Speaker: Lydia Shiu

Overturning Injustice

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

For this week’s spiritual practice led by Steve on praying the psalms, click HERE.

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Let me pray for us. 

 

May the meditation of our hearts and minds be pleasing to you, Oh Lord my Breath, My Rock and My Redeemer. Amen. 

 

I saw a meme a while ago that said, “The real miracle of Jesus is how he had 12 close friends in his 30’s.” It’s hard to make new friends in your 30’s. There was a woman I began to become friends with. She and I were about similar ages, in similar life stages and I awkwardly said to her one day, “Hey you want to hang out, like grab coffee or go for a walk together or something? If you want.” She said yes and we met up. It was delightful and nice to hang out with her. We started texting more, sending each other memes on facebook messenger, we video chatted. We dropped off cookies and goodies to each other’s houses. And then one day we had a weird text exchange. We were going back and forth on something and then I think I offended her and she withdrew and ended the conversation quickly. I had felt weird about it too. I texted her cautiously some time later, with a sheepish, “Hi! How have you been?” And she answered, “I’m ok. U?” And I replied a bit more extensively but she wrapped up the convo again quickly. After that, I thought, well I reached out. The ball’s in her court. And I didn’t hear from her for a while. I felt bad but wasn’t sure what was going on. We were a new friendship so I wasn’t sure how to move forward. 

 

One day, she texted me with, “We need to talk.” I was like, okay, realizing something had gone wrong and we ended up talking on the phone about the last interaction. Honestly at the beginning, the “we need to talk” felt so confrontational. But I was glad she reached out. Cause we ended up sharing, even talking about how both of us were pursuing each other as a possible new friend. She was hurt and told me how I had made her feel. I didn’t know I had hurt her that much until she shared with me. She said, that after she was hurt, she was like, oh forget her. But then she said she looked at her baby daughter and wanted her to grow up learning, “Not as I say but as I do.” That cutting people off just because of one bad interaction is not the way and that she wanted her to have relationships and so she reached out to make it right. That touched my heart deeply because she took a chance, not knowing me too well, to open herself up to me and share her hurt with me. I was grateful that she had that thought and she reached out and didn’t just cut me out of her life because of one mistake I made. Her wisdom allowed us to lean into the conflict and resolve it. 

 

Building a real friendship isn’t easy. It takes work and conflict is a part of it. We’ve been talking about building a Beloved Community here at Reservoir lately. This theme of beloved community is not just a cheesy lovey dovey talk but a real possibility of an open, inclusive, loving and equitable community. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr saw and spoke of this Beloved Community as the end goal to his fight.

The King Center describes it like this though,

“Dr. King’s Beloved Community was not devoid of interpersonal, group or international conflict. Instead he recognized that conflict was an inevitable part of human experience. But he believed that conflicts could be resolved peacefully and adversaries could be reconciled through a mutual, determined commitment to nonviolence. No conflict, he believed, need erupt in violence. And all conflicts in The Beloved Community should end with reconciliation of adversaries cooperating together in a spirit of friendship and goodwill.”

 

“No conflict, he believed, need erupt in violence.” MLK was an advocate of non-violence. And yet he recognized that non-violence is not the absence of conflict; in the absence of conflict there is violence. There’s a difference. 

 

What does a beloved community look like? It’s not just unity or peace. It’s much more dynamic and real than that. It can get messy and difficult at times. Like real love, it’s not just a place where everyone gets along because everyone plays along. It’s you stepping into my space, and me getting into your head, it’s people making space for one another, it’s a beautiful dance. 

 

Here’s another example from their instagram post, @blackliturgies:

 

“Being ‘Christianly’… has all too often become synonymous with politeness.

To me, nothing is more Christian than breaking the hands of injustice that are strangling my brother. 

Don’t tell us to calm down when we’re saying I Can’t Breathe.”

@blackliturgies

 

And they offer a prayer in this regard

 

Protector God, 

We confess that we have diluted what it means to be Christian (community) with a person’s (group’s) capacity for niceness. We have smothered afflicted voices with shallow proclamations of peace and unity. Instead of listening well, we police how a person cries out without hearing the very words they are crying. But we are grateful, Lord, that you don’t ask us to be nice, but to do mercy and justice. Help us to redefine our peacemaking, that it would be known as that holy kindness which brings the fire of justice and a torrential truth-telling to all in its path. Make us people more concerned with protecting life than protecting the image of Christianity, which need not be protected. Bless our screaming, our weeping, our marching, our fight– that our pain would no longer be invalidated by how it moves when we’re gasping.

Amen. 

 

Do we have the love to really hear? When someone says in a pained voice, “we need to talk” do we make space for them to tell us what they really think? 

 

Do we just want things nice and quiet or do we really love one another to listen to each other, especially to those that are hurting, oppressed, crying out and saying, it hurts, we’re dying, stop. 

No conflict, he believed, need erupt in violence. Jesus showed us a picture of this too, in

John 2:13-16.

Let me read it for us

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”

 

Wow, a whip out of cords? Overturned their tables? Jesus! Anger management much?

 

The Jewish passover was a big deal where all the people from the surrounding lands would travel to Jerusalem for temple worship. With it came over time culture and structures that some people began to exploit, those who were less fortunate, through this tradition. The cattle, sheep, and dove sellers figured out that the travelers couldn’t travel with their animal sacrifices, because the laws also required them to be fresh. So when they arrived to Jerusalem, they had no choice but to purchase the hiked up priced animals. Money exchangers gouged people with this holiday and it had become too normal. 

 

I’ve heard messages from this text to be about how you shouldn’t sell girl’s scouts cookies at church. That Jesus was mad because they were “turning house of prayer into a marketplace”. But it wasn’t just about neutering church from money. In fact, Jesus talks about money quite a bit. He was talking about, not forgetting about money, but economic justice and what that should look like. 

 

I still can’t believe this story though. Jesus has always been painted for me as the nice kind man, who welcomed children, healed, forgave. These kinds of texts where Jesus is being so extra didn’t really take the front seat. And in that sense, I think sometimes we make Jesus into a 2 dimensional character. When he was actually very fully human, with emotions, that interacted with real people. There’s a record of Jesus even crying, in public. When was the last time you’ve shown tears in public? Sometimes he didn’t answer people’s questions, which is rude. Sometimes he’d just walk away without telling anyone. Sometimes he rebuked people. In fact the text before this story in Matthew and Mark, I always like looking around the text, you will be thoroughly confused. I didn’t include it, although it kind of goes together with today’s text because I don’t have time to get into it, and well, I’m confused by it too! He tells a fig tree to die, because it didn’t bear fruit. But the text says, it wasn’t fig season. Like, Jesus, did you not know that? What’s your deal? Jesus comes off harsh in some of these texts! How do we make sense of this? 

 

We forget sometimes, because Christianity can feel so sweet and nice, how actually radical the message of Jesus is. Remember, Jesus was targeted and executed. We worship a God who was murdered by the state publicly. So many people followed him, and interestingly enough, they were the outcasts, the oppressed, the poor, the widow, the women, but so many also hated him, which happened to be those in power. He challenged everything, the system, the culture, the politics, the economic set up of the day. He spoke of things many people did not want to hear. 

 

Are we willing to listen? How has Jesus challenged you? How is the message of Jesus challenging you these days, rather than just making you happy? How is Jesus overturning things that have always been, things that are comfortable, and causing trouble? Is the message of Jesus a nice addon to your best life now or is he shaking you up a bit? 

 

What about the people who are doing that in our lives? Now I’m not saying just cause people hate you that you’re doing God’s work. The people that ask us the hard questions. The people who bring tears and anger, and not just pleasantries to our community group. The people who make things real and raw, and sometimes uncomfortable for us. 

 

And even church, if your church always makes you feel good and upbeat, if you’re always leaving at the end of worship service feeling only encouragement, I really wonder what that says about your church. Religion isn’t for feel goods. That’s a watered down version of a religion. Sometimes the message of Jesus tears our heart out and we’re left with discomfort and questions, and anger, and disappointment rather than always with hope. And God is present in the unknown, a deep dark void with no answers, only tears. Even there, I believe, God is still there. 

 

Do you feel that way sometimes? That God isn’t answering. Or God isn’t showing you the happy ending? What’s the good of this, God? And all you hear is silence? You see the world filled with injustice and people aren’t getting along, and it just seems uglier and uglier, and you just feel like flipping tables and you have no answers. God is there. 

 

We had our Reservoir’s Equity Diversity and Inclusion survey report go out this past week in our weekly emails. We call the team REDI for short. The team was commissioned by the board to think more deeply about EDI at our church and to serve as an advisory committee to the board, staff, and the leaders of our church. I’m on the team. It’s been a humbling experience because while our church is already very diverse and really a beautiful place of genuine connection and belonging for many people, it does not exist in a vacuum but within the very confines of the systemic injustice we see everywhere else, racism, sexism, discrimination, and estragement.  Can I say something you don’t want to hear? 

I’ve felt this. This is not just a criticism of our church, or organization, or our people. It’s just honestly, reality. Story of my life. 

 

I’ve been called chingchong in the parking lot of our church campus. I’ve been grazed on my butt creepily by a man in our chapel. I’ve been called an inappropriate sexualized term towards women that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Those are just a few examples of more overt ones, not to mention others that are more subtle that I’m not even sure about but I go home pondering about the interactions because i’m a woman of color. Are you surprised? Do you believe me or question the context of the incidents that I’m referring to? 

 

I’m taking an EDI certification course online these days and it’s helpful because I realize it’s not all in my head or I’m taking things personal. Studies show that unconscious bias, bias we don’t mean, influence the way people are treated. Same behavior by a man and a woman gets evaluated differently. For example, men who speak up are rewarded with 10% more competence points whereas women get a 14% lower rating for speaking up in meetings. I could go on with facts, but I won’t. Cause you’ve heard them and you can hear them anywhere else on podcasts and stuff, but I mention it here, in a sermon. I could be overturning tables instead though. I feel uncomfortable mentioning edi data in a sermon. I’m supposed to encourage you and give you hope for your week in a sermon. But this is all a part of what it looks like to be a Beloved Community. Not just inspiring one another, but being able to bring conflict and honesty towards real equitable transformation of our community. Some of us are echoing edi facts. Some of us are crying out. Some of us are flipping tables. 

Church, are we listening? 

 

Let me pray for us. 

Jesus, why did you get so mad at the temple? Did you have to resort to violence? We’ve seen to turn the other cheek, accept undeserved judgement of execution on the cross. We know you opened your arms and said, father forgive them? What are in between these stories? Help us to know you more deeply, more completely, through the stories of the Bible, to the core of your heart and your mission. Humble us to see you, to hear you, and to follow you, not a 1 dimensional Jesus that sometimes we water you down to be, but a real personal relational God who deeply engages this world, deeply cares, and deeply loves us. Give us the eyes to see, and the ears to hear we pray. Amen. 

Love One Another, As I Have

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

In John 13:34 Jesus says

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

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

 

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

 

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

Wrestling with God Like Jacob

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Genesis 32:22-31

32:22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

32:23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

32:24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

32:25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

32:26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”

32:27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”

32:28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”

32:29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.

32:30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

32:31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

 

—-

God of wonder, we come wandering into this space, seeking, asking, wrestling with a desire to see and know you. Shine your face upon us and give us yourself. That we may be touched with the divine touch that will wake us up we pray. In Jesus Name Amen. 

 

Genesis. This is where it begins. The stories of God interacting with God’s people, starting with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are the foundational patriarchs of a nation that comes to be known as Israel, which this story is the origin story of that name. 

 

Meaning of names is usually a big deal. What does your name mean? And what does that say about you? Right now, I’m trying to think of a boy name, because we’re expecting a boy. Yes, you haven’t seen the belly growth cause online video only capture my upper half! It’s so hard thinking of a name that will determine his destiny for the rest of his life! I mean, he could change his own name and all that but still, we want to birth him into the world with a meaningful intention. 

 

So this name change from Jacob to Israel is a meaningful moment. So what does this name mean? 

 

When you are young you are taught things that are simple. Stories that usually have a more concrete moral of the story, good and bad. I heard this story growing up in ways that were generally simple and positive. Although, it’s pretty peculiar and reveals the complex nature of our relationships with God. For the most part I heard something like, hold onto God, and God will bless you. Or you grow a little older and maybe the story gets a little more complex, you can wrestle with God and if you do, in the end God will bless you. Again, still a nice conclusion wrapped in a bow. 

 

But this character Jacob, is one complicated guy. I mean, he’s got two wives and two maids! But hey, that’s me judging him from our cultural context. At that time I think that was normal. A great example of why we shouldn’t just take things out from the Bible and apply it to our times literally, cause this is a biblical marriage! Anyways, the back story of Jacob has some sketchy parts. 

 

He’s the guy that had a twin, named Esau. The story goes, Esau came out first and Jacob came out “grabbing Esau’s heel”, and that’s been the case for the rest of their lives. Jacob was a bit of a different boy. Esau was burly, loved to hunt, a man’s man you could say, and Isaac loved him. Jacob, he loved to cook and was loved by Rebekah. One day when Esau came back from hunting famished, and Jacob had a nice stew going, he wouldn’t give his brother some until Esau gave him his birthright, which is probably that as the first son Esau would get Isaac’s inheritance, which is totally unfair and I get why Jacob was eyeing it. Well Jacob gets his way. Esau gets some soup. Later when Isaac is getting older, Jacob dresses up in Esau’s clothes and tricks his dad to give him a blessing, and by blessing I think they mean money. Jacob’s smart! But also, super sneaky! And later he fights with God to get his blessing again. I mean this guy is one of the Bible’s heroes and apparently a great example of faith. You hear these stories growing up, saying, be like Abraham, be like Isaac, be like Jacob. Um, am I supposed to cheat, trick, and fight to get “blessings” like Jacob? 

 

And the poor guy Esau in Gen 27:36 says, “He has deceived me two times, he took my birthright and my blessings!” And asks his father Isaac, “haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”

And Isaac replies, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?” Wow. So unfair. Life man! 

 

So what are we to learn from this story? Be like Jacob and you’ll be blessed? I’ve been saying this thing, the last few times I’ve been preaching these days. As I reflect on the Bible stories I’ve heard again and again, in ways that are too simple to fit into the complex life experiences that I’ve seen, I’m beginning to realize again, maybe, maybe Jacob is not an ideal example of faith to aspire to but a picture of faith. A picture of someone who is the second child, the unfavored by his father child, who had to always cause a bit of trouble to get some attention, who didn’t have things come easy for him but he had to be a little sneaky at times. A boy who didn’t like to hunt but cook. I’ve heard a gay pastor preach on this text and how he related to Jacob’s situation and it was so good. Maybe Jacob is someone who struggled through, always misunderstood, the guy that cheated his brother and that guilt ate at him always. 

 

I grew up hearing this story with the meaning of the word Israel as, one who prevails. One who triumphs. And that meaning is in there but there’s more. And by reducing it to those words we’ve created a theological conclusion that aligns with the strong worldly perspective and value of winning. Israel, yeah so strong, one who wins, that’s what it means. Well actually it says, “for you have striven with God and with humans” and the root words in Israel are more similar to the word for “struggle”. The definition might be close to “one who struggles with God” or “one who fights with God”. 

 

A picture of faith then might be, not one who prevails or even is blessed, but one who wrestles with God. And isn’t that a more realistic, relatable picture that doesn’t put faith figures like Jacob on a pedestal but right here with us in the deep of it all, in the places where we have questions, places where we don’t get God, times and seasons in our lives when we’re like, “what are you doing God?” That I believe is a more sophisticated authentic, not sterile or afraid of intimacy faith. A real faith. 

 

And this story also shows that sometimes God can feel like an intruder at night. God is often named as a protector and a helper, a provider, but in this text we see a God who is challenging. And even leaving Jacob with a limp, and you know maybe Jacob the trickster needed that limp to be humbled, because the next day he ends up facing Esau, remember his brother he cheated? So does God sometimes make us limp? What are we to do with texts like this? 

 

I don’t think we should draw blanket conclusions to these stories because it’s just a story of one man, in a particular situation that was captured in some form. And the reality, it may speak to different people at different times, sometimes relatable, and sometimes not and that’s okay! We don’t all have to relate with all the characters, especially the big names of the Bible, because it might strike us at different times as we need it. I refuse to take this one story and say, see God is dangerous. Don’t mess with God. or see God strikes us to humble us. Sometimes that can be misused to people’s situations that can be really toxic or harmful. Some of that may be true for you at one time and may not be true for you another time. What is this text saying to you? You might have to meditate with it a bit more and think about your lives. I’d only like to open it up to say, look here’s one example of a complicated man attempting to do faith. 

 

The lesson I’m learning today from this story is, see, God is relational and an interactive being. You see, I’m not always SURE of my faith. I am constantly deconstructing church baggage, constantly grieving so much of what is not yet, too often praying to God, God I don’t understand, rather than Jesus my faith is so strong. Sometimes to be honest, I don’t relate with a lot of praise songs in worship cause they sound so sure. And I wrestle and struggle with God and my faith a lot, and it sometimes makes me feel insecure like I’m not a good Christian, or is this religion even right for me? Why am I always protesting so much? I don’t know, maybe cause I’m a protestant, that’s where the word comes from right? Asking, seeking, not being satisfied with the status quo. And you know, this story is an encouragement to me because honestly, it’s true. I don’t fight with someone I don’t really care about. It’s not worth it. If someone really hurt me, but they’re like I don’t know, someone who I’m not that close with, I wouldn’t even bring it up, cause I don’t care. But someone who matters a lot to me, it’s important they know how I feel, and how they’ve impacted me, because I want to continue that relationship. You see, God of Jacob isn’t a God who is high on a throne watching down from a distance, but a God who you can get physical with. Someone you can throw down with. Someone you can get in your face with. And if doing that with God is not being a good Christian, then I don’t want to be a good Christian. I want a real relationship with a real divine being. 

 

What have you been struggling with the Lord lately? Has that “shaken your faith” or made you feel uncertain about your faith? It’s okay. You’re just as complicated as Jacob I’m sure. And we’re all a mix of moral failures, sketchy decisions, questionable motives, and pure desires, aware of our guilt, and seeking reconciliation like Jacob did with Esau. In all of our limpings and in our blessings, may we continue to wrestle with God who touches us, finds us at night, and shows Godself to us face to face. May that intimate God of love be near you and with you today. Let me pray for us. 

 

God who wrestles with us in the night, helps us to find you in the places where we are limping, helps us to find you in the places we prevail. And through it all would you humble us that we may fight or rest in your presence we pray in Jesus Name Amen. 

Parable of the Sower

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Click YouTube link above to watch service.

Spiritual practice: “Anti-Racist examen” written collaboratively by Vernée Wilkinson and Ted Wueste

 

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

13:1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.

13:2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach.

13:3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.

13:4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up.

13:5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.

13:6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away.

13:7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

13:8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

13:9 Let anyone with ears listen!”

—

Matthew 13:18 “Hear then the parable of the sower.

13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path.

13:20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;

13:21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away.

13:22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.

13:23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

About a month ago, my family took a walk into the Beaver Brook Reservation in Belmont. We’re still discovering the areas around us so I was quite happy to find a little stream, a waterfall, a short hiking trail next to water. We stopped on a bridge, with the water rushing underneath us, looking down with awe at the flow. It was mesmerizing. We got quiet, staring down. I looked around and picked a leaf and threw it down from the bridge. My husband was looking down from the other side of the bridge and saw my leaf come out the other way. “I see your leaf!” he claimed with excitement. “Oh yeah?” I answered looking around for another leaf to throw. There was a bush protruding out from the side onto the bridge cement. Big leaves that would float down real good. I grabbed a few more, handed one to my girl Sophia, “throw it, baby!” “Watch for it honey!” I yelled to my husband. “Oh I see it! I see it!” We did this for a while back and forth on the bridge, grabbing leaves, throwing, and looking down the stream on the other side. 

A week later I started realizing that I’ve gotten an awful lot of bug bites and I’m itching in like 5-6 different places. I sprayed myself with bug spray, checked for bed bugs, even had the pest control come out and spray our house. But as the days went on the “bug bites” spread, and now they’ve developed into a rash. I made an appointment with my doctor a few days later. She refers me to a dermatologist and they see me a week later. During that week my whole body spread with rashes, some so bad that they are now open wounds, and even to my face. I suffered for over 2 weeks and finally when I saw the dermatologist, she said she thinks it’s poison ivy and prescribed me something that will make me feel better in 24-48 hours. Then I realized, Beaver Brook Reservation! Eugene was like, “yeah I was thinking, yeah I’m not touching that.” 

Oh the paths we walk. What we might find and stumble onto. How it might affect us. I never knew the agony of poison ivy. Let this story be a lesson to you. Please be careful! 

I think today’s story is a bit of a warning about the paths we might take, and what happens on those paths. It’s one of many parables that Jesus used to teach. It’s often taught in a pretty straightforward manner. There’s 4 kinds of soil that seed is sown on: the path, the rocky ground, among the thorns, and lastly the good soil. And it usually goes like this, the moral of the story. Don’t be like the seeds on the path where the birds can come eat it up. Don’t be like the rocky soil, make sure you get rid of your rocks. Don’t be like the thorny area, get rid of your thorns so it doesn’t choke the plant. Be the good soil. Be the good soil that simply receives it, produces crop and multiplies it a hundred fold, sixty, thirty. Be the right kind of soil. 

That’s one way to look at it, which has been a pretty popular exegesis of the text. But that’s the thing, this story, it’s a parable. It’s not all too clear and it’s not meant to be actually. What are parables? They are symbols and metaphors and reveal and conceal. They open up and illustrate but also are a mode of discovery and even some confusion on purpose. In fact, our text today skips from verse 9-18, which is a whole section about the disciples asking Jesus, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” And Jesus goes on for the next 9 verses being extremely cryptic about his message. He says, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you but not them….” Jesus is trying to keep things from some? “Though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not hear.” “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.” What? Yes. I don’t know. Cryptic. But that is the nature of parables and that’s what we have to work with here. So it makes me ponder, is there something else going on?

Because to be honest, I grew up in the church hearing this message. Don’t be like the path. Don’t be the rocky soil. Make sure you’re not choking God’s word with thorns. When I did have worries of the world, or faced trouble, and my faith did shake or wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, the only advice I heard was, don’t be shaken. Don’t lose faith. Don’t worry. And yes, we do need sometimes life’s simple mantras, but sometimes it didn’t work. Sometimes the things I faced were more complicated. And the message I heard through this text was, that something was wrong with me. I wasn’t a good soil. So I prayed for heavy rocks to be lifted. I tried to clear my soil as much as I could. But it never felt good enough, I didn’t know why I wasn’t thriving and struggling, and it only made me blame myself and feel shame for not being good enough of soil. 

Thinking back, when I would hear a message like this, needing to apply to my life but facing the world with rocks and thorns, I wasn’t sure how to engage the world or my faith. And a message like this didn’t give me the tools I needed. I faced rocks, troubles and persecution beyond my powers. 

My family wasn’t well off. We had this one car that was so old and junky, that when it got cold in the winter time, it could only go about 35 miles per hour, even on the freeway. We’d have to leave the house earlier, making sure to warm up the car, hoping wishing that it wouldn’t break down on the way to school. When it broke down, it was devastation. My mom always freaked out and she’d go into panic mode. I didn’t know why then and always hated the way my mom turned from a lighthearted person to a person met with catastrophe when our car broke down, probably because we didn’t have savings to get the car fixed. She’d argue with the auto repair guy in her broken English, the guy getting frustrated but my mom practically begging him and insisting that he help us out by cutting us a deal. I hated watching it. It was embarrassing and I wish that we had enough money to just pay and get out of there. So did the worries of life, the deceitfulness of wealth get in the way of me being a good kid sometimes? Yeah, it did. 

Economic hardship, family trauma, racism, sexism, my list of rocks and thorns go on and on that I had no power over and yet was told to fix and somehow produce good crop and bear fruit. 

Have you experienced rocks and thorns in your life that’s beyond your control? So heavy that it could not be lifted by pure will power of faith. Or thorns too complex and entangled you weren’t sure how you would lift yourself out of it? Have there been patches of overgrown areas or seasons in your life that felt as if the evil one was snatching away your livelihood, your joy, your faith? What worries of life are choking your hope these days? 

Maybe the joy of God’s providence comes only for a short while through someone’s goodness, but short lived because the money runs out. Maybe your career or stability feels unstable because you didn’t have a safety net keeping you grounded, bills piling up like rocks with no root system to support you. Or maybe you feel like you’re standing on a busy path, maybe even a highway, where others are going 80 miles an hour, and you’re alone just spinning, in loneliness, feeling left behind. How do you sow seeds in these seasons of life? 

And with the complex world and issues we face today, is this the message God has for us? That if we’re not good soils, we will never bear good fruit? 

What if, what if the 4 soils are not a moral comparison, but pictures of the seasons of life, journeys and paths that we may stumble on on our faith walk? What if, these are various pictures of what you might face, what you’re likely to face? 

In fact the biblical commentators are not even sure exactly which is which. Let me explain. In Matthew, Mark, Luke, the wording on each is slightly different and confusing which is the seed, the message, and the seed sown, the one who hears the message. There is confusion, which is why the reading is unclear with phrasing like, “he that was sown”, (is it the message that’s sown or the person?) or “this is he who hears the word that which was sown.” Maybe we’re not supposed to identify with one of the 4 soils, but various seeds sown in different environments. Because the gospel was never about what WE do, our merits, our efforts. So why would this story’s moral be, be better soil? No. 

And my last question is, this is the parable of the Sower. So, who is Sowing? Is it God? If so, why does this farmer not really know how to farm by scattering seeds on paths, rocky soil, or among thorns. Is this God, a really bad farmer? Here’s what I think. God is not the most efficient farmer, no, but a generous, loving, hopeful farmer, a hopelessly romantic famer, who will scatter the seeds whatever God likes, which is, everywhere. Even on the path, even to the dangerous places, even the most unlikely bad soil places. If the seed is the good news, then no matter where you are, what you are facing in life, what kind of soil you are or what rocks or thorns you may bear, God sows. And maybe part of the faith journey has seasons where things don’t always take root and grow. Maybe it’s an encouragement to us all who are not always bearing awesome fruit, showing us, that in life, there may be times we find ourselves in the busy path caught up, under a rock enduring heavy burden, among thorns bearing scars, and the parable of the sower says, even there I will sow. Sure, good soil is nice, but it might not always be the case. And Jesus gives us this parable to journey through our complicated lives with to say, I will sow in you again and again, relentlessly, foolishly, and you will bear fruit one day. Because the message of the good news is always, not what we do, but what God does, not our merits of how well we garden, but the good news is, God is the great Gardner. That is the seed I pray will be sown to you today, no matter what kind of week you’ve had or you will have, for it is God who sows, nurtures, grows, and gathers with God’s abundant grace pouring into us. May it be so. Let me pray for us. 

Generous Loving Farmer, we thank you that you are a constant source of lights, pouring upon us living water, helping us grow. Would you grow us up with resilience, even in the face of adversity in this world, that you know so well. Would you walk with us even through valley of death, parched, no bearing fruit, and reminds us that there, you don’t condemn us saying why haven’t you got fruit. Instead you love us, forgive us, have compassion toward us and move with us through the next season and the next. May we know the ever present power of your love, and walk in that love, no matter what paths we may face today and this week. Pray in Jesus Name. Amen. 

 

Meditation on Psalm 13

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

Psalm 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day of Pentecost

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Communion 5_31_20

[Prayer] God, I ask for your presence today. We are seeking you in these times. Would a gust of wind take over now, like you did at Pentecost. Help me to speak, not from my own knowledge, but yours oh Jesus, from your love, your truth, your wisdom. Help us to hear you, through and despite my voice, would you speak to each of our own hearts. Pray this in Jesus name Amen. 

 

Today, in the Christian liturgical calendar, is called Day of Pentecost. A tradition, a time where we remember this story from Acts. Let me read it for us. 

 

Acts 2:1-21

2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

2:2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

2:3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

2:5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.

2:6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

2:7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

2:8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?

2:9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

2:10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,

2:11 Cretans and Arabs–in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

2:12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

2:13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

2:14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.

2:15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.

2:16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

2:17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

2:18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

2:19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

2:20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

2:21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

 

What a weird story! A tongue rested on each of them, and they spoke in different languages. And some people were like, are they drunk?

This is chapter two of Acts. A book that captures the history of the times following Jesus’ death and resurrection. Chapter one starts with Jesus being taken up to heaven, and then what happens to the community of Jesus followers, the aftermath of resurrection, that becomes the building of the first church of Christians. Chapter 2, catapults this powerful moment when the Holy Spirit comes. These were confusing times. Original followers of Jesus not knowing what to do exactly, gathered together in fear, constantly in prayer. There were even some changes in leadership by casting lots in chapter 1. These were uncertain times. 

 

Much like our times. This is why I believe that the Holy Scriptures are alive because it hits us right where we are sometimes, even through stories from ages ago. I can see parallels and relate to some parts. Like they’re locked in a room together. And the State power had just recently unjustly executed one of their beloved teachers and friends. People were left with grief and loss, and confusion. 

While others saw the resurrected Lord, spoke with him, touched his hands, and ate with him, others were in hiding and denying they knew Jesus at all. The rules of being a follower of Jesus had changed. His disciples went from being fishers, to traveling and doing ministry with a miracle worker, and then he was gone. Now what. 

 

I’ve been saying to some folks in these times, I feel like I’m completely learning how to do ministry in this new age in new ways. I did not learn zoom in seminary! And we’re no longer meeting in a sanctuary for Sunday worship, now what! 

 

Amidst the uncertainty, the chaos. This happens.While they were gathered together to pray, suddenly, a violent wind suddenly came in, making a huge noise. With that collapsing wind, a crowd came together in bewilderment. And each one heard them speaking in their own language. The Holy Spirit comes as a violent wind, and what happens? They all start speaking in different languages and hearing their own language. 

That’s what the Holy Spirit did? I find that kind of, I don’t know, in one sense, that’s it? They just spoke different languages? They didn’t all fly, or all get healed, or all levitate, or all something more supernatural maybe? Just as perplexed as they were, I”m asking, “what does this mean?” And as I say I don’t get it, what the significance of why God decided this was the miracle sign of the Holy Spirit, I ask myself, what does this mean to me personally as I meditate on the words now. And it alivened in me a few thoughts.

In my own personal context as it meets me where I am today, is that God is speaking to me in my own language exactly where I am right now, what I need to hear. Which is maybe the power of the Holy Spirit at work even this week as I prepared for this message. I’ll explain it to you in that context and see if it makes any sense or meaning to you. I don’t know, but this is the only way I know how to understand this text. Through my own experience and language. Maybe you’ll hear it in your own language, wherever you are. 

 

I am an Asian American. I know you can see that, and also that you see beyond that in most situations, that I’m just Lydia, or I’m a pastor, or a woman. But what I look like has had a big impact on my life on how I understand myself, how I understand how the world sees me. Even as I get older, my culture, my language, my heritage, my tradition rings me back to reality of who I am again and again. How I long to teach my daughter Korean. How making korean food makes me feel a certain way. How hearing Director Bong speak Korean on Oscar awards stage made me feel.  I’ve been a part of Reservoir’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team and how those words and race plays a role in my life, my work, my church has been at the top of my mind. Race. Diversity….

Sometimes I wish I was just normal, not looking at the world through this lens, just me, just worry about work, and food, and I dunno hobbies instead of race, ethnicity, color. Sometimes I get tired of translating everything from “normal” to me. 

 

So when I hear that the Holy Spirit flared up into your own language,I think, “God I so want that.” I need God’s work to be spoken in my language without me needing to translate it. And this is what the Holy Spirit does. It gathers disparate afraid people to gather in one zoom room, united by Jesus, and yet speaking in different languages, diverse from all different countries, backgrounds, experiences, stories, worldviews, political views, and the Spirit among us somehow, even though we are so different helps us speak up in our own languages AND hear in our own language. This is what the Spirit does. And may I say, sometimes it’s not very orderly like our Bible story today. It can be confusing, messy, some are astonished and oh, yes, there will be “others” who sneer and say, “They are filled with new wine.” Some won’t get it. Some who say how does that even work? Some who will judge or ridicule. Inside the room and outside the room. That voice will be there. Still, this is what the Spirit does. Spirit does what the Spirit needs to do to speak to God’s people, so that the God’s people hear, recognize, and are empowered by the truth of Jesus. 

 

My favorite part of this story is what the Spirit did to Peter. In the midst of judgement and chaos,  Peter gets up, raises his voice, and addresses the crowd to set things straight. It’s like this dramatic moment, like that old movie, Dead Poets Society, oh it’s such an old movie now but when the students start standing on their desks one by one in solidarity with their teacher played by Robin Williams. The spirit, an energy, moved around the room and gave them courage to stand. 

 

And Peter, remember him? Dr. Debra Mumford professor at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary with interest and focus on African American prophetic preaching, pointed this out to me. She says, “Is this the, “I don’t know the man, I have never heard of Jesus,” Peter?” Yeah, in Luke 22, when people recognized him as one of the disciples, “you’re one of them.” He denied, “I am not!” and another said, yes you knew him, Peter said, “I don’t know the man. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” To that Peter, Dr Mumford says, “The power of the Holy Spirit emboldened Peter to speak to the masses.” One who denied Jesus only maybe weeks or months ago, now stands and defends and speaks. This is what the Holy Spirit does. It turns people around. It raises people to speak up. It changes people’s minds. It gives them courage, it gives them words, words of their own to reach those who are different from them. 

 

So let me riff off of this power of the Holy Spirit, cause it sounds so good, I want some, I wanna try it out. 

Let me stand up and take courage to say something that I really want to say, but I’ll say it in my own language, in my own context, and I pray, that the Holy Spirit will come upon us and will receive my words in your own language as you need. God, preaching is hard, and again I apologize if this sounds political to you, but race, look at my skin, is not political, it’s personal, this is my testimony and my witness. Humbly I speak. 

 

When I read Peter standing up quoting Joel, I heard this. (You’ll see Joel text on your screen but I’ll share my thoughts throughout it.)

 

In the last days, boy it feels like last days these days. Daughters will prophesy, my god that’s good news, cause I’m a daughter, thank you Jesus for giving the power. They’re seeing visions. They’ve got dreams, that one day… Even on servants, and this word originally is slave but many translations use “servants” to make it less um, yeah, that’s why it says, “even” them, the Spirit will be poured out. And when I hear the word slaves, I can’t help but think of American history and black Americans, and yes, thank you Jesus, pour out your spirit on these descendants of slaves and for they are prophesying. Show us the wonders in heaven above cause I see the signs on earth, blood on the streets, fire in Minneapolis riots, and tear gas billows of smoke flaring up, Lord Jesus. The sun will be turned to darkness, man this winter was long, and the moon to blood… too much blood…. You say all this happens before, before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord, oh God please, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, Yes Lord, Lord, I call out to you. 

 

Like Peter, I used to deny, as an Asian American buying into the “norm”, benefitting from white normative culture.  “Oh that man, I’ve never heard of him.” I’m sorry to bring this up, the clip of George Floyd’s death, that asian cop standing there, quoting my friend Ophelia Hu Kinney now, “as the accomplice to the murder”. It reminds me of the ways how complicite we can be. Again, I don’t know about you, who you are or how you identify yourself, but I’m speaking from my perspective. On Twitter @braynyang says, “Asians need to reckon with the fact that we are all too often subservient and party to white supremacy because we are seen as model minorities…Don’t play into it.” it’s a reminder to us all, to speak up against anti-blackness. We can not just stand idly by why this happens again and again. 

And when folks say, oh those riots, they must be crazy, they’ve lost it, or maybe they are drunk. or whatever, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King says, “a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?”

What is it that America has failed to hear? Wow. What is it that America has failed to hear? 

 

Amidst the chaos, the blood, and fire, and smoke, I am caught by the thunderous and violent wind of the Holy Spirit that rushes in and ignites in each of us the fire of justice in and through our own stories, our own language, may that tongue rest on each of us, and hear in our own language about God’s deeds of power. Because I can’t imagine that this is what God wants for our world. Our tongues, may they be loosed with joy, hope, and love. Amen. 

 

May 3 Virch Service

May 3rd Virch service was a joyful celebration – spring has sprung! We shared stories of where our community is finding life during quarantine, worshiped through song and communion, and heard more about the resurrected Jesus giving us invitation to give and receive of God’s provision. Sermon text from John 21. Join or rewatch.

FOR THIS WEEK’S EVENTS highlighted in our service slideshow, including contact information and links: CLICK ABOVE “Download PDF.”

Sermon: Jesus Cooks Breakfast

John 21:9-14

9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Let’s pray, Loving God, illuminate your word to us now, that we may listen, hear your voice, and be transformed. By the power of your spirit, descend on us now we pray, ignite in us your mercy, your grace, your love, deep within ourselves and for our neighbors we pray. Show us, God, we seek you now. Amen. 

I’ve been cooking a lot lately. More than usual. Why does the next meal come around so fast? Especially in the morning, I’m like so hungry but not sure what to eat. And these days food runs out quicker, I don’t know how. Okay, so I’m constantly eating all day. On Tuesday morning last week, I woke up and there was no yogurt, no banana, and no bread of any kind. Nothing quick I could grab so I made eggs. I put some coconut oil on the pan and adjust the heat to medium like Gordan Ramsey taught me, I crack a bunch of eggs in and take it off the heat, stir, add some milk, on the heat, stir, off the heat salt and pepper, and turn off the fire and back on the remnant heat. And I added some avocados on top. It was delicious and satisfying that I didn’t even sit down to eat. Breakfast, really the most important meal of the day, and ya know, it tastes even better when someone else cooks it! 

Jesus cooks breakfast for his disciples. I love this. Fish and bread. I’m not sure if americans eat fish for breakfast but when my mom made mackerel and rice for breakfast, it was a special day. Jesus cooked up fresh fish by the beachside, over open fire bbq. Have you had fresh fish that’s just been caught and cooked up right after? Our family used to go camping a lot in Korea. It’s one of the cheapest ways to take a vacation and we were always camping either by the beach or by the mountains, public spaces provided by the government. We didn’t catch our own fish but you could buy fish off the boats that would just come in. They’re some of the fondest memories I have with my family. 

It’s been a few weeks since Easter and we’re continuing to meditate on the events following Jesus’ resurrection. The sightings of Jesus, that made the disciples realize, he’s back. Signs of life and love that Jesus showed us before he ascended into heaven. Those few moments they had after the resurrection were the foundation of a church built that would become known as Christianity. There aren’t that many. The book of Mark ends abruptly with the disciples finding out the resurrection and they scattered in fear. When you read the last chapter, chapter 16, you’ll see a little note that says, “the earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20” meaning that the last 10 verses or so were added later with Jesus showing up again, giving them a commandement, a closure you might call it. In Matthew, Jesus resurrects in the first few verses of chapter 28 and then there’s a story about the guard’s being paid to keep their mouth shut and another commandment, known as the Great Commission, “Now go and make disciples of all nation,”ending chapter 28, which some think that the later ending of Mark got it from Matthew and added it to match with Matthew’s account better. Luke has a few more good stories of how Jesus showed up to a few guys on their road to Emmaus, while they were leaving town, and they didn’t even recognize him, and another story about how they gave him fish and saw Jesus eating in his resurrected body. But John, John has almost twice as much as content of the post Easter stories than the rest. Jesus appeared to Mary, Jesus appeared to Thomas, the miraculous catch of fish that Steve shared a few weeks ago. And then, this story, of Jesus cooking them breakfast. I love that we have these varied sources of what happened. No one knows exactly what happened and different people saw different things. I have this one book, that lays out the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in chart side by side with parallel stories. It’s honestly my favorite thing to pull out and look through. I feel like I’m sitting around the table going, wait but what did you see, and you saw this, you didn’t hear this but you did! Fascinating! 

This is right in line with John’s style. “Signs” was a big theme in his book. All of Jesus’ actions are captured as signs, a testament to his power. A visible sign to the invisible reality. Bible commentators name John’s writing style as one with a “sacramental” tone. Sacraments, what we usually call baptism and communion, sacred acts to enact and unveil holy power, water to represent birth, bread to represent life. Sacramental theology is a way of looking, playing, interacting with embodied human things to try to understand heavenly things. It’s part mystery, part poetry, it’s like art–where symbolism is the only way to properly express truth. Like I can’t explain it to you with words that are too lofty to use. I can only show you, here’s what I mean, and the artist busts out in a song that you might not understand, but oh you feel. Yes, John’s style was like this, from the beginning, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became Flesh! It reads like the children’s book. 

The poetic nature of John’s accounts are unmistakable. An Introduction to the Gospel of John says, “Some have suggested that his prose is quasi-poetic and should be printed in poetic format.” They said, you can even find rhyme, although rhyme isn’t common in their poetry but does occur, and even rhythm can be picked up in the original language. There’s parallelism in his prose, or “staircase” arrangement of his speech, like a good rap. I mean that’s what hip hop and rap was for African Americans and many others, and like the blues and the gospels, the singing kind not the 4 books of the bible, a way to express the inexpressible things. Like Chance the Rapper’s song, Blessings, here’s a few lines,

“I don’t make songs for free I make ’em for freedom

Don’t believe in kings, believe in the kingdom

Chisel me into stone, prayer whistle me into song air

Dying laughing with Krillin saying something ’bout blonde hair

Jesus black life ain’t matter, I know I talked to his daddy”

Like, I’m not gonna explain the lyrics to you, cause it’s kind of like modern art, you get what you perceive. Kinda like Jesus, said those with ears, let em hear. It’s got double meanings and puns of truth. 

Why am I going on about this? The symbolism of John? Because we need to listen deeper. We need to not just take the story at its face value but dig. That’s how we should read the Bible with some respect, like those art geeks who walk the museums with the commentary device in their ears. Like when you lean into a painting and read the little box that says, acrylic on canvas 1978 expressing individualism of a woman’s body after childbirth. And you’re like, WUUUUUT these colors and lines I couldn’t make out is about, OOOOOOOH! And then you see it. There’s layers of meanings. 

So let’s lean in and see it. This story of Jesus cooking up fish. What does it mean? Here’s one interpretation, and one access point is just a starting place for each of you to find your own deeper meaning in these Bible stories. Never read or take anyone’s commentary as the authority, it’s just one perspective of someone who spent some time and studied it but that’s it. The fish, is the people. Peter and his friends catching fish, is them doing ministry. Peter was the bedrock foundation of the Church. And the way that they were doing ministry, wasn’t bearing fruit. They were looking at the wrong places. They thought they needed to do ministry to a certain people and Jesus says, no not there, the other side. Not those, the others. And then, their ministry boomed. 

At first this story, my first pass at it, I was like, ugh, I love that Jesus cooks breakfast. What a sweetie! Like when your date says, hey this weekend, come over, I’ll cook for you and you’re like ooh! Special night! Which, I think there’s that meaning too in this story. Jesus loves us. Jesus provides for us. Jesus feeds us and nourishes us. Especially in times of frustration and fear, when you’ve worked all day and came out still with nothing to show for. When your loved one has just died and you’re confused and sad and afraid. Jesus sits you down and says, “eat, drink.” But just like good art, this story, it might have different meanings for different audiences. 

And you know, to be honest, sometimes it’s hard preaching one sermon here at Reservoir. We’re so diverse, and that’s a good thing, but sometimes one message is not what one needs to hear but the other needs. Like if I were just to say, God provides for us. That if we just believe in God’s provision, God will make it happen, well it wouldn’t be the whole truth. That would be prosperity gospel. To those who are in need, those who are poor, those who are oppressed, yes, God says, I will provide, I will feed you, I will bless you and liberate you. But to Nicodemus and Zaccheus, and we have some Nicodemus’es and Zaccheus’es in our congregation, Jesus tell Nicodemus to be born again, which essentially means to… face a kind of death first? And Zaccheus, ends up giving his money away. And the rich young ruler who went away disappointed at Jesus’s sermon because it’s not what he wanted to hear that day. 🙂 Preaching is a weird job. If I made everyone happy with my sermon then I’m not doing my job. Many of Jesus’s messages legit angered people and made them want to kill him. So if I’m preaching the message of Jesus, there should be some people….. 🙂 well, even if everyone hates your sermon, that also doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being prophetic. 

Anyways, Sometimes God provides and sometimes God…. destroys. I’m sorry I hate saying it… cause it’s hard. Sometimes God giveth and taketh away. Isaiah 40:4 says, ‘Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.” You know what that means? High mountains shaved down, rugged places stomped over with those big machines that flattens everything out! So are you a mountain or a hill that will be made low, or are you a valley that shall be raised up? Cause we got both in our congregation. We’ve got the privileged, highly educated in this zoom room, who might’ve lost tens of thousand in their stocks right now maybe. And we also have the ones who’ve lost our jobs, taking care of a child as a single parent, old, single/widowed/divorced, those without healthcare, not knowing where the next rent check will come from. For those, I want to say, Jesus will cook us breakfast. Jesus will have it ready for you burning on hot coals, as soon as you get off work, as soon as that fussy baby goes down for a nap, as soon as you get off the phone with your boss, as soon as you go through another bad date or a breakup, as soon as you’re tired and you’re ready to rest. “Come and have breakfast.” There’s some fish here already, all cooked up, and some bread. 

And that categorizing is not even sophisticated enough. Cause there are some who are rich but drowning in addiction, that need to be raised up from the valley. And those who are traditionally poor who are proud or stubborn that needs to be shaved down. I don’t know your heart, but Jesus does. 

Anyways, to some of us Jesus says, verse 10, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” put it here and add it to the pile that I’ve started. But Peter and his disciples might’ve been thinking, but we just worked all night and caught nothing for a while! We’ve been running empty too and just caught these! I worked hard for them! … Bring some of the fish you have just caught. Contribute and be generous, and put in your part, which I have blessed you with. “Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.” Reservoir, those who can, those who have the means, those who are able, literally and metaphorically, physically and spiritually,  if you’ve just caught some fish, climb aboard and drag the net ashore. The net, ha! you know like what’s your net worth? Cause even with so many, the net will not be torn. 

Because Jesus will come and take that bread, take that fish and give it to us all to feed us and nourish us all. 

“This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.” These were the signs of resurrection that changed the world. What signs of life will you join into? 

Let me pray for us. 

Sweet Jesus who lives and reigns, who gave himself for us and showed us the way. May your life give us life. May your light give us light. Where there is death, where there is darkness, may you shine in and through us we pray. Amen. 

 

Virch Service: We Got This!

Despite being Zoombombed by profane intruders, many of us were able to meet with each other and with God. Watch video and join in if you missed it, don’t isolate! Love to you and yours.

Also, new this week: click above to Download PDF and check out this week’s Virtual Events & Happenings, copied from today’s slideshow! Follow up to get connected.

Purification: Us Marginalizing or Excluding Them

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

Loving and beautiful God, would you bring to light your word? Would you come near to us now, enlighten us with your truth? Would you touch us with your beauty, your delight, your love right now. As we seek to know you. This we pray, in your precious name, Jesus. Amen. 

There are certain stories that people live by. Ask anyone. Why do you do what you do? How do you think you became to think and be who you are today? What story, incident, or person shaped you to be this way? Even though at first, most of us might think, “oh well, I don’t know, there’re many things, and accumulation of many different experiences.” And yes, I’m sure many things added, reinforced, or nuanced you, but there are a few key moments. That clicked you into the you that you are.  A story or two that define you. If there was a movie about your life, what would be a few of those scenes in the beginning, that start the whole movie you know the ones that like establish your character. Or what are the key flashbacks, that really shaped you? 

Here’s a story from my life. When I first moved to the United States, I was 9 years old, I feel like I share this piece about me, everytime I preach, it was a formative time can you tell? And I was one of 2 and half asians in the whole school, me, a philipino boy, and a half korean half white girl. And kids used to ask me, “are you chinese?” and I’d say, “no” and they’d say, “are you japanese?” and I’d say, “no” and they would go, “then what are you?” And I’d say, “I’m korean” And they would say to me, “There’s so such country!” And I was like, oh, maybe I’m wrong and they are right. I mean, what do I know, I don’t even know English. And since then I’ve doubted myself, who I am, learned to depend on what others said who I was. But they never got it either. The thing that mattered to me the most at that time, me being from Korea, didn’t matter to them, in fact, it didn’t even exist in their minds. That became my narrative, always trying to show, to explain to people who I am, even though they’d never seen such a thing. 

Stories shape us. We’ve chosen to talk about particular seven stories these days in our sermon series, based on a children’s book that tries to capture our generation, our current stories most of us tend to live by. According to these authors, there are 6 of them that the world lives by. They are the story of domination, revolution, isolation, purification, accumulation, and victimization. And the children’s book presents these stories through owls and foxes, and turtles, snakes, and so forth to say–none of these stories work. They do not serve us and they do not give us life. These are all stories of US vs. THEM. And those are not the only stories we have to live by. There is a seventh story.  That serves us all toward one another, towards fullness, love, and peace, thriving of all kinds, where there is no us and them. 

Today, I’m talking about the story of purification. In the children’s book it illustrates this core value of purification through a moment when they decide that all those who do not have fur, and look weird with scales like reptiles, must leave the village and not allowed back in. It’s actually a story that most of us really do live by, not only as a natural physical tendency but also as a moral and religious code. Like remain with likes. In fact, religious folks, Christians particular have used and over used, thereby (ab)used this concept of purification to hurt, harm, reject people. We’ve used it as a theological foundation to carry out marginalization and exclusion. And it has hurt people. 

Purification is deeply ingrained in the Christian tradition. It’s a metaphor that’s used all over the Bible. In Leviticus, purity codes determined way of life, the boundaries of religion. It managed and controlled every aspect of life from land, to table, to the body, to sex. These were based on some natural and yes, even helpful ways to operate in a community. Careful as they were, thoughtful as they were, in their best efforts and practices of containment. This was their science. What were contaminants, things that kept them quarantined and safe. If someone was visibly sick or bleeding after childbirth. Some of these things I do think really did help the community and that was their hope and intention, of course. 

The power of these life wisdoms were carried over, not only as protocol, but as the answer, not only physically but also morally and spiritually. It came to dictate what was clean and unclean, who was clean and unclean. And it’s a powerful thinking and it almost seems intuitive and it works. In the book called “Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality” by Richard Beck, he takes a look at this thinking through psychology, particularly a thing called ‘disgust psychology’. To illustrate, he begins by explaining the work of Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, an expert on disgust and contamination. His focus had been on human reaction to food and has evolved as of late to investigating “forgiveness, aversions to ethnic groups, and ethnic identity.” Take his Dixie Cup research. 

Say I asked you to spit into a dixie cup. Now what if I asked you to drink that cup? Would you? Most of us would not, as it’s gross! And it’s apparently interesting to psychologists why we do this. Because we swallow our own saliva all the time, and yet, if it comes out, it’s now been contaminated somehow, even if it was done in a matter of seconds, and now it’s spit. It actually has nothing to do with reality, whether it truly is dirty. Psychologists call this, “magical thinking”. Yes, magical thinking is what we tend to do. Beck gives another example. If he dropped a cockroach in a glass of juice, took out the cockroach, would you drink it? What if it was filtered? What if it was filtered, boiled, and filtered again? Disgust is illogical. 

But it’s natural! You might say. Well you don’t know a baby. Baby put everything in her mouth. She drops it on the floor and put it right back in her mouth. Well, and now I do too. I put it in her mouth, she spits it out and drops it on the floor and says “all done” and I’m like, uh uh, nom! I don’t want to waste…. Cause this happens a lot! 

We’ve taken this same magical thinking not only to our food, but to other’s food, other’s way of life, other’s lives. 

One time my co-worker brought green tea mochi with red beans to happy hour and I was legit excited. It was on the table, next to the cookies and brownies, and a few of them turned to each other and with a disgusted face was like, “what is that?” “I don’t know. It’s… green!” “It’s got beans in it!” “Ew!” And I felt embarrassed, ashamed, like I was disgusting for loving it. Thankfully, my friend was much cooler than I was, walked up to them and was like, “uh like a billion people in this world would disagree with you.” and bit into the mochi like a champ. Not this place, another work place I was at… in the past… 

This whole disgust psychology displayed in mere food, eventually and inevitably moves into a more robust set culture in all aspects of life. And even at food level, it hurts a little. But when it starts moving into, oh why does he eat that. Oh why does he wear that? Oh why does he look like that or act like that? It becomes not only a little embarrassing but life altering.  

That’s what the Levitical laws ended up doing to people. All the rules that were meant to keep people “safe”, to keep things in order, began to divide and exclude people. Those who had bodily discharge, and didn’t have the means to have proper ceremonial bath or the money to buy two doves to for the cleansing offering. Those who had mildew in their house and couldn’t afford the priest to come and do an inspection. A woman who didn’t have the money for young pigeons for her purification after childbirth. Patches on skin, if a man loses his hair, if you touch blood, if you touch dog poop, I’m serious all of these are in Leviticus and where does it stop? And funny enough, it was about money. 

These were the same rules that the Pharisees were applying to Jesus and his disciples. He was eating with sinners! Contamination! Letting a sinful woman touch him. Blasphemy! 

But Jesus was giving us a new story to live by. We see it again and again in the New Testament, where he reshapes the old stories they grew up hearing. Reframing and re-embodying them in ways it never existed. Here’s just one. 

Luke 5:12-16 New International Version (NIV)

12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

14 Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

What happened here.  A man with leprosy, which was a general term for any kind of skin disease, was outcasted from the town and usually lived in their own quarters. They were prevented from interacting with anyone who was clean. Which meant from their families, from the temple. They couldn’t eat with others. They couldn’t worship with others. They were estranged. We heard last week what isolation does to people. 

Look at the story carefully. Jesus did not seek out a sick man. He wasn’t going around looking for people to heal. In fact as this text ends, he would often withdraw himself to pray by himself. But the man came to him. He begged Jesus and said, if you are willing, make me clean! Because he had been told again and again that he was unclean. But he knew inside, that somehow, he could be made clean. Even though priests have written him off. Even though leprosy was something that was incurable. Something inside him compelled him to seek Jesus and say otherwise please.  And you know what happened?  Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. And then said, “I’m willing.” He touched him. He touched him, first. He broke Levitical purity code right there, before he said a word, before healing, before a miracle. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. And with that, he overturned the tables of moral codes, religious codes, spiritual and physical codes of its time. With one touch, he shattered the magical thinking that leads to disgust and rejection of a whole human being. The man did not contaminated Jesus as widely accepted norm suggests. It simply wasn’t true. And with that touch Jesus proclaimed what everyone always thought was true, that when you touch someone unclean, you become unclean, to be untrue and flipped it on its head. 

Here’s how Beck explains it, “…consider the attribute of negativity dominance. The judgement of negativity dominance places all the power on the side of the pollutant. If I touch (apologies for the example I’m about to use) some feces to your cheeseburger the cheeseburger gets ruined, permanently. Importantly, the cheeseburger doesn’t make the feces suddenly scrumptious. When the pure and the polluted come into contact the pollutant is the more powerful force. The negative dominates over the positive… What’s striking about the gospel accounts is how Jesus reverses negativity dominance. Jesus is, to coin a term, positivity dominant. Contact with Jesus purifies. A missional church embraces this reversal, following Jesus into the world without fears of contamination. But it is important to note that this is a deeply counterintuitive position to take. Nothing in our experience suggests that this should be the case. The missional church will always be swimming against the tide of disgust psychology, always tempted to separate, withdraw, and quarantine.”

Have you seen this happen in churches? Separate, withdraw, and quarantine?  Have you experienced it first hand? I have. Harshly. Mercilessly. I considered sharing it but I can’t. I’m sorry. It was too painful. Maybe another time, another sermon… I’ve shared bits and pieces of it here and there to some of you. I shared the gist of it briefly at the Neighboring and Justice meeting a few weeks ago, as we talked about organizing power at Reservoir. I have been learning through the work with Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, a way to do radical powerful “missional” work that isn’t just about going out to those in need and helping them, but a way we lock arms with our Jewish and Muslim siblings, Catholics, and even those that might not believe in any God, gasp, to partner and support one another in a common goal of doing public good. Apparently this organizing work starts with telling our stories. Why we do what we do. Why I care. Why I’ve had it with the way things always have been, the stories they tell us that we should all live by. Why I am sick of seeing the powerless forgotten and pushed out by those with power. So I shared my story real quick. And it’s funny, even sharing the story is scary, as if if you knew, you might reject me. Stupid right? I’ve been singled out. scapegoated. Have you?

So has Jesus. If purification is the story that drives the ugly over the cliff, Jesus became ugly. And that’s why I find Jesus so beautiful. 

He touched the ugly. And the text says that “the leprosy immediately left him”. That was positivity dominant, or as I would say because I don’t think Jesus operated on dominance but the power of positive embrace. Again, let’s look at the text carefully. When Jesus says, “Be clean!” the words weren’t some hocus pocus words. They were more like, I pronounce you clean, which is something a priest would have said to someone in a cleansing ceremony. A priest that didn’t follow the levitical codes and just pronounced people clean? That was the scandal. And the incident doesn’t end there. That wasn’t the end point. I would go as far as to say, that wasn’t the point. Leprosy leaving. Jesus goes on to say, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Some scholars think that he may have suggested this to not bring himself more attention, but trying to forward people to their laws. 

This brings us back to Leviticus. Jesus subverts the purity codes and then goes back to them, utilizing them, equipping this newly energized man to go back to the system that oppressed him to take back his power, through the system. With Jesus, it wasn’t just about getting rid of his leprosy, but incorporating him back into the fold of the community. Jesus touched him and said, I care. You’re mine. You’re included. Get up. Go, show them. That you are welcome in the house of God. That you are God’s beloved. No longer are you casted out of the realm of the people.  

We’ve gone personal, biblical, and psychological angles at this. Let me share with you one more, anthropological. This one is from one of our own. Working on his Phd in anthropology at MIT now, is Tim Loh. He told me about his research on Deaf Christians, which fascinated me. He forwarded me his paper, let me read you the beginning real quick: 

“This anthropological research paper explores how Deaf Christians negotiate their identity as members of two distinct identity groups: Deaf and Christian. The historical perception of Deaf and other disabled peoples in the church has not been positive, and a number of Christians today also view disability as one consequence of a fallen world that God will eventually restore. Since—beginning in the 1960s and continuing until the present time—many Deaf people believe that Deafness is a cultural, even ethnic, identity centered around American Sign Language rather than a disability (Lane, 2005),”

Interesting. I’ve never thought of it that way. But I’m not deaf. And honestly, I don’t think I know closely many deaf people. Tim mentions the Bible verse that’s been used in the Christian tradition to distinguish those who are saved and those who are not,  “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), one that has been taken literally and applied irresponsibly to say that deaf people were beyond salvation. But when Tim interviews these folks, they didn’t seem to see the contradiction as starkly, being deaf christian, and in fact displayed a cohesive meaningful identity in being deaf and it being a purposeful part of God’s plan. Listen to a story from the study:

“The formation of a Deaf Christian identity was in many ways a rejection of and a form of resistance against the label of “disabled”—and often, “in need of healing”—that hearing Christians impose on them. This is seen in that the discourse of “God’s purpose” that was utilised by many participants was often linked to specific instances of misunderstanding or ignorance by hearing people. For example, Vikram recounted an incident when he visited an interpreted service at a church in Chicago. During the service, he saw two people close by whispering among themselves, and knew immediately that they were going to pray for his healing. Sure enough, they laid their hands upon his ears and started praying. Nothing happened, but after they finished praying, one of them handed him a piece of paper, on it asking him if he wanted to give a testimony. He agreed, walked on stage, and said through the interpreter: “Thank you to the two of you for praying for me. For me to hear—you all want it for me, I understand, because you have pity on deaf people. BUT God—He sees me and He doesn’t [have pity on me]. He gave me everything. This body is what He gave to me and I’m happy with it”.”

This linguistic anthropology, when listened to and understood in their terms through their experiences in their words or signs, shows a people who identify themselves in a way that is different from maybe most others, but just, human, fully thriving apparently. Tim asked one of them, “do you think there will deaf people in heaven?” And he answered, “Why not? Maybe Jesus knows sign.” Which is the title of his paper. Maybe Jesus knows sign. And his finding and conclusion was their desire for better inclusion in the church. 

It’s not about figuring out what’s right or wrong. Though sometimes that’s a helpful tool. It’s not about figuring out what’s broken and fixing it. Though sometimes we talk about things that way, like relationship or even people. But it was only meant to be a metaphor. That sin needs to washed in the blood of Jesus. That here’s a debt to be payed. That those who are sleeping need to wake up. All of these are true AND but not the whole truth, that they are trying to get at something much bigger. That no matter what, whether dirty, in debt, or sleeping, that God runs towards us, see us, touches us. That we are worthy being touched first, before anything needs to be changed. The miracle only follows after, and that’s up to God. The miracle only follows if needed, and that’s up to God. That’s why I believe that at Reservoir, it’s about belonging before believing. I come from a Presbyterian background and this is to be honest a bit ludicrous. That people who might not have “crossed the line of faith” can become members. Anyone belongs before they sign some belief creed even. What? Anyone can come to the table of Jesus, communion, we’re not going to check if you’re a member or even baptized. What? This is actually quite radical. And it’s not because at Reservoir, all goes. No, this is very intentionally very well thought out theology centered on nothing but Jesus. We think that we’re not gatekeepers. We don’t check your status for you to join the church. We don’t ask who you’re having sex with or not. We don’t police people’s lives, we just hope that you join our community and journey with us together, humbly, so we can just be together no matter what. And we put up with each other. We ask questions to one another. And sit in the questions without answers! And wonder together, Maybe Jesus knows. 

Purification was only supposed to be a metaphor. But that’s the thing with metaphor, they reveal things but also conceal things. They show us truth but it’s limited in its frame. I believe that we’ve taken the metaphor of purification too literally at times. Who gets to decide what is pure? Where is the line? That’s the thing, if we’re not really careful and if we’re not really listening to the people, then we get it wrong and begin to discriminate, cause fear, based on nothing. 

Jesus was holy and pure yes. And, not. Jesus constantly contaminated himself but touching those who had leprosy, eating with tax collectors, breaking all the rules of sabbath, talking to women, letting sinful woman touch him with her hair and oil. Jesus kept moving and moving and moving towards the those who everyone else proclaimed to be unclean, unworthy. So much so that, eventually everyone did agree that since he hangs out with criminals, he must be a criminal, and they treated him as a criminal. He was incarcerated and tried in court and sentenced to death. A gruesome undignified death on the cross. 

Who gets to decide who is clean and unclean? Jesus never distinguished. It was always those who are in power. 

Maybe our job isn’t to decide who’s in or out. Or who’s clean or unclean. Or even try to figure out how to make ourselves clean, perfect, good, or better. Our job is to be close to Jesus. The rest is upto God. May we have the courage, patience, not the sacrifice but the mercy to know the power of positivity embrace, and touch those around us. May that power bring all of us healing, redemption, wholeness, and love that we need. 

Invitations to Whole Life Flourishing

Think of those that might feel excluded from religion or society. What would it look like to move toward them, to touch them, and to include them back into the fold of your community? 

Spiritual Practice of the Week

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve been excluded or rejected from a dominant group, imagine Jesus putting his loving hand on you, to say, “you’re fine, you’re good, you’re loved and accepted.” 

Jesus, Jesus, are you willing? Give us the willingness to reach out. Not only to know we already know, we get along with, those who want to only help but in a distance. Give us the power to reach out and touch and eat with people we never thought we could. Help us to cross boundaries that we’ve put up, to include all into the fold of your love and care. Give us the strength to do so, in our day, in our church, and in our lives we pray. Amen.