doesn’t rest on one’s ability to be original, or clever or witty or spontaneous. It’s about being so steeped in the foundation of the musical structure that its rhythms and patterns and harmonies and melodies become and shape a known & familiar inner voice of the musician, from which they then can create new shapes and forms of music, from.

And all of that doesn’t come from only practicing scales and memorizing music ⁠— it comes from the steadiness of watching and listening.

Miriam in this scripture does just this ⁠— she watches and she listens. It’s the first thing we see her do 4: it says she stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to the baby.

And she stays there, observing the scene ⁠— taking it all in. And she doesn’t move until the other player comes onto the stage ⁠— the Pharaoh’s daughter.
And she listens to the Pharaoh’s daughters words, who when she sees the baby says, “This must be one of the Hebrew children”.

It’s so wise that Miriam listened. There’s a lot of information in that one sentence that helps Miriam know how to improvise.

If the Pharaoh’s daughter had said, to her attendants,  “oh! – a baby – check to see if he’s circumcised or not,” it wouldn’t have been good if Miriam had jumped in and said, “Oh do you need a Hebrew woman to nurse this baby?” because Pharaoh’s daughter wouldn’t have known that information yet, and Miriam’s approach and words would have been suspicious.

Or if the Pharaoh’s daughter had said, “Look! One of the Hebrew children, KILL HIM – carry out my father’s orders.”

Miriam’s reality would have been different, and required a different action.

To improvise in life requires great listening to others and the spirit of God. This listening allows us to create new ways forward ⁠— paths unseen. I can imagine that Miriam’s first steps into the Nile River were taken from listening to God, where God nudged her “go, Miriam, go” and all of the steps to follow, unknown and unpredictable, were bolstered by this knowing of  God’s steady voice. It allows her to work within the limitations of her reality as a slave, and yet utilize a social structure that she knows where royalty, upon seeing a baby, would need a nurse-maid.

Our life with God is a life where we are welcomed into a story that is continually being created in the moment with players and actors that we have never met. And yet the call, that I think Miriam responds to and that we are all invited to, is to say “yes” to all of that before the plans are laid out and to take what we do know of ourselves and God with courage to the scene, and trust that that is enough to create something we can’t predict.

Miriam wasn’t concerned about being “clever.” In improv, this is the number one ticket to becoming paralyzed on stage ⁠— this preoccupation of being clever. But she was listening to the voice within herself, and the voices on the scene, and responded to a call that was greater than herself and her own understanding.  

A sister in the Catholic order, Joan Brown, who’s voice I love says, “We are called to be larger than who we can imagine being in the moment.” This is the call of the Spirit of God.

Who knows if Miriam understood as a little girl that her actions would open the gateway for the great Exodus and liberation of her people. She might have just wanted her baby brother back, but her willingness to listen and improvise allowed her to be a large force for her people.

Sometimes, though, our moves to improvise fall flat. We get tacks in our balloons and we plummet hard to the earth. But I can look back at my moment of co-mingling scripture and poetry in the 2nd grade, and see how clearly God was moving and laying a firm foundation (even through memorization) ⁠— a steady foundation of a knowing, a knowing of who I was, what I loved, what mattered to me, to see that I still love words and metaphors and text, and also a knowing of who God is to me ⁠— an encourager of growth, of creating new things ⁠— and God’s deep desire to partner with me in all of it!

For the many years I’ve thought about content or spiritual growth in any capacity as a community group leader or as a parent or as a friend, I am always weaving poetry and scripture together. Ask my kids ⁠— they might roll their eyes, they’ve gotten a taste of it for sure! And this requires great listening in those spaces where I put out content, because I have no plan of how it is going to land (whether that is a strength or a fail, i’m not sure). But I don’t have an end result in mind, and so listening is crucial and this is growth,  is to watch for the spirit of God, and move from there ⁠— to improvise from there in the moment. I think it’s the most dynamic gift that we can bring to wherever we are (this Sanctuary space, your work places, your homes). We get to bring the improvising personality of the HOLY SPIRIT  ⁠— always working among people ⁠— and bring that out among people who are learning to see and know and trust one another in community and witness the extraordinary things that God can create with quirky and limited resources. That is spiritual growth, and WOOO! It’s not linear.

“There is a yearning – for energy in a world grown weary” (Walter Brueggemann). We long for a life that is improvise-able. And wouldn’t it be amazing if God invites us to energize our world — our future — to invite people to wade in the water with us, to bring out the mystery of  how and where we find the Holy Spirit, whether it’s through a gesture, or an act, or a collection of words mingled.

 Or through Broadway musicals.

Lin-Manuel Miranda — Improviser

I want to show you a video clip of a master improviser — one who I think you’ll recognize! Lin-Manuel Miranda:

This clip is from 2009, six years before Hamilton ever hit Broadway.  No one had heard that song other than his wife, and he said if that song had landed flat in that room that evening he was going to scrap the project and start something new.

The reason Hamilton works is because through Lin-Manuel’s improvisation, there is no distance between the story that happened 200 some odd years ago and now.

Because it looks like America now.

It creates a connection from the stories of old, to our stories now.

And isn’t this what we can hope for with scripture — that the stories of the Bible would be connected to our stories, in ways that continue to open and open the image of God in each of us.

The way Lin-Manuel Miranda improvises in so many ways — the music, the cast (nearly all people of color), the language — allows our history to be opened up with a new lens, new energy.

He imagined that Hamilton was a hip hop story and that wasn’t just a random stroke of genius (well certainly not random!) — but it was an evolving concept built upon the foundational traditions that Lin-Manuel treasured so much. He said, “It wasn’t enough to rhyme at the end of the line, every line had to have musical theatre references, it had to have other hip-hop references, it had to do what my favorite rappers do, which is packing lyrics with so much density, and so much intricate double entendre, and alliteration, and onomatopoeia, and all the things that I love about language”

And the result is this powerful mingling, connecting musical pasts with the musical present, and the historical past mingles with our present realities.

This mingling, through improvising, allows a process of constant growth and invites us to create too.

There’s a principle in improv, that I’ve been learning about this week from many people I’ve talked to in the performance arts — this principle, called “yes…and…” It’s the nexus where all creation is birthed from!  It’s this idea that you validate what is coming at you in a scene as true. You say, “YES – I receive this as reality”. And you agree to become a partner in that, to add your “AND” to whatever that reality is.  You’ll build upon it, whether it’s messy or imperfect (or incredibly off-script). And you trust that this is actually the growth and the beauty of the scene — the new creation.

With God, I feel like this principle applies. It’s a journey of “yes – ands”…  and it’s certainly a journey of messiness and imperfection!

And of course the stakes feel higher in real life!  There are lots of things that we don’t want to say “yes” to — circumstances that surround us that are unjust and unfair. So when we say “yes” we aren’t saying that we agree or like it, but the invitation of God is to consider “how can I improvise and bring to this circumstance the most wholeness?”  How can I create new goodness, and love here?

After the scripture we read about Miriam we don’t see her enter the scene again until decades later.  When we greet her again, she’s a grown woman.

On your program is the later part of Exodus — Chapter 15 — where she is a central force of this historical exodus of her people from slavery.  She leads her people in dancing and song and celebration, as they cross the Red Sea. We don’t know for sure what she did for all the years in between, but we do know that Moses went into hiding for decades, building a new life with no intent on returning to his people.  So we can assume that during that time Miriam was the people’s prophet, their only prophet. 

She continued to improvise during those years. She continued to listen to her people, to live alongside of them, to reassure them and offer them the steady story of God. A God who was real and did hear their prayers — that would bring them freedom and liberation.  She continued to usher in the wholeness and goodness and love of God, even when freedom was not yet found.

And I think this is exactly what is so compelling to me about Lin-Manuel Miranda — his flexibility to use the platforms that he has, beyond the Broadway stage, to offer wholeness to the world around him. He doesn’t just vocationally exercise improvisational methods — but he is someone who embodies an improvisational way of life.  Who walks and engages with the world, and asks us to play, to create and to imagine.  A writer friend of mine, Jessica Kantrowitz, wrote an article for Sojourner’s magazine  where she talks about the priestliness of Lin-Manuel.

And I agree with her!  His twitter account is one of the most WHOLESOME twitter feeds that I follow. He calls out the reality of life, acknowledging its complexity and harshness and it’s non-linear paths.

And over the last three years this has become more of a regular pattern in his tweets.   They have become known as “gmorning” and “gnight” tweets. And often they are a reprise of each other.  

My friend Jessica says, they have become a structure of her days, like a liturgy, where she can receive blessings and benedictions for her day. To me, they are a capsule of the Holy Spirit, deposited to me on my phone in less than 280 characters. There is a generative energy that comes and invites me to say “yes…. and,” to keep moving and creating in this life — a gentle nudge of the spirit of God, as was to Miriam, “go, go, go”.

It was hard for me, in those early years of memorization,  to tap into the spirit of God, to understand what a relationship could be with someone I couldn’t see! I think that’s why I started looking for other sources, other words that would bring story and life to my imagination — that would unlock the mystery of the verses that felt flattened out and life-less.  It’s why I’m thankful for voices like the prophet Miriam’s and Lin-Manuel’s to remind us of God’s steady goodness — to keep opening it up in new ways. Because it’s STILL sometimes not that easy for me to feel like God’s steady voice or heart or love is easy to tap into.

This is why we need to keep improvising. Because God is not a static being — one who sits in one specific pew or chair on a Sunday morning — or one who is only found in the memorized lines of scripture. But God is one who is found in the living love of the Holy Spirit, nestled in the corners of our days, and found in the most expansive of places and people!  And its why Walter Brueggemann’s words hit me so hard, because it’s up to us to keep opening and opening and opening those places up — to roam around in them whether it’s found on our phones through tweets, or through wading in the waters of our unknown life, or stopping at a monastery on Storrow Drive… or playing on a soccer field with 200 kids!

We need to lead a prophetic life of improvising so that we don’t give way to dying, flattening metaphors of God. We need to do the great work of living this life as fully as we can, as we see it with our limited perspectives in the hopes of untangling God from the one-dimensional graphs we try to place Him on.

I’d love for us now to improvise a little — nothing crazy or zany — but to play with the words of both Miriam and Lin-Manuel Miranda here.

There are two tweets and one verse which holds the song of Miriam.

We are going to do a simple writing exercise called erasure, which means you will circle words or phrases that stand out to you and erase/ cross-out all the others.  Don’t over think this process, trust that you are connected to God and that God can highlight words for you:

Gmorning.

Pain, joy, frustration, euphoria, everything.

It all passes. It all keeps moving.

Wherever you are is temporary.

Let’s go!

—Oct. 20, 2016, morning tweet

Gnight.

Rage, bliss, fatigue, rapture, everything.

It all passes. It all keeps moving.

Wherever you are is fleeting.

Andiamo.

—Oct. 20, 2016, evening tweet

And  Miriam’s song found in verse 21 of Exodus 15, that last verse where she sings:

“Sing to the Lord,

   for he has triumphed gloriously;

he has hurled both horse and rider

   into the sea.”  Miriam – Exodus 15:21

As a spiritual practice this week:

Take these words with you, whether they make sense to you right now or not, and hold them loosely, and improvise from them as your week goes on.  Offer them as a prayer to God and offer them to the world around you, watch to see what it yields, how it expands and evolves.

And as a way to end and as a whole life flourishing tip to take with you, let me pray for  us:

May you let the steady story of Jesus be the story that gives shape to your life.  And may you live out this story with other people as best you can, at Reservoir, in your neighborhood and in your city.  And trust that you hold within you the perfect script for life — the ever-evolving/improvising story of Jesus.