Sunday, November 29, 2015

The Advent of Peace: A Whole Self


November 29, 2015 - First Sunday in Advent 
Psalm 34:1-14

I will bless the Lord at all times;
   God’s praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
    let the humble hear and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me,
    and let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
    and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant;
    so your faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,
    and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them.
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
    happy are those who take refuge in him.
O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
    for those who fear him have no want.
10 The young lions suffer want and hunger,
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
11 Come, O children, listen to me;
    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Which of you desires life,
    and covets many days to enjoy good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil,
    and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil, and do good;
    seek peace, and pursue it.

"The Advent of Peace: A Whole Self"

When I think back on my childhood, there are many fond memories.  But there is one particular memory I don’t enjoy: the struggle of having to put on uncomfortable tights for dance class.  I took dance from about the age of 4 onwards and, while I loved dance (and still do), I loathed those tights.  What activity did you parents put you up to as a child?

My favorite story of compulsory childhood activities involves my mother.  She’ll not mind me telling you that she is not exactly what you’d call “musical.”  Her piano teacher might be to blame.  You see, she was strongly encouraged by my Grandmother to go to piano practice every week, and she hated it the whole time.  She came home, again and again, complaining that her teacher was just not nice, and didn’t even know her name!  “She calls me BARNEY!” she complained.  Her name is Bonnie.  My grandmother replied that this was ridiculous, there’s no way that teacher called her Barney. 

But one day, my mom’s complaints were gratified.  She came home with a sheet of piano music, with a large note from her teacher written in pencil at the top: “Study these notes, Barney.”  My mother never took another piano lesson.  That sheet of music is now framed in her kitchen.  You might call it a last homage to her short-lived musical career.

The discipline of practice is an important lesson for children to learn.  Kids today are no stranger to this: many of them live hectic childhoods of practicing everything from dance to football to band to karate to choir.  These are all a good use of time, but there’s one thing we should all be practicing, from age 1 to 101, at least according to Psalm 34.  We should practice peace. 

This Psalm of David, that king who wasn’t always the best at practicing peace, urges us to “depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”  That Hebrew word “seek” is actually “practice.”  And that word pursue is more accurately, “follow in the way of.”  Practice peace, and follow its way. 

Easier said than done.  David knew that.  You see, once we grow up, we stop believing practice is important.  We venture into the territory of “doing.”  We begin thinking that there is no time to practice: you either do something, or you don’t.  This sort of thinking leads us to do those things that come most naturally: to be afraid much of the time, to think ourselves too highly or too lowly, to raise our voices too quickly and listen too slowly, to pray far too seldom and to put our lives and our families in the center of it all. 

We’ve grown up and forgotten what it is to practice: to try and fail and try again, to push ourselves beyond what we think we’re capable of, to admit that we’re not as good as we want to be, to believe that living is not a game of winners and losers but instead a journey we’re all on it together, one in which we might just discover our true, whole selves by the end of it all, if we’re lucky. 

Practice peace and follow in its way.  Can we do that this Advent?  Can we let the next 4 weeks be something different this year?   Not a season of getting it all done, of wearing ourselves out with buying and cooking and entertaining and doing, doing, doing.  But instead a season where we practice peace.  Starting with ourselves.

You’ve surely heard the old Native American proverb:
One evening an old Cherokee man told his grandson
about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between
two "wolves" inside us all.
One is Evil.
It is anger, envy, jealousy, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good.
It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness,
benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute
and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The grandfather simply replied,
"The one you feed."


Which wolf will we feed this Advent? 

Our souls are hungry.  We can feed them with all that money will buy.  We can feed them with false security, with pride and ego and revenge.  We can feed them with clever arguments and self-righteousness.  We can feed them with piety and feelings of superiority.  Or we can feed them with peace.  That is the only way they’ll be satisfied.  That is the only way they’ll be whole.

But a diet of peace, friends, does not come naturally to us.  Scripture from Adam and Eve and that sneaky snake, to Cain and Abel, to David and Uriah, all the way to an angry mob and a lonely cross, and the news any day of the week, shows us that.  We simply will not become people of peace by willing it to be so.  We have to practice.

Sometimes, practicing peace will be as uncomfortable as those old dance tights of mine, or my mom being called Barney.  It will mean listening to our souls to discover why they are so angry so much of the time.  It will mean recognizing when we are defensive or demonizing others, and pausing to ask God’s forgiveness instead of raising our voice even louder.  It will mean keeping our tongue from evil and our lips from speaking deceit. 

But with each practice, each moment of forgiving ourselves and someone else, each attempt to learn something new about someone we’re afraid of, each choice to feed the right wolf inside of us, we will get a little better at it, with God’s help. 

And maybe, if we really work at it and trust God to work, too, we’ll find what we and this world most need this Christmas (more than another pair of socks): wholeness.  Enough shalom – peace, wholeness – for our weary souls, for our weary church, for our weary community, and for our weary world.

Each week during this season of Advent, we are going to practice peace together.  This week, I encourage you to recognize how true the line of the old song is: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”  It all begins with you, with me, with us.   We first have to practice peace ourselves, within our own bodies, minds and souls.

So, each morning of this coming week, I invite you sit down in a quiet place for a few moments (that means no cell phone, tablet or tv), close your eyes and ask God, “What within me is not at peace?”

Then – and here’s the trick – don’t answer for God.  Don’t talk.  Don’t think about your grocery list or your next appointment or your grandchild or your breakfast.  Instead, sit in silence and ask again, until your soul is quiet, “What within me is not at peace?”

Practice this prayer every day, whether you feel like it or not.  And trust that each day, you’ll get a little better at listening to your spirit and the Holy Spirit.  Perhaps then all of the other demands on your life will take their proper place: not as ways to bring you peace or buy contentment, but as actions that grow from a peaceful, healthy soul like nourishing plants growing from rich soil. 

And, as you ask, listen.  Listen throughout your day, in the busy grocery store line, in the clogged traffic circle, in the face of a friend at the gas station, on the tennis court or golf course, in the darkening nights, in the shining stars, in that silent moment before sleep, in the first second your eyes open in the morning. 

Listen.  Even if the answer scares you, even if you’ve run from it for a very long time, listen.  Practice praying for peace in your soul. 

And then, when you have really heard your own soul, remember the best news of all: Someone is coming.  That Someone is not the King of Conflict; he’s not the Ruler of Revenge, or the President of Power. 


He is the Prince of Peace, and he is coming, even now.  Amen.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

A Resting Place

One of Magnus Wennman's photographs depicting where refugee children sleep.  This is 5 year old Lamar from Baghdad, sleeping in a Serbian forest.

November 22, 2015
Matthew 8:14-20
14 When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; 15 he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Psalm 132
O LORD, remember in David's favor
all the hardships he endured;
how he swore to the LORD
and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,

"I will not enter my house
or get into my bed;
I will not give sleep to my eyes
or slumber to my eyelids,
until I find a place  for the Mighty One of Jacob."
We heard of it in Ephrathah;
we found it in the fields of Jaar.
"Let us go to his dwelling-place,
let us worship at his footstool."

Rise up, O LORD, and go to your resting-place,
you and the ark of your might.
Let your priests be clothed with righteousness,
and let your faithful shout for joy.
For your servant David's sake
do not turn away the face of your anointed one.

The LORD swore to David a sure oath
from which he will not turn back:
"One of the sons of your body
I will set on your throne.
If your sons keep my covenant
and my decrees that I shall teach them,
their sons also, for evermore,
shall sit on your throne."

For the LORD has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his habitation:

"This is my resting-place for ever;
here I will reside, for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless its provisions;
I will satisfy its poor with bread.
Its priests I will clothe with salvation,
and its faithful will shout for joy.
There I will cause a horn to sprout up for David;
I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one.
His enemies I will clothe with disgrace,
but on him, his crown will gleam."

Sermon: “A Resting Place”

Part of me wishes I’d never seen those images.  I wish I could erase them from my memory, and with them, my feeling of needing to do something to help.  Helplessness is a horrible feeling.  No one knows this better than the subjects of those images I saw.

They were pictures of children.  Not the pictures my friends post on Facebook of their kiddos playing and laughing in pumpkin patches in coordinated outfits.  These children live a very different life: they are Syrian refugees, fleeing terrorism. 

Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman has been documenting where refugee children sleep throughout Europe and the Middle East.

He says, "I felt this project was more personal for me than others, perhaps because I have a 5-year-old son and I know how important it is for him to feel safe every night when I put him to bed.  The children are the most innocent victims of this conflict. They did not choose to leave their homes.”

Wennman’s images are utterly heartbreaking.  There is Tamam, 5 years old, in
 Azraq, Jordan. She cries every night at bedtime. The air raids on her hometown of Homs usually took place at night, and although she has been sleeping away from home for nearly two years now, she still doesn't realize that her pillow is not the source of danger.  She is terrified of it.

There are Ralia, 7, and Rahaf, 13, who live on the streets of Beirut. They are from Damascus, near where Paul had his conversion in scripture.  A grenade killed their mother and brother. Along with their father, they have been sleeping rough for a year. They huddle close together on their cardboard boxes. Rahaf says she is scared of "bad boys," at which Ralia starts crying.

There is Sham, 1 year old in 
Horgos, Serbia.  He is pictured just alongside the border between Serbia and Hungary by the four-meter-high iron gate, Sham is lying in his mother's arms.  Just a few inches behind them is the Europe they so desperately are trying to reach.  Only one day before the last refugees were allowed through and taken by train to Austria, Sham and his mother arrived too late.  Now, they wait along with thousands of other refugees outside the closed Hungarian border.

There is Lamar, 5 years old, sleeping on the ground in Horgos, Serbia.  Back home in Baghdad, the dolls, the toy train, and the ball are left; Lamar often talks about these items when home is mentioned.  The bomb changed everything.  The family was on its way to buy food when a bomb was dropped close to their house.  It was not possible to live there anymore, says Lamar's grandmother, Sara.  After two attempts to cross the sea from Turkey in a small rubber boat, Lamar's family succeeded in coming to Hungary's closed border.  Now Lamar sleeps on a blanket in the forest — scared, frozen, and sad.

There is Moyad, 5 years old in
 Jordan.  Moyad and his mother needed to buy flour to make a spinach pie.  Hand in hand, they were on their way to the market.  They walked past a taxi in which someone had placed a bomb. Moyad's mother died instantly.  Moyad, who has been airlifted to Jordan, has shrapnel lodged in his head, back and pelvis, and remains in a cold hospital room, alone.

There are literally millions more.

After David went through many hardships, he made God a promise in Psalm 132:  "I will not enter my house, or get into my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling-place for the Mighty One of Jacob."

God, in turn, made David a promise:  the LORD has chosen Zion; God has desired it for his habitation: "This is my resting-place forever; here I will reside, for I have desired it.  I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread. Its priests I will clothe with salvation, and its faithful will shout for joy.”’

And later, when Jesus became famous for healings, a teacher of the law was impressed, and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus’ reply to him was simple: “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  He would have to follow a homeless Messiah.

The whole of the Gospel, you see, through the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament, is about one story: God finding a home with people, and people in turn finding a home in God.  Put another way, you might say the whole of the Gospel is addressing the problem of homelessness, on a divine scale and an everyday human scale. 

But we are not homeless.  We are not refugees, at least not now.  What do we know of that experience?  More than you would think.  You see, the key for me lies in Psalm 132, where God’s home isn’t described as a 3-bedroom, 2-bath ranch-style house.  God’s home isn’t described as a good investment, or a tastefully-decorated abode.  God’s home is described, again and again as a place of rest.  If home is not restful, no matter how grand or opulent, it is not home.  Those Syrian refugee children know that. 

And we don’t have to sleep in a forest or on a piece of cardboard to know what it is to be without rest.  Because we, my friends are completely and thoroughly exhausted.  We have spent decades working ourselves into a position of comfort and security, only to feel a restlessness settle into our very bones, whispering its menacing message, “Do more.  Be more.  You are not enough.”   It’s no wonder we live in a near-constant state of fear.

Perhaps what makes us all human is this shared restlessness.  And perhaps that’s what can connect us to those millions of children, or at least to one of them.  God met us in Jesus Christ in our restlessness.  And we, like that teacher of the law, want to follow Jesus wherever he leads.  What if he is staying to us what he said to that man, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head?” What if we will only find him when we make a home for him – he who said, I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”?

What if we will only find him in our own restlessness, and in the restlessness of the world?  I hope we find him there.  Because he certainly won’t be found in fear-based, vengeful rhetoric, where we blame an entire people rather than looking at the faces of their children sleeping in the streets and forests. 

Aren’t you tired?  For the world, for yourself?  I know I am.  Don’t we need rest?  Rest for us, rest for those children who just so happened to be born into a war zone, rest for a world constantly descending into hate-and-retaliate until we have destroyed ourselves? 

Today, I’m not making a political plea.  I’m making a spiritual one, and inviting you to recognize how very tired and restless you are, and consider how you’re not alone in that.  And then, I invite you find a resting place in the God who still comes to make a home with us all.


I’m going to play a song by Nashville musician Matthew Perryman Jones, to help us practice a bit of that divine rest, to help up silence the voices of fear and inadequacy.  So, sit back in your pew, close your eyes (or read along here if you feel more restful being able to follow the words), and find your resting place.  Then, share that place of rest – home – with the world.  

Amen.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

The Kin-dom of God

Image Source
November 8, 2015
Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
1Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. 2Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. 3Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. 4When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do." 5She said to her, "All that you tell me I will do."

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the LORD made her conceive, and she bore a son. 14Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him." 16Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. 17The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi." They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

“The Kin-dom of God”

The story of Ruth is a strange sort of fairytale.  There’s no wicked stepmother, but instead a mother-in-law Naomi who is so beloved that, after Ruth’s husband, her son, dies, Ruth speaks perhaps the most beautiful words in all of scripture to her: 
Where you go, I will go;
    where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
    and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
    there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
    and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

So, if there is a villain to this tale, it’s certainly not Naomi or Boaz, Ruth’s older prince charming of sorts.  The villain in this story is one still working evil in the world today: poverty.  Poverty kept Ruth and Naomi trapped like Rapunzel trapped in a tower or Sleeping Beauty trapped behind impenetrable thorns. 

The source of their poverty is sadly very simple: they were women.  Women could not own anything in those days.  Women could not work to earn a living wage.  They certainly had no power religiously or politically. The best they could do was align themselves with a man who would provide for them.  They could at least do this because God made sure of it.

God has always been at work defeating that great villain of the world, poverty, and the law in the Hebrew scriptures was a powerful tool to do that.  The law addressed poverty first this way: Israelites weren’t allowed to glean to the very edges of their fields, but instead commanded to leave some of their crop remaining for the orphan, widow and foreigner.  This was God’s biblical design to keep the poor and marginalized remembered by the wealthy and powerful.   

The second way God fought poverty was through that feminine Hebrew word, linked to “knowing” used throughout the fairy tale of Ruth: next-of-kin.  Jewish law demanded that caring for people in need wasn’t just a farming matter – it was a family matter.   When a woman was left without a man to provide for her, that providing became the responsibility of her closest living male relative.  Family had to look after each other, it was the law of God. 

Which is perhaps why romance in this story is sadly lacking.  Ruth does get a little makeover a’la Fairy Godmother from her mother-in-law Naomi, and she’s sent to the threshing floor to secretly meet Boaz. 

I think matchmaker Naomi hoped for some wooing to happen, but Ruth is not a mindless amusement for Boaz.  She’s a fierce character in her own right in this story.  So, she did go to the threshing floor, but instead of asking Boaz what he wanted of her, she bravely named what she wanted from him: “I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over your servant, for you are next-of-kin.”  Spread your cloak was another way of saying, “take care of me.”

Boaz could have rebuffed Ruth if she had only made romantic advances on him.  But ignoring the law of God was not an option.  So, the next day, Boaz had himself a wildly romantic session meeting with the elders to confirm that he was indeed next-of-kin.  And then he “acquired” Ruth and Naomi.  I must say, I don’t love that language.  Fellas, please don’t send your wife an anniversary card saying something ridiculous like, “25 years ago, I acquired you!  You’re my favorite property (like my truck)!”  You would acquire a night in the doghouse for that one! 

But it was the way of things in the time of this strange fairy tale, and it meant that the great antagonist of the story, poverty, would be defeated once and for all.  All because Ruth reminded Boaz of his obligations for her and Naomi as next-of-kin, and he stepped up.

We often speak in this place about the “kingdom” of God.  We pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done…”  We listen to Jesus’ words describing the kingdom of God as a pearl of great value, a mustard seed producing a tree that shelters birds, a vineyard where all are equally compensated with grace, a wedding feast and more.  This is helpful language, language certainly appropriate in the time of Jesus.  But today, I offer an additional image of the reign of God, one that comes to us from Catholic Cuban theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz.

A woman accustomed to seeing how absolute power, especially when only given to men, can corrupt absolutely, she offers instead the option to describe God’s reign in this world, not as a kingdom, but as a kin-dom.  A family.  Kingdom, she says, especially in her context where that great enemy poverty is rampant, can reinforce oppressive structures that keep women on the margins.  But kin-dom, that is a liberating word indeed!  The kin-dom of God, she says, "makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day-to-day reality in the world at large, we will all be sisters and brothers--kin to each other."

I think that’s what this fairy tale of Ruth is all about – giving us a picture of what the world looks like when we see that we are all family in the kin-dom of God.

Now, it just so happens that today, we are honoring a woman who, like Ruth and Naomi, embodies this so well.  I am certain she is weary of me telling this story, but I have to tell it again, because when you hear something that is Gospel, good news, you have to share it over and over again.

I am speaking of course about Jane, faithful member of this church, the well-deserving Presbyterian Women lifetime membership recipient.  Jane is why I’m here.  (You can thank or blame her later!)  God used her to show me what church can be, and still does.

You see, when I was interviewing with this church four years ago, I was also in talks with another.  A church in Texas, my home state.  I asked them and Cameron the same question: “What is a hope you have for your pastor?” 

A man on the search committee of that other church, who will remain nameless, said in a very gruff tone, “Well, I hope they know this church ain’t a cake walk!  You got work to do!”  Well.

When I asked that question of the search committee from Cameron via a Skype interview, Jane E. answered immediately, with deep emotion.  “We hope you feel like family, because that’s how we’re going to treat you.”

I was offered a call in both places.  It was a no-brainer.  Cameron Presbyterian Church, through saints like Jane, faithfully embodies what it means to be a part of the kin-dom of God. 

So today, I’m not going to push you to radically change how you do things.  I’m not going to urge you to treat one another like family.  You already do that, whether you’re related or not!  Instead, I say to you, to Jane, what I think God our Father and Mother would say, “well done, good and faithful servant.” 

Ours is not just a church of families.  Ours is a church that makes everyone feel like family.  That is why a happy ending in the fairy tale of Ruth and Naomi was possible. 

That is why we can hold the kin-dom of God alongside the kingdom of God, proclaiming that God has created us to provide for one another, until poverty, despair and injustice only remain in fairy tales, and are no longer a part of our world. 

If we recognize one another as kin, anything is possible.  If we recognize one another as kin, no one is left out. 
If we recognize one another as kin, the kin-dom of God comes, as God wills, on earth as it is in heaven. 

In the name of the God who cares for the orphan, widow and foreigner like family and calls us to do the same, and in the name of the Son who came to us through that line of Ruth and Boaz to reveal a kin-dom of grace, and in the name of the Spirit who is poured equally and powerfully on all, female and male, amen.