Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Ubuntu Unfolding

I'm still jetlagged – awake before my children for the first time in years.  I’ve just returned from Cape Town, South Africa, where I spent a week “drinking from a firehose” – taking in the amazing social, political, geographical and cultural sights and sounds.  It is a country of contrasts.  I was amazed by the upfront honesty in the system, the recentness of the history of this country and the remarkable things that have happened and are happening in reconciliation - along with the incredible disparity that still exists, and the deeply ingrained racism that will take generations to eradicate.  But the openness about things is truly striking - and just opening the "world" section of the Cape Town paper is very telling.  The articles yesterday said nothing about wars, violence or natural disasters (what my local paper would have reported).  Instead the top stories were all snippets from other countries about racial equality, struggles for independence, leadership owning their issues, and the like.  It is a very interesting lens through which to view world politics.  
We spent one day at Robben Island - where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years, guided on a tour of the prison by a former political prisoner, who goes every day to work in this place he was cruelly confined, to give tours and teach about the past, about the importance of forgiving but never forgetting.  Each morning, he leaves his comfortable house where he lives now with his family on this same island where he was tortured, and waves good morning to a former guard, who also lives and works on the same island for the same reasons.
We visited a former Methodist church, which is now the District Six museum.  District Six was a dynamic, multi-ethnic neighborhood that was razed in the 70s after being declared an "all white" area.   There we met a Muslim man named Noor Ebrihim, whose family had lived four generations in the neighborhood.  He had experienced true harmony between religions and races, closeknit connections with neighbors and community, sharing each other’s holidays, even.  And then one day he watched bulldozers destroy his home and saw the family next door split up – husband sent to the colored township, wife and children to a black township, allowed to see one another once every few weeks, only if the pass was approved, for the next twenty some years.  Noor worked at the District Six Museum to tell his story and the story of his community, and to preach the message of hope – that such racially and culturally diverse communities could exist and thrive, as he had known in his childhood in that very place. 
As part of the government reparations, Noor is having a new home built largely by the government, where his old home once had stood, and he is beside himself with joy at the thought of moving back into District Six.  Finally new construction is dotting this barren spot in the center of the city.  Many whites had refused to build and settle there as their own protest against the injustice of apartheid and the relocation program.
The next day we visited one of the largest townships, Khayelitsha, where 1.5 million people live in abject poverty in shacks with sparse electricity and many still sharing bucket toilets.  It bumps up against the main freeway that still has World Cup billboards up, and we drove past it on our first night as we left the state of the art airport and headed towards the million dollar homes on the coastline.  
The system has eradicated racism in its policy and practice, but in reality, in this once all-black township 55% are unemployed and 40% are HIV positive.  There are new immigrants moving in every day, and with millions still living in these race-segregated townships, racism is a deeply ingrained issue that seems to have almost insurmountable obstacles before it.  For me it shed new light on the civil rights struggle in America, and made me think again about our own Indian Reservations, and the racism we often proudly act as though we've long moved past, (even in the midst of such things as the fervor and debate over the Islamic Cultural Center near the former World Trade Center site). Standing in South Africa and looking over at my own country, our politics and history, the American church, and our national self-understanding made me feel both ashamed and challenged.  I fear that we are, as a whole, an appallingly dishonest and self-righteous people.
I read Mandela's (long) Long Walk to Freedom while I was there, and am now reading Archbiship Desmond Tutu’s book, No Future without Forgiveness, where he describes the astounding work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  He talks about an African concept from the Bantu language of South Africa that is deeply theological and profound, Ubunto. He describes Ubunto as, “the essence of being human.”  Tutu says,
Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.
We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

            Our guide through Khayelitsha township was a man named Monwabisi  Maqog, who fought against apartheid, trained as a soldier in Angola and returned to continue the struggle through violent opposition.  He was one of those who believed that all whites should be “driven into the sea.”  He was captured by the police and tortured, which damaged his body permanently, and he lived for a time in deep depression, nursing hatred for his captors.  It was in this dark place that he first met Jesus Christ, who was tortured and suffered alongside him, and he embraced ubunto and forgiveness.  He later tried to find each of his captors so that he might forgive them in person. 
One of his former captors would not meet with him and insisted Monwabisi would never find him.  Monwabisi discovered where this man lived, went to his posh white neighborhood, and stood behind his house.  His wife was doing dishes at the kitchen window and when she looked up from her work, he waved at her and she waved back.  That evening he phoned again, asking to meet the man so that he might share his forgiveness.  The man refused and insisted again that he would never find him.  He said to him, “Man, I do know where you live. I was at your home today. Ask you wife if a black man waved at her in the window. I could do anything to you, but I do not want to harm you.  What I want most is to look you in the eyes and forgive you.”
Monwabisi now lives in Khayelitsha with his wife and children and works widely in the community for reconciliation and forgiveness.  He is the pastor of one of the thousands of small churches nestled amid the crowded shacks, with a dedicated ministry to those suffering with HIV and AIDS.
            Monwabisi, Noor, the former prisoner and guard, our generous hosts (white Afrikaaners training people for youth ministry in their context), an Afrikaner family we ate dinner with one night who had given up a lucrative job and a church position to instead work with women and children in a township in a job and education empowerment program, the young Afrikaner woman who told me about her generation’s experience of racial reconciliation and self-understanding as a nation – these were just a handful of the faces on the story of South Africa that amazed and inspired me. 
“We are all in this together,” they all said.  “What happens to one of us affects us all.  We are connected.” And so, there is Christ.  Christ is present as we are connected to one another in forgiveness and shared suffering, Christ is present in Ubuntu, in Koinonia; in the Kingdom of God unfolding among us.  And I am a witness that God’s kingdom continues to break into our world and call us to participate.  May we be both humble and brave enough to join in God’s kingdom, in koinonia, in ubuntu, as it breaks into and seeks to transform our own lives and communities.

Photo above: Post World Cup, children playing soccer on the edges of Khayelitsha, near live electric wires lying on the ground.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Homesick & Hopeful


This week our church building was filled with an unfamiliar noise and energy.  We hosted our much anticipated Movie Camp, put on by Dean and Kirsten Seal for some teenagers from St. Joseph's Home for Children.  This space was filled with energy of youth, stirred up, excited, playful and fearful.  There were watchful adults, you could feel the yearning in them to care for these children, putting up safeguards, telling them no, while also affirming and praising the young people. 
As part of their movie-making process, they looked at four parables, stories of Jesus that give a glimpse of the kingdom of God, and the one they chose to use for their movie was the Prodigal Son.  What is this story about? Dean asked them. And they identified tension between the siblings, the recklessness of going off and spending your life in bad ways, they recognized the waste and the jealousy, the desperation and the hopelessness.  They understood these things, they made complete sense to them. 
“What do you think it is about?” one asked Dean.  And he answered, “I think this is about the love of God. God loving us so much that he will never, ever stop loving you, no matter what you do.”
His answer floored them.  One of them asked in disbelief, “Are you saying God loves me even after all the terrible things I have done?”  A child asked this, a broken child.

Later in the day, another child looked at Dean in utter incredulity and astonishment at his simple words, “Great job, you did really well with that.”  so foreign was a compliment, so unfathomable that someone would call him good, or appreciate something he had said or done.

I have to believe there is more.  That each one of these children, moving into an uncertain adulthood, matters to God, that what the world has told them and they have told themselves about who they are, is not true, that there is something greater and deeper they are meant to be. 
And so we step out in faith, we act and move and speak from a truth that isn’t what we can necessarily see before our eyes, but is truer and more real, something that comes outside of space and time, from the eternal and unchanging truth of God.

And so Dean, and Kirsten and the St. Joe's Chaplains, Umo and Marty, and the other leaders did just that this week. They acted from a different truth.  In this truth, these children were creative, responsible, intelligent; they were capable of writing music, of leading scenes, of interpreting scripture.  This week these children were not problem kids stuck in a holding pattern while forces outside their control determined their fate. This week they were actors, directors, collaborators. 
And when the week was finished, these smart, funny, creative kids had told a story about a parent who loved his child so much that it didn’t matter what she did, she was always welcomed home with love, forgiveness and open arms.

They’re back at St. Joe’s now, of course.  The week doesn’t go on forever.  And their lives aren’t made any better, necessarily, by having had this week. Except this week gave them a glimpse of the promise, and us as well, that we are part of a different reality, citizens of a different homeland. And we are not there yet, but we journey towards it with the promise of its coming.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.”  Faith makes concrete and tangible the promise that is real but often invisible, it puts flesh and blood and tears and laughter on this thing that sustains us.  So we live in faith by living like its true, even when everything around us would have us believe otherwise.

"By faith," writes Frederich Buechner, "we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth….Faith is the eye of the heart, and by faith we see deep down beneath the face of things – by faith we struggle against all odds to be able to see – that the world is God's creation even so. It is he who made us and not we ourselves, made us out of his peace to live in peace, out of his light to dwell in light, out of his love to be above all things loved and loving. That is the last truth about the world." 

Abraham didn’t ever get to see the promised land.  He “greeted the promise from a distance.”  And yet the promise sustained him, and he stands in our scripture today as an example of faith.

We might tend to romanticize Father Abraham, the New Testament does indeed, but don’t forget his tumultuous story of faith.  The Old Testament scripture reading tonight is from Genesis 15, the promise given to Abraham and Sarah:
 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great."15:2 But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"  15:3 And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir."  15:4 But the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own offspring shall be your heir." 15:5 He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."   15:6 And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

God had promised this several chapters earlier, several life events before, Abraham had been told that he would have a child, that God had big plans. And Abraham obeyed. He left everything to set out on this journey and wait for God’s fulfillment.  Three years, five years, ten, twelve, fifteen years and he is getting nothing but older.  And so is the barren Sarah. 

And in the meantime he has some seedy episodes.  Remember when famine drives them into Egypt he hands over his wife to Pharoah, pretending she is his sister, to protect himself?  And he and Lot, his nephew and business partner, have a falling out and go their separate ways.  And through all this his relationship with God is developing, but still he waits. 
And now God reiterates the promise, and Abraham believes him.  But even that trust, that faith, has a rocky path of belief and doubt, hope and mistrust.  Even that "righteousness" is filled with attempts to interpret the promise and take matters into his own hands.  And he does try on his own, with the means and methods he has in his power, to make it happen. 

But God works out of impossibility, out of barrenness, out of the mean and unviable situations, to bring life where there is no possibility of life.  And so despite Abraham’s shaky trust, despite his disobedience, despite his doubt and his frustration and his unbelief at times, God is faithful.  God sustains him in this bond of faith. 
Abraham tasted the promise, he held Isaac, he glimpsed the promised land to which his people were being led, and he understood that he was living inside the grace of God – the realm of God’s kingdom.  And so despite it all and even within it all, he is held up as an example of faith. 

Again, from Frederick Buechner: "Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises….Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting." (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons). 

We are people not at home, people who crave and wait and hope for the promise.  And we live in faith, in waiting, in homesickness, we live out here and now the promise we know is coming.  And in that way we experience the it, we share it, we see it and recognize it and participate in the promise. 
We are honest and brave. 
We doubt loudly and fall hard, and still the promise holds us. 
We live in, and live out, the love of God, that never ever lets us go, 
no matter what.
This is the life of faith.

Hear this Prayer by Thomas Merton:
 "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. 
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. 
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. 
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." (Thoughts in Solitude).
Amen.

Two weeks ago, as we talked about prayer, and God's desire that we come to God in honesty and shamelessness, we gathered into this box some things we were feeling or thinking that we did not think we could tell God.  We wrote down our secret questions, anger, fears and worries- the things we least think God would want to hear from us, and considered that one of the last things on the lips of Jesus was MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?  This is an act of faith, of trust and honesty to bring these things to God, and so as part of our prayer, we wrote them and put them into this box.  I want to give you a moment to think about what you wrote, to hold it in your head and heart, and as we begin this prayer time tonight, we are going to place this box into the fire, releasing those words to God, letting them go.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Greed, Worry, and a Fearless Life


When my grandfather was dying, after my grandmother had already passed away, my mom and her sisters began labeling things in his house.  This was different than the labels they had put up before.  The previous labels were to help my grandfather out, help him remember things:  “here is where you put your laundry.” “Here is where you keep your glasses.”  Each cupboard in the kitchen had photos of a different one of his grandchildren’s families, a family tree of smiling faces surrounding him whenever he went to get a cup of coffee or a bowl of cereal, each face labeled, “David's daughter, Megan.”  “Kara’s son, Owen.”  His living legacy plastered around him in photo paper and scotch tape.

But the kind of labeling my mom and aunts began doing towards the end was another kind.  See, my grandfather was a depression-era pack rat.  What the farmer in the parable had planned to do, my grandfather actually did, he built additional buildings to store his accumulated possessions.  And the buildings even had names – Bo’s abode (where my aunt’s fiancĂ© stayed before they were married), “Dot’s mink” (the building my grandfather built my grandmother, Dorothy, in lieu of the mink coat she had asked for), the “carriage house,” (because a “barn” filled with junk was simply not classy enough).  And at the end, every building was full to overflowing with stuff.  Cool stuff, stuff that we grandkids liked looking at: 1920s shoe shine kits, hat boxes, hand-me down magic supplies from my great grandfather, the magician’s, collection.  He had saved tools and silverware and bottles, furniture and lamps, records and old jewelry. You name it, you could find it in one of his buildings.  And the house itself held the most sentimental and treasured items. 
And towards the end the ladies started labeling things. “This sideboard goes to Holly.” “This china is for Carole’s daughter, Kristen.”  They did so with the utmost effort at fairness, but also with fierce attachment to certain items, so there were inevitable quarrels and compromises.  We grandkids were just excited to see where money may be hidden.  My grandfather had a habit of taping envelopes with wads of cash in them behind furniture and under floorboards.  His house was a treasure hunter’s dream, and he had spent a lifetime filling it.
But as he lay in a nursing home, dying, his family was dividing up his legacy, splitting up his stuff, cleaning out his barns so they could be sold to someone else who would tear them down to build a bigger, fancier place of their own. 

And I think about my grandfather, all those years, collecting and saving, storing up just in case you might need something, tucking away dollar bills as a kind of stealthy safeguard, a secret armament against the unknown.  But then you die anyway, and who’s will all that stuff be? Well, quite practically, the kids will take what they want and get rid of the rest.  And it’s gone. Just like that. Just like you.

“Jesus, help us sort out the family inheritance. Jesus, make him give me my fair share. Jesus, my dad would have wanted me to have this, I always said that one was mine. Jesus, tell him to share!” quarreled the brothers.
“No.” Jesus answers. “I am not your judge or mediator.”
And then he takes things in an interesting direction. He turns to the crowd and begins to talk about greed, the insatiable desire for more and more. “Your life does not consist in the accumulation of possessions,” Jesus says.

Really? It doesn’t? That’s not what I’ve been taught.

I’ve been taught that it’s up to me to look after me.  And more stuff, more money, makes me more secure.  It is a fool indeed, who does not save, but just flies by the seat of her pants in today’s world.  The job market is a scary place to be stranded, families often cannot afford to take care of aging parents, or take back in grown adults who have lost their way, or their job, or their home.  This is a definite fend for yourself kind of world we live in, and being foolish would be to ignore the facts.

So when Jesus tells the story about the farmer with the windfall crop, I think the guy’s plan to build bigger barns sounds pretty reasonable, prudent, far-sighted.  And I can even relate to what he says to his soul, which I think is the heart of this story.  With a satisfied and relieved smile he leans back, closes his eyes and murmurs, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be content.” 

Aaahhh. Wouldn’t that be nice? 

 In our house we have something we call the “Mystical 2000.”  This is an arbitrary amount of money, sometimes it could be $20,000, but the mystical 2000 is the amount we are just shy of, to feel secure.  The roof is getting old, if only we had just $2000 more, we could be ok if in one of our big summer rainstorms the roof begins to leak. 
The car’s warranty has run out, and so has the computer’s, if we just had $2000 more we could have that buffer for the inevitable breakdown of an essential daily gadget that we cannot survive without.
And you can play this fun game in any scenario – if we had $2000 more each month, think how much we could save up for Owen and Maisy’s college and regularly put away for retirement!  If we had $2000 more a month, maybe we’d take vacations more often, pay down student loans, and think how much more generous we would be with others!

Like the grass is always greener scenario, we imagine the our mystical 2000 could make us feel safe, confident, protected.  And ironically, no matter how much things have changed in our lives, through student housing and having children and owning a home and working two jobs, making far more than we did way back when, the mystical 2000 remains the same.

In our parable today, the farmer has his mystical 2000. The excess has come, and now his big problem is to figure out how to store it.  See, if he can store it up he can finally relax, if he can tuck it all away, this bounty could sustain him for years to come. He can eat, drink and be merry, because this money will keep him from dying! 

Wait, what?  
Well, isn’t that the gyst of it, really? 
We want not to worry.  We want not to fear.  We want to feel secure, safe.  We want to pretend that death - and all its frightening foreshadows -  is never coming, and maybe we can fend it off if we dig our heals in hard enough, hedge our bets well enough, buffer ourselves and posture and pad our lives with enough, we can be safe from the unknown, we can anticipate and fend off the bad things.  Maybe we can control how things will go and keep ourselves from suffering. 
We don’t really, in our core, believe this is possible, but much of the time we act like it is.  Because we don’t want to feel afraid. And if we let ourselves see how vulnerable we really are, how little control we actually have, the terror could swallow us up. 
So it becomes a real quest, how indeed, should we store up that extra insurance so that we can finally stop worrying?

I once had a kind and brilliant theology professor who said that all sin boiled down to two things: Self-preservation and self-determination.
Self-preservation means that it is up to me to look out for me, I will uphold my safety, my security, my very life at any cost, even if it means dehumanizing others or myself to do so.  I will preserve my self.
Self-determination means that I, and nobody else, will decide who I am.  I will be who I want, go where I want, do what I want, no matter what impact it has on anybody else.  I will determine myself. 
Both of these deny my creator and overlook my fellow human being.  Both of these degrade my self as being made in the image of God and part of God’s creation.  And when I am in this mode, it doesn’t matter who God is, it doesn’t matter who my neighbor is, it doesn’t matter who I am or was called to be, what matters is that I never am vulnerable, never unprotected, never weak or exposed.  I am only ok when I have that mystical 2000, but it always remains just out of reach, so I will keep striving, keep accumulating, keep fighting towards it until I am certain that I am absolutely secure.  And then my life is driven by fear and by worry.  And I am alone in the running of it.

Worry is a terrible thing.  A terrible and frightening affair. 
Whenever my five year old, Owen, is overtired, he lays in bed and worries and cannot fall asleep.  His mind begins to churn out his fears.  He fixates on them and they grow, larger and larger, pressing in on him so he cannot possibly relax enough to sleep.  Worry about school, worry about T-ball, worry about something looming on the horizon that is filled with unknown.   
And being a kid, he doesn’t have a whole lot of control over his environment; he hasn’t yet learned all the tricks that we grown-ups have to keep worry at bay.  He doesn’t know about life insurance and savings accounts, living wills and homeowner’s coverage and extra large barns filled with surplus wheat.  So he has to rely on his mom and dad. 
And we come in the room and we listen to his worry. And then we remind him what’s real. 

“You are loved, you are known, you are not alone.  You don’t need to worry. 
Fear is not in charge of you, God is.  You are our kid, and we are your family. God has given us to each other, to love each other and remind each other that we belong to God. 
And some of these things are scary, and some of them are outside your control.  But you’re not in this alone, and God knows just what you need.  And letting yourself worry, letting fear be in charge, can’t really change a thing. All it does is make you scared and keep you from really living and enjoying your life, which is a gift from God who made you and loves you and will never let you go.”

And this is a little like what Jesus said to his disciples, after the disgruntled brothers have wandered off to find someone else to sort out their money problems, and the crowd dwindles away having been chastised about greed and reminded that death gets us all in the end (and no one can know when that end will be), Jesus turns to his disciples and he says,
 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!
And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We can’t do anything about death, which comes for us all.  And with the very biggest barns and most clever safety measures, we cannot prevent suffering or protect ourselves from pain or loss. 
But, nevertheless, we do not need to worry.  
Nevertheless, we are invited to live generously, freely, joyfully, rich toward God; 
we are invited to live without fear.

Because our life is a gift from God, God’s own treasure.  It’s not up to us to protect ourselves, preserve ourselves or determine ourselves.  We belong to God.  God who made us and loves us and will not let us go.  God who came and suffered death right alongside us, for us, so that we are not alone, and so that death would not get the last word after all.  
Our treasure, our legacy, our true wealth, is our life, secure and made alive in Christ. 
Our life is a gift of love meant to be used and shared, meant to be lived fully and fearlessly in this passing world, and one day forever in joy when God’s kingdom is all in all. 
Amen.

How to Repent (It's not how you think)

Psalm 46 ,  Jeremiah 31:31-34 When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion o...