Presencing, and those in it with us

 Mother Mary and baby Jesus together with Zechariah and baby John the Baptist, in 15th century painting by Lorenzo Lotto titled "The Virgin and child with Saint Zacharias and John the Baptist"

Luke 1:57-80

Yesterday a few of us gathered for brunch and before we knew it, 2 ½ hours had gone by. I had a moment in the middle of it of recognizing, while it was happening, the beauty of the timeless gift of simple presence.

 

We’re three weeks into our Advent experience with Mary, and our own practice of presencing. Last week Mike told us “presencing is is the ability to notice miracles and wonders, and the will to make an appropriate response,” like “Thank you” or silence or blessing. He called presence “The ability to feel awe, respect, and gratitude to God’s coming near, and to make some kind of answer.”

 

When the Angel Gabriel invited Mary to carry Jesus, to bear God as God comes in to love the world, she was invited have her life commandeered by love. With awe, respect and gratitude, Mary answered, Yes.

She wasn’t prepared for this and didn’t actually have what it took. That didn’t matter. God came into Mary’s impossibility with grace, and claimed her for the embodiment of love. And now, from that point onward, she must now see the world as loved by God. She can’t not see all other people as those to whom, for whom, God comes in, because it is through her own body that God is coming to them; it is by her hands, and words, and actions, and tears, and laughter that God’s love would reach into the world.  

 

And she would not be in it alone. From the moment Mary arrived at Elizabeth and Zechariah’s doorstep, she was welcomed into this truth. This small, unlikely trio became the first human beings to bear among them the coming of God into the world. They bore it song and blessing, awe and gratitude, silence and presence.  These three people were redefined as recipients of God’s grace, insiders in God’s scheme to redeem the world, and God formed them into the community of the cosmic promise to which we too now belong. 

 

Their lives were invaded by transcendence, and now right inside their human weaknesses and mundane realities, their aches and pains, their muteness or pregnancy cravings, their regular, daily existence, they were sharing together the secret of the universe’s redemption. Right up against their own impossibility and the world’s, they began learning together how to live from the “nothing is impossible for God” reality that undergirds everything, always. 

 

When the time came for John to be born, Mary was there, assisting with the birth. She was there to hear the astonishing trust and confident hope in Zechariach’s voice when his silence ended, and to witness the shock when he proclaimed the truth that God had incubated inside him for nine months, the vision of God’s future breaking in. 

 

She watched Zechariah hold that impossible little baby in his old and wrinkled hands, and she was listening the moment his mouth was opened and he announced with conviction, His name is John - his name is “God is gracious.  God is merciful, God gives us more than we could ever even know to long for”- that is his name.  

 

Look at this child! he sang out to his neighbors and friends. Look at how God’s promise to our ancestors is coming to fruition, we are part of it! I am holding it.  Oh yes, it is coming! There is no doubt that God’s salvation of us all is coming.  

 

Mary watched as Zechariah turned and gazed into the brand new, blurry eyes of this utterly impossible child in his first minutes on this earth and he said,

 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

 

And so, God was preparing Mary for what was to come. And all the while, only she, Elizabeth and Zechariah knew this savior was already among them in that room, quietly, patiently waiting to be born.

 

Soon Mary would make the long, slow, journey back home, back to a Joseph—whom we will see next week, was even at this moment being brought into this community of promise, welcomed by an angel of God into his own place and part in God’s salvation of the world, so that by the time Mary will arrive, Joseph will be ready to welcome her and the impossible child she is carrying.

 

When, a few months later, Mary and Joseph will set out for Bethlehem, they will follow again the same route Mary took back and forth, and eventually arrive at their destination, about four miles past Elizabeth and Zechariah’s town. 

Then, while they are there, the time will come for the baby to be born. 

 

And just to correct our modern, individualistic, Western winter barn myth—where Joseph and Mary are all on their own, knocking on hotel doors, and being turned away by strangers while she’s ready to give birth any second—imagine instead the communal, first century, hospitality-committed, middle Eastern reality that archeologists and scholars describe. Here they will stay, for days or weeks, with countless relatives and neighbors, in the typical, modest, one room house, with a guest room on the roof, and a manger carved into the floor next to the lowered portion of the home that served as a kitchen in the daytime and a safe place to bed the animals at night. When God comes into the world and into their arms, they will not be alone; they will be surrounded by those to whom they belong, supported in community.

 

And so, undoubtedly, Elizabeth, Zechariah and baby John will be present. Elizabeth will attend to Mary as Mary did with her, and Zechariah will attend to Joseph, with the deep wisdom and presence formed in silence and contemplation, and the trust formed in watching the promise begin in the world through the birth of his own impossible son. 

 

The world is broken, and we live with impossibility every day. You and I can’t fix what’s broken. We can’t bring redemption. But we can be here for it. We can be with each other, ready, waiting, present to the God whose presence who comes to us as gift.

 

And tonight, we can simply acknowledge that we’ve been brought in too. Our lives, too have been commandeered by love. We too are recipients of God’s grace. We too are becoming insiders in God’s scheme to redeem the world, those who can’t not see all other people as those to whom, for whom, God comes in. 

 

We too are invited to recognize that it is by our bodies and prayers, our words and silence, our actions and stillness, our tears and laughter, that God comes into the world. In our own living and presencing, Christ is born among us.

And we too are not expected to have anything to offer to the project except our own willing selves – because, as we’ve seen over and over in the lives and stories of those gone before, this happens in impossibility and vulnerability.

 

And we’re not in it alone. We too are welcomed into the community of the cosmic promise, drawn into the now vast and timeless group of that includes people, right now, all throughout God’s beloved world, and these ancestors, and Mother Mary. And inside this small expression who gathers here, just like God gave Mary Zechariah and Elizabeth, God has given us each other, so that together we too might navigate the deep toll it takes to live in such stark awareness of being so very beloved, among and alongside all these other deeply loved humans on this planet for whom God comes in. 

 

So, tonight, as we practice presencing, and consider the appropriate responses that arise in such willingness to notice miracles and wonders, we’ll add to Mary’s “yes” and Mike’s list of thank you, silence and blessing, joy, which is perhaps the most instinctive and uninhibited response to noticing of God's presence.  

In other words, as we’re learning to live from the “nothing is impossible for God” reality that undergirds everything always, we will embrace the same readiness to deep delight and nearness to giddy awe with which angels will soon deliver to unsuspecting shepherds the good news of God’s coming near.

 

Let's move into our time of prayer with this poem by Madeline L’Engle:

"First Coming" 

 

God did not wait till the world was ready,

Till ...nations were at peace.

God came when the heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

 

God did not wait for the perfect time. 

God came when the need was deep and great.

God dined with sinners in all their grime, turned water into wine.

 

God did not wait till hearts were pure.

In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.

To a world like ours, of anguished shame

God came, the Light that would not go out.

 

God came to a world which did not mesh,

to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.

In the mystery of the Word made Flesh

the Maker of the stars was born.

 

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

 

 Amen.

 

Be Here Now

 

BE HERE NOW

A morning prayer (for Advent, Thanksgiving or whenever...)

 

Be here now, O my soul.

Be here now, O my God.

 

May I be. 

Just as I am without pretense or fear. 

 

May I be here. 

No other place my mind wants to take me. 

 

Not work or the worries of family or friends, 

not what I have to do or where I need to go. 

Just here. Right here.

 

May I be here now.  

No other time my mind wants to take me. 

Not past for regrets or nostalgia, 

and not future, for worry or planning or dreaming. 

Just now. Right now.

 

I trust you with this world and all those in it.

(specific prayers may be lifted up…)

Thank you God.

 

I trust you with those I love and all they are going through.

(specific prayers may be lifted up…)

Thank you God.

 

I trust you with my own soul, all that I carry and all that I am.

(specific prayers may be lifted up…)

Thank you God.

 

Of all life and being, you are God.

In every place, you are God.

In every moment, you are God.

You are here now, God.

I am here now.

Kara K Root, from Receiving This Life

The Zacchaeus in us all

 

Luke 19:1-10 There’s a little bit of Zacchaeus in all of us, and definitely Zacchaeuses we can point our fingers at in the world. At first this might not sound like a compliment.  (So, keeping in mind that while the version of the story we just read made it sound like after Jesus invited himself over to Zacchaeus’ house the whole conversation between Jesus and Zacchaeus happened right there on the street in front of everyone, by the grammar of the text, it’s more likely that the rest of the story happened inside Zacchaeus’ house, away from the listening ears of the crowd). Imagine ten years after the moment we just read and sang about. Imagine trying to explain to someone new to town what went down that day with Jesus and Zacchaeus and the rest of them. It might sound something like this: Jesus of Nazareth was coming to our town! It was the most exciting thing to happen in years. Famous for lifting up the poor, healing the sick, scandalizing the powers with his talk of God’s kingdom. Everyone turned out for a glimpse, to see him for themselves, to hear him speak hope and promise. Nobody wanted to miss it. But that little rat, Zacchaeus, that traitor to his people, arrogant and conniving, who hid behind his high walls and his piles of money, he wasn’t in the crowd. Then I saw him, down the road, racing ahead of the celebration. I watched him scurry over to a tree, and then, actually climb up it! Like a little kid! Ha! Looking over his shoulder, left and right, he thought nobody was looking, then hiking up his robes and grabbing a tree limb, he pulled himself into the branches, his feet scrambling to catch hold, and finally settled into the rustling canopy, then he held still half hidden in the branches.  How humiliating for him if anyone were to see him there! Lucky me, I did! I could barely contain my glee. He could never live this down. I would see to that.  Jesus and the crowd had just about arrived right under where he was balancing like a buffoon, but before I could nudge a friend and point up at Zacchaeus, Jesus stopped walking. Everyone grew silent. Then Jesus shouted up into the tree, “Hey Zacchaeus! Hurry up and come down from there! Today I am coming to stay in your home.” Well, if Zacchaeus didn’t drop right out of those branches, the little rat. The look on his face was astonished, ecstatic. He bowed to Jesus and stammered out that he would be most welcome, then ran off home to prepare.  We were dumbfounded; what in the world? The crowd started muttering in surprise and horror. Hadn’t Jesus been invited to stay in the homes of our most respectable people? Did he not know what Zacchaeus was? And yet, he called him by name! What did this mean?  Was Jesus even who he said he was?  Well, he went. He went to the home of Zaccheaus, the filthy tax collector. The whole household had rushed around, and rumor had it they had whipped up a feast lickety-split. No big feat though, while the rest of us might have struggled to pull off a last-minute dinner party for a visiting celebrity—would have spent weeks preparing and days making things ready—Zacchaeus always had more than enough food on hand, and more than enough servants to help prepare it. While they carried on into the night behind those high walls, the whole town was on fire with the gossip. Of all the places he could’ve stayed, why did Jesus choose the home of a despicable sinner? A bad person, who had turned his back on his own people, who lied and cheated every day? What was Jesus up to? Can you believe that? It wasn’t easy to tell you this story because to tell you the truth, I can barely remember what it was like then, what he was like before.  It must be hard for you to hear too, because you do not know Zacchaeus in this way.  You know him as Zach!  Yes! This is the same Zach! The Zach who invites all who are hungry, or down on their luck, to dine with him every night, who sees those in need helps us see them too. The Zach who uses his station to look after our village, to stand up to the Romans when they try to overstep.  Are you surprised that it wasn’t always this way? There was a before and an after; what happened that day changed everything.  After Jesus had stayed in his home, much to our amazement, the very next day, and day after day after that, Zacchaeus visited each person in the village. He brought the record of taxes and revealed in detail how he had cheated us. He apologized, and then, right there, he would open his money bag and pay back four times what he’d taken over the year. Person after person, household after household, he did this. If you think a grown man getting caught with his robes tangled around a tree branch with the whole town looking up at him is humbling, imagine him looking each one of us in the face, with the record of his own wrongdoing in his hands, confessing his sin and making amends.  The day Zacchaeus came to my house, a few weeks after Jesus had stayed with him, he looked so different it was hard to not to stare. His own eyes were clear instead of troubled, his forehead soft instead of pinched, his shoulders drawn back and his back straight and proud instead of hunched and furtive. Honestly, even as he brought himself low before me, he looked taller than he had ever looked. Can you even imagine what our community would be like without him? He's our Zach, humble, brave and compassionate, our trustworthy, village tax collector, Zacchaeus.   *               *               *               *               * Zacchaeus was lost. He had lost his humanity. Cut off from his neighbors, from himself, isolated and hated, feared and ridiculed. Zacchaeus exploited his individual power to get rich off of them, and they used their collective power to mock and alienate him. He thinks he’s such a big man but look at him, the shrimp! It’s us against him!  Then Jesus came to town. Jesus doesn’t play our games, or curate his reputation. Jesus ignores our judgments and rejects our labels. In Christ there is no ‘us and them’ only ‘us all.’ We turn one another into objects—objects of desire, objects of pity, or objects of scorn. Jesus sees only people, beloved children of God, all, every single one of us. No matter how we perceive the world or portray it, there is simply no one who doesn’t already belong to God and to all the rest of us, no person whose life is not for ministry – for caring and being cared for. When Jesus looked up into that tree that day, he didn’t see a corrupt and cowardly tool of an evil regime who had cheated his neighbors and profited on the misfortune of others. Jesus saw a beloved child of God. Filled with loneliness and longing, like everyone else. Born for belonging, like everyone else. Made to care for others, like everyone else. Unique in all the world, like everyone else. Guilty of bringing pain and suffering to others, like everyone else. Trapped in sin, aka, stuck in ‘a misdirection of the gaze' , like everyone else, helpless to free himself, like everyone else. Jesus saw a ready recipient of God’s mercy and untapped agent of God’s ministry. And whatever it looked like to anyone else, however else anyone chose to interpret what was happening in that moment, didn’t matter. Because what Zaccheaus heard was: The pain you’ve caused, the choices you’ve made, the labels you’ve earned or claimed or had slapped onto you by others, these are not who you are. You are Beloved Child of God, son of Abraham, member of the household of God, able to give and receive care.  I see you, Zacchaeus. And I’d like to spend this day with you.  Jesus came to seek and saves the lost. In every one of our lives, there are times when we are lost. Lost in pain or struggle, lost in direction or hope, consumed by the flames of anger or the fog of numbness, lost in who we thought we were or where we believed we were going. We might lose ourselves, become someone we don’t recognize for a time, or be lost to each other, behind walls we can’t break through and seem to keep building higher.  But we are never lost to God. God in God’s mercy—unearned, undeserved, unlimited grace—reaches us right where we are and brings us back home to the love of God that calls us by name and calls us back to each other. God releases us from our isolation and turns our gaze back to what’s real and true and unchanging. This is never not happening. How are you and I Zacchaeus? Where are we hiding in shame, trapped in our pain, stuck in destructive choices, or locked in labels, longing to catch a glimpse of hope as it passes by, but unable to join in?   And who are our Zacchaeuses? What terrible people would we rather mock and condemn than entrust to God’s mercy and receive in God’s love?  Whom would we be horrified to see Jesus choosing? We can’t change hearts—not other people’s and not even our own—but we can hold our hearts out toward God and each other, vulnerable, in humble hospitality to the Holy One who calls us by name, and to these holy ones we’re alongside here on this planet. Ready or not, Jesus keeps showing up among us with mercy, receiving our welcome and reorienting our lives. Thanks be to God, there’s a little bit of Zacchaeus in us all. Amen. (Sin as "a misdirection of the gaze" from Simone Weil, in Waiting for God)

The Temptation of Control

 I wrote an article for Faith+Lead about our new book and my sabbatical. 

You can read it here

The Book Has Launched!

 

Our book came out!

We've done a couple of podcast / interviews and, you guys, this is an excellent practice forum for letting go - because I HATE being interviewed. I feel so uncomfortable and out of control, so, here we go! 

We've also just been launched into empty nesthood and, Lord have mercy on me, the letting go of this stage is no joke.

So - coming at you as fellow pilgrims - learning as we go about accepting the uncontrollable and being present in this life with each other as pastors, parents and people, open to being encountered and transformed by something we can't make happen but can only receive and participate in.

Hope you enjoy it! 

I'll update links to reviews, podcasts and interviews here as they come: 

• Review: Presbyterian Outlook, by Philip Reed
• Christianity Today Interview
• Shifting Cultures Podcast
• Review: Joel Wentz "Are we trying to control our congregations and our kids??"

Sabbaticalling August - October

Who We Are and How We Know

 

 Esther (Bible Story Summary in bulletin here)

Who are we? What makes us who we are? How do we know who we are and not forget?  These are big questions, and the answers matter.

Right now our country is in the midst of these question on a large scale, which we saw played out this weekend in striking contrast of parade and protest, violence and voices, and at the moment, all eyes are on Minnesota at the moment as we reckon with political assassination – something that seemed like an ‘them, over there’ thing until it because an ‘us, here’ thing yesterday.  Is that who we are now?

I attended two funerals this weekend, and funerals also try to answer these questions.  Most funerals wrestle pretty directly with our two big questions, Who is this God and what is God up to? And what is a good life and how do we live it?  This weekend I heard that God is love, and Jesus came to share this life with us and overcome death, so that the separation of death we suffer now will not have the final word. And I heard stories of two very different lives, both lived well, lives woven into other lives with love, and lived for something bigger than themselves.  

How do we know who we are? How do we figure out what is God up to? What makes a life good, and how do we live well? These are not solo questions. We do not ask them alone. Faith is not an independent, self-directed thing. Neither is identity. We do not decide on our own who we will be. We get to explore and become, alongside people who see us and reflect back to us who they see us becoming, and encourage us in our exploring. We are always in context. 

To understand our context we use stories. The stories told at funerals and around the tables afterwards, describing scenes and moments, show us who people are, wonders what makes them that way, and so probe against the question of what a lifetime is for, and how to live it well. Stories tell us where we came from, and reveal how people before us navigated their lives. Stories help us to know who we are.

Reading the story of Esther on Purim grounds the Jewish people in their identity and context. Here was a time when they could’ve all been exterminated, and instead they were delivered. Here is another story of a Jewish person living in the royal court of their oppressors, like Daniel in Babylon, and Moses raised up by the Egyptian princess, and Joseph in Egypt before him.  Here is the story of a young woman whose courage to speak up saved her entire people throughout the whole empire. But she did not have that courage all on her own.  She said to Mordecai, “Have all the Jews pray and fast for me for three days, then I will go speak to the king, even though by doing so I may die.”

But instead of dying for approaching the king without permission, Esther’s request was heard, and the people were saved, and Haman was destroyed instead.  Mordecai himself announced the day of Purim should be celebrated, and so it still is.  

In telling it again and again, year after year, Haman becomes the representative of all anti-semites, and Esther is the paragon of courage. The story tells of this scattered and weak people, who by the hand of God, outlasted the Persian empire that almost wiped them out, and the Babylonian and Assyrian and Egyptian empires before that, and the Roman and Greek empires after it.  You come from somewhere! It says. You belong to something! Telling it again and again together, with food and ritual and songs and symbols and sounds and sharing with others and giving to the poor, helps to ground them in the truth of who they are and keep practicing who they are called to be. And it helps them watch for where God might be calling them to act now. Because in the book of Esther, God is not front and center. The people have to wrestle, and discern, and choose, and act, without some of the flashier directness God uses in other parts of scripture. So, it feels like the kind of discernment we modern people have to do too, when we hear Mordecai wonder if God might have allowed Esther to be in her position “for such a time as this.” And this ancient scroll drops that phrase into words the first time in human history. “For such a time as this” is the kind of line that blows open our imaginations, yanks us from our self-defined ruts and the constraints of what is – and propels us into the possibility that we’re actually living in a broader story, not dictated solely by what we can see, a cosmic timelessness that lands in time at certain points and calls us to respond.

In a little while we will gather at the communion table and we will hear the words of Jesus – the very words Jesus spoke over 2000 years ago, when he invited his disciples and so invites us all these centuries later – to come to this table, and share this bread and this cup – that this is his body and blood shared for us, his very life given for our life, drawing us into life that will not end.

How do we know who we are? How do we figure out what is God up to? What makes a life good, and how do we live well? 

Do this in remembrance of me, Jesus says. Come back to who we are together. You are not alone and apart. You are part of me and joined together as a people claimed for God’s way and defined by God’s love.  

Our identity is not our own. We are in Christ. That means that we have died his death and been raised into his life, and this life that cannot die is what defines us.  Sin says we are apart and against, we must earn our belonging and we can refuse others’ theirs, we have to hide in shame when we mess up and strive to make our life valuable on our own, but we are dead to sin. All need for fear and self-protection has died with Christ.  All our losses and pain are not ours alone to hold, we are held together by God in the hands and hearts of other people. Christ’s complete belonging to God and all others is given to us. That is who we are. Beloved Children of God, each one of us uniquely made and directly called to participate in and share God’s love. And we come from a community of those who’ve died and been risen to freedom and hope.  This identity is unshakable and secure, because God decides it is so. 

But sin is loud and fear’s voice is persuasive. We forget who we are. So when we come to this table, it is like sitting down to eat with all those gone before, and all those right now around the whole world who are also in this community of the died and risen One, whose lives are part of Jesus’ life, and who live as a people claimed for God’s way and defined by God’s love.  

Then we do what Jesus told us to do at this table, but we also retell the story. We remember how it began, and this remembering together and practicing together, helps us remember and practice being who we are right now, with courage and hope, and helps us look forward to the day when what we are practicing for becomes the full reality forever.  

Today we prayed a blessing on our high school graduates. As they keep asking the questions that human lives are shaped around, How do I know who I am? How do I figure out what is God up to? What makes a life good, and how do I live well? Their immediate context will change but their larger context remains the same. The somewhere and someone they come from is not just their families and friends, it’s us, but not only the little LNPC us here and now, the big us. They come from a story that reaches back to the beginning of time and forward beyond time, a story shared in ritual and rhythms, in relationships and in remembering. They come from Esther, and Joseph, and Ruth, and Samuel, and Jacob, and Hagar, and Moses, and Mary and Joseph, and all the followers of Jesus who had no clue what they were doing but followed anyway and God took care of them and invited them to join in what God was up to anyway. They come from these stories practiced in candlelit Christmas eves, and finding Easter Hallelujahs and being served communion by the person next to you, and most importantly, praying and being prayed for. Watching other people struggle with suffering and sadness, and holding them up to God.  Knowing other people are holding you up to God because they’ve literally sung “God in your loving mercy hear our prayer” about something you just named aloud. 

When Esther was faced with something impossible, something terrifying, with huge consequences – it could maybe save her whole people? Or she could maybe die? – she said, ask everyone to pray for me, and I will do it.  

When you belong to the people of God, you are not alone. The people of God are people of prayer, people who help each other remember it is God who saves, and it is God who acts, and it is we who join in, we who get to be part of the action and the saving that God is doing. These people are here in this room, and these people are everywhere. Your community is vast.

We live short lives inside a long story. Empires rise and empires fall, but God is constant. This is our context.  The people we love live their good lives and then die, and we miss them, and then we tell stories to help us know who they were, and know who we are because of them, and help us figure out what makes a good life and how we might live, and watch for what God is up to in all of this. And their life goes on beyond what we remember and so we remember that ours will too.  

As we bump along our own lives, mostly doing our best and making it up as we go, we are held in a web of story, and prayer, and remembering, and retelling. That is how we keep bravely asking the human questions, and this is how our identity is shaped and held. 

Who we are is the people who’ve died to death and been raised to life, who practice being available to God and letting God’s love and healing come through us. And in the cosmic timelessness of Jesus Christ, our lives are always for such a time as this. 

Amen.