Monday, March 25, 2013

"Stones Crying Out"

Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

March 24, 2013 -- Palm Sunday
Scripture Reading: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 and Luke 19:28-40

28After Jesus taught in parables, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
      1O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
      his steadfast love endures forever.
      2Let Israel say,
      "His steadfast love endures forever."
      19Open to me the gates of righteousness,
      that I may enter through them
      and give thanks to the LORD.
      20This is the gate of the LORD;
      the righteous shall enter through it.
29When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it'" 32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 34They said, "The Lord needs it." 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying,
"Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!"
    26Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
    We bless you from the house of the LORD.
    27The LORD is God,
    and he has given us light.
    Bind the festal procession with branches,
    up to the horns of the altar.
    28You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
    you are my God, I will extol you.
39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." 40He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
                 21I thank you that you have answered me
    and have become my salvation.
                22The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the chief cornerstone.
                23This is the Lord's doing;
    it is marvelous in our eyes.
                24This is the day that the LORD has made;
    let us rejoice and be glad in it.


Sermon: “Stones Crying Out”

Jesus is a little weird.  He says confusing things like “the last will be first” and has a habit of calling the faithful “a brood of vipers.”  But what he says in this triumphant entry story is especially odd:  the Pharisees complain that his followers are making too much noise and he replies, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Huh?  Stones shouting out?  Is Jesus inventing rock music?  What in the world is he talking about this time?  Well, it helps to look a bit more closely at the language he used.  This “shouting out” is not the sweet refrain of Amazing Grace, though most pastor-types have described it that way. 

It is pronounced in the Greek krazo, because it’s meant to sound like the piercing cry of a raven.

When Peter tries to walk on water and begins to sink, this word describes his fearful crying out to Jesus to save him. 

When unclean spirits encounter Jesus, this word describes their shriek of fear, saying, “You are the Son of God!” 

And after the waving palm branches have been forgotten, this word appears again as an angry mob, worked into a frenzy by politicized fear, shout with one voice, “Crucify him!”

Jesus later uses that same word himself from the pain of the cross moaning, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

So, when we think of these stones “crying out” as sweet, placid praise to God, we tame them.  When Jesus heard those children and disciples on that dusty road through Jerusalem crying out those ancient words:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"
…he heard the raven’s squawk beneath these cries.  He heard the anxiety behind those words: the piercing longing for a king and the hope that heaven’s peace would come down to earth.  He heard the maniacal edge to that praise, knowing that it would take only the slightest of political and religious manipulation to tip their cries of praise to cries of “Crucify him!” 

So if the stones are to cry out, when the praise of this fickle crowd goes silent, it is going to sound like something that shakes heaven and earth.  It will sound like the groan of an earthquake and the crash of waves hitting unmovable, worn boulders. 

That cry will be a matter of life and death, just as the cry of Peter sinking, of evil spirits seeing their end in that Messiah, of a ravenous crowd choosing death because it was popular, of a world-weary Savior’s moment of human and divine exhaustion on a cross, questioning the point of it all….were all moments of life or death.  

When I discussed this passage with Dot McDonald this week, she reminded me of a time in scripture when stones did cry out.  It comes from Matthew.  He wrote: “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.  At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  The earth shook, and the rocks were split.”  

I wonder if Jesus knew this would happen when he told the Pharisees that, when the disciples fell silent, the stones would cry out.  Being the Son of God, it’s reasonable to think he did.  Perhaps that’s why he bothered to use the work krazo, instead of a more tame, comfortable word.  He wanted to capture this mortal shout, this earth-shattering and heaven-breaking-in cry of pain mixed with praise, of life found beyond death, of joy mingled with sorrow. 

I think his use of this word teaches us something: Jesus does not want our words to him to be stale, half-hearted mumbling or ecstatic, showy words of praise that last only as long as that Palm Sunday moment.

I believe that Jesus prefers words that are authentic: even if we are startled to hear our own voice among the crowd shouting “Crucify him!” because he comes in a way that threatens our carefully ordered way of life.  Even if the evil spirits of pride and self-focus within us cry out in fear when faced with the One who casts them out. 

You see, Jesus welcomes all of our cries: those of praise as well as those of lament, those of guilt as well as those of anger, and those that join all of these together. 

We often think we need to censor our voices to come before our Savior (because after all, we do this with each other all the time).  This is why many have sanitized the “stones crying out” in this morning’s passage to only mean the sweet refrain of nature praising its Creator and not the groaning of an earth plagued by violence and environmental disaster, calling to its Maker for salvation.

Jesus does not want our sanitized words: Jesus wants our real words.  Jesus does not want worship that only falls safely within the carefully placed time we give it on a Sunday morning.  Jesus wants our worship to be the spontaneous cry for life in the midst of death all around us, every single day we are given. 

So what is the true cry, the krazo, of your soul? 
What does that worshipful cry sound like when you hold your grandchild for the first time, or when you hold the hand of your soul mate for the last time?  What does that cry sound like when you sit in a waiting room, hoping for wholeness?  What does that cry sound like when you hear it in the desperate eyes behind the automatic response “I’m okay” or in the fearful groan of a parent for whom more cold weather means children shivering without heat?

We are entering a week where the hope of Easter only comes after the horror of a wrongful execution.  This is the time to lay bare our true struggles, to give voice to our fear and regret, to finally see ourselves and this world as what we are: the way our Maker sees us.

Once we hear our own voice for what it is, speaking to God and each other with authenticity and vulnerability, we can begin to echo the words of Peter, sinking in his own doubts, shouting to Jesus in desperation, “Save us!” 

And with those words of trust in the king of all there is, in the One who makes the peace of heaven a reality in the conflict of earth, we will see that a Savior is already coming.  He is humbly riding on a donkey, trampling palm branches and fear along the way, willfully going down the path to the cross.  His cry mingles with the cry of all those who are forsaken, until he silences the voice of death once and for all, by rolling away a stone. 

And do you know what?  That stone cries out, with each grind of its ragged edge on a weary earth, with each turn away from the cold death of a tomb.  Can you hear it?  We all will soon: it cries out with the one Easter word this world and our souls most long for, a word that silences all voices of doubt and injustice, of guilt and complacency, a word God calls us to speak again and again and again with every breath we are given.  That word is “life.”

"Nurturing Newness"


March 17, 2013
Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21
16Thus says the LORD,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
17who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
19I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
20The wild animals will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.

Sermon: “Nurturing Newness”
There is a universal truth about us human beings: we are never wrong.  Right?   Unfortunately, history has proved such a statement to be embarrassing on several occasions.  Let’s look at some, shall we?
When smallpox had ravaged many villages and towns in the 17th century, you might think that the efforts of Dr. Edward Jenner to create a vaccine would be welcomed.  They were not.  The British medical community declared that inoculation of the kind employed by Jenner would produce a cow-like face; those who had been vaccinated (the word 'vaccinate' is derived from the Latin vacca, a cow) would grow hairy and cough like cows...one doctor stated: 'Smallpox is a visitation from God; but the cowpox is produced by presumptuous man.”  Clearly, you’d rather die from smallpox than look (or cough?) like a cow.
Next up, we have a statement from Madeline Dahlgren in 1871: “We hold that the new status will prove to be the worst kind of communism. The relations between the sexes, so carefully guarded by religion and by parents, by law and by society, will become common and therefore corrupt. The family, the foundation of the State, will disappear. The mothers, sisters and daughters of our glorious past will exist no more and the female gender will vanish.”  Can you guess what “communism” she was addressing?  Women’s right to vote.
We move into the 20th century and, unfortunately it just becomes more embarrassing.  Harpers Weekly included an article in a 1902 edition that claimed that "the actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future, in spite of many rumors to that effect."
In 1903, just one week before two North Carolinian brothers successfully flew at Kitty Hawk, the New York Times grumbled about a scientist working on aviation technology, saying, "...We hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time and the money involved, in further airship experiments. Life is short, and he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from trying to fly...”
Let’s fast forward into our time.  Clifford Stoll wrote an article against the internet in Newsweek in 1995, saying, “Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic. Baloney.”   He went on to say that online reading would never outnumber newspaper subscriptions, and that no one would ever book flights or shop over the internet. He concludes, “What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is that the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness.”

As you know, vaccinations are part of the fabric of our healthcare for children (without turning them into cows), we women have been voting for a while now and are miraculously our society has survived, roads are so ordinary to life that we don’t even think about them (unless of course there is construction), airplanes are used for business, travel, military and medical needs every single day and yes, the internet has become indispensible to commerce and society.

Whether we embrace it with open arms or are dragged kicking and screaming into it, newness comes.  It is folly to think that things will always be this way, because that’s the way they have always been.  But it is also folly to think that change comes without any connection to history and the past. 
I think this is something of the message the prophet Isaiah had for the people of Israel, freed from slavery in Egypt, but then finding themselves captive again in Babylon.  The prophet’s bold statement is this: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do newness; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I changed his wording a bit from our reading, to make it closer to what he originally said in the Hebrew.  Isaiah did not say God was about to “do a new thing.”   We do always like to think of newness in the form of “things,” don’t we?  A new ipad, a new job, a new baby, a new book.  Newness seems to always come in one package or another.  But Isaiah did not say “thing”, we added that.  He just said that God was about “to do newness.” 

God’s newness cannot be encompassed in any one “thing.”  This is why I think the argument about “contemporary” or “traditional” worship falls flat: it assumes God’s newness is only found in one of those categories.  This is why our language of “historical” or “modern”, of “old” or “young” when it comes to church can be damaging.  The newness God brings does not fit in our labels, but transcends—and transforms—them all. 

Isaiah did tell the people of Israel, “do not remember the former things of old.”  But it’s important to realize that he housed all of that talk of God’s newness springing forth inside the memories of their shared history.  Because God made a path in mighty waters, because God defeated all who enslaved them, because God choose them as a covenant people, God can be trusted.  And if God can be trusted, so can the newness God brings. 

This is a hard leap to make.  All of the mistaken predictions I shared earlier show that we humans are a distrustful people, especially when it comes to change.  We can trust the God of the past: whom we saw in Sunday School as a child, whom we saw in days of hard work and nights of constant care for family, whom we saw in life-changing journeys and challenging trials.  We only need look back on our past to see that God was with us.  Trusting the God of the past is easy.  Trusting the God of the present is harder.  Trusting the God of the future is extraordinarily difficult.

But, as we journey in the wilderness towards a future heavy with a looming cross and bright with the promise of an empty tomb, that is our call.  It is not enough to cling to the past, hoping the crumbs of our old faith will sustain us.  We might find enough to survive there, but we will never find enough to thrive, to “spring forth” with God’s newness. 
We must, like the people of Israel confident that God was once with them but facing present uncertainty, actively look for God’s newness here, now, today.  Just as highways in the wilderness and waterfalls in the desert do not make sense, just as costly perfume poured out at an ordinary dinner party seems strangely extravagant, God’s newness might bewilder us.  But we do not have to understand it.  We just have to nurture it, like fragile shoots stretching up towards a spring sun, until it flourishes in our midst.  I am not going to give you descriptions for what God’s newness looks like.  That would be putting it back in the language of “things.”

Instead, I leave you (and me) with a challenge: lets open our eyes and hearts to the possibility that the God of the past is also the God of the present and the future.  Let’s embrace the fragile uncertainty of change, not as something to be feared, but as rich soil in which the Spirit can grow new life among us.  Let’s remember our past, but not be stifled by it.  Let’s look toward an unknown future, but not be threatened by it. 

Do we have the courage to not only trust God, but to trust the newness God brings?   Amen.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

"The Prodigal's Brother"


The Prodigal Son by He Qi

Sunday, March 10, 2013
Luke 15:1-3, 11B-32
1Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
3So he told them this parable:
11b"There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. 13A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'
20So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe-the best one-and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
25"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' 28Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' 31Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"


Sermon: “The Prodigal’s Brother”

Do you know my Dad never even threw me a birthday party?  I never got so much as a measly goat to share with my friends.  But my brother, oh he got it all.  You know all about him, everyone does: the golden, shiny, “Prodigal son.”  No one even bothers to remember me: they never did.  I guess, “The Bitter, Hard-Working Son” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

We were total opposites, my brother and I.  He was reckless, impulsive, immature. I was responsible, deep-thinking and moral.  While I was working hard in my father’s fields, he ran off to hang out with prostitutes.  Okay, I embellished that part a bit…but still, he took the inheritance my father worked hard to earn for him and spend it all in the Vegas of our time on wild parties and worthless entertainment.  He clearly didn’t value our family, or care that he was my brother.  He just left.  He did always care about his own happiness above everyone else’s, that prodigal brother of mine.

I still remember the day he came home.  I had spent another back-breaking day working in the fields, doing my work and the work my lazy brother had left for me.  I was filthy and exhausted.  I heard music and saw a bit of light at the end of the darkness of manual labor: maybe someone important was visiting!  Maybe I’d get to let loose and enjoy some fun for once.  I could already taste the grilled meat and sweet wine…I was in real need of a party.  But then a slave of my Dad’s told me that my brother was back and that all of this extravagance was for him!  There are no words for just how furious I was in that moment (but I did utter a few four-letter ones). 

Though I was tired and desperate for something to drink, I sat down right there in the field.  I would not go into that party – it was against all I stood for.  I would not add my blessing to my brother’s recklessness by eating his fatted calf and drinking his wine.  I would rather stay thirsty.  After a while, my Dad came to find me.  I’m surprised he even noticed I was missing when my glowing brother was there. 

But he came out and had the audacity to ask me why I wasn’t going to the party.  He even begged me to come inside.  Oh, y’all, that’s when I really let him have it!  I shouted at him – my Father – something I had never done. 

I knew I sounded like a three-year old but I didn’t care.
“This is SO unfair!” I yelled.  “I never ever left you – I’ve been here, working like a slave for you each and every day and I never get so much as a little barbecue for my friends.  My so-called brother abandons us all and you act like it didn’t even hurt you.  I saw how you and Mom cried all of those nights, sick with worry for him.  I saw how you would wince anytime someone mentioned his name, because you missed him so much.  Does none of that matter?  He just shows up, looking filthy and smelling like a pig, and you run to meet him…you put your best robe on him and kill that calf we’ve been saving for a really special occasion?  And you expect me to be happy about it?!?  It’s not fair.  He doesn’t deserve all this.  Actually, come to think of it, I deserve all this.”

My Dad didn’t yell back, which surprised me.  He just looked at me, and after an uncomfortable silence, said, “Son, you’re right.  You are always with me, always helping me without ever complaining.  But you have to understand: your brother was dead.  He had no family, no home, no food.  But he came home: he’s alive again.  And we’re alive, too, because the part of us that was missing for all those terrible nights is back.  I can’t help but celebrate.  It doesn’t mean I love you less than him.  It means I have both of my boys back.  So please, come, celebrate with us.  I know how much you’ve missed your brother.”

Your story ends there.  You never find out whether I went into the party or not, whether I welcomed my brother home or not.  Part of me really wants to be able to fill in the missing details by telling you that we all lived happily ever after. 

But that would be a lie.  I did not go into that party.  I did not welcome my brother, because my understanding of what was right and what was wrong wouldn’t let me.  I did not hug the one who I’d gone fishing with as a boy, the one I’d taught to climb a tree, who followed me like a shadow everywhere I went, because my anger wouldn’t let me.  And so, just as I’d lost him before, I lost my brother all over again.  I never forgave him. 

Soon after that, I took my own inheritance (using it wisely, of course) and moved away.  Sure, I saw my brother at family reunions and Passover celebrations, but I never spoke to him more than the small talk of strangers. 

Years and years later, reflecting on this story of mine that you know so well, and yet do not know at all, I still miss my brother.  I wish we could go back to the days when he would follow me and I would look out for him.  I wish I had just swallowed my pride and gone into that party.  I wish I could have shown him the grace my Father so extravagantly showed him. 

These events are all in the past for me: it is too late to change them.

But it is not too late for you.  If you have held onto anger and bitterness because you know you’re right and someone else is wrong, let it go.  If you have excluded people from your life or church because you think you deserve to be there and they do not, let it go.  If you have drank envy instead of celebration wine and eaten self-righteousness instead of the fatted calf of grace, let it go

Get up, leave your past behind, and run to meet your brother and sister who has been lost, but now is found. 

If you do, you’ll discover that we are all of us lost in one way or another.  My brother was lost because he was desperate for meaning and never saw that it was in front of him all along.  I was lost because I let pride dictate my actions more than love.  At least my little brother admitted it at the time; I’ve only just been able to admit it now.

We’re all lost.  But when we share our lostness together, when we recognize that in God we are brothers and sisters and that is the only truth that matters, we will find that we are also all in the process of being found again.  I know now what my anger wouldn’t let me know then: that my brother and I never stopped being brothers, though he ran away and came home again, and though I ran away and never really did. 

God made us brothers, just like God makes each of us in this broken, unfair human family brothers and sisters.  Whatever your pain or regret, whatever the hurt you have caused or have suffered yourself, whatever ways you think you’re right or know you’re wrong, don’t let that get in the way of welcoming the prodigal home.  Risk being foolishly, extravagantly forgiving and run, don’t walk, to meet them.  It is what my Dad did.  It is what God would do.  It is what I wish I had done.  Amen.