Sunday, January 21, 2018

Join me in this

Calling Disciples, by He Qi

Follow me, up and down,
all the way, and all around.
Make it part of you to be a part of me.
Follow me, where I go,
what I do, and who I know.
Take my hand and say you’ll follow me.

(by John Denver)



When you are a pastor, it feels like you get a leg up on this text, because you make your living following Jesus.  How are we to follow Jesus?  One easy answer is to become a pastor. Boom. Done.  Box checked off – Kara and Lisa are following Jesus.  But what about the rest of you? How do you know if you are following Jesus?  
Let’s be honest, who among us even knows what that really means?

How do we follow Jesus in our lives today?
Maybe by being nice to people?  Jesus wants us to be nice to people, right? Ok, check. Mostly, at least, some of the time, anyway.
Telling other people about Jesus? Umm… the pastors are good on that one anyway.
Praying and read our bible?  Not as regular at these as I probably should be, but ok.
Going to church? You all get a check for this one today.  Good job.
 How about volunteering our time for good causes, and sharing our money with worthy organizations? Check.
Maybe if we do enough of these things, or if we have a day where we do several in the same day, then on that day we can really know for sure we are following Jesus. 

Or maybe following Jesus means believing certain things about God or life, I mean, that seems to be the way we most often define it. The only problem is that the list varies widely depending on who wrote it and when, so it’s a little foggy. 
Does your list include who to vote for and what to think about same-sex marriage, immigration or climate change?  Does it include the virgin birth, and Jesus as the Son of God, and the bible as the word of God? How many things do you have to agree with on whichever list you are using in order to qualify as officially following Jesus? When do you know if you’ve crossed the line into follower, and can you accidentally uncross it?

OK , so what if following Jesus is about how you life your life, then? 
Is that how we can tell we’re doing it right?  
But the nuns we stayed with up at St. Benedict's are following Jesus one way, and the Soldiers for Jesus International Motorcycle Club and Brotherhood of Christian Bikers quite another.
Are they following the same Jesus? 
And once we figure out what following Jesus means, how can we be sure we are doing it right? Or enough? 

It’s also clear that following Jesus means giving up something – like these disciples gave up their fishing job for their following Jesus job.  And maybe also their whole way of life and community and even their connection to their father. One friend said this week, “He’d just gotten business cards printed – Zebedee and sons, and off they went, leaving him holding the nets.”  We are pretty sure there is some kind of sacrifice involved in following Jesus.  
But most of us didn’t give up our home and go be missionaries in a foreign land, or take in disabled orphans and adopt them, or start ministries that feed homeless people, or whatever other superhero Jesus-followers we might hold up to compare ourselves to when we are trying to figure out how well we are following Jesus.

I would be willing to bet on the “How well are you following Jesus?” scale, very few people, if any, would rank themselves perfectly, including pastors. Most of us would take a “I could be doing better at it” attitude, even when we’re not entirely clear how “it” should look.

Then there are all those who say they are following Jesus, but they are doing or saying things that seem to completely contradict how Jesus was in the world. How can we make sense of what that kind of Jesus-following has to do with the kind of Jesus-following we might aspire to?  So we think they’re not doing a very good job of it, and they think we’re not doing a very good job of it, and somewhere in the middle of it all, we’ve all lost sight of Jesus himself.

So to sum up, then: 
- We know we’re supposed to follow Jesus, 
- We’re not sure we completely know what that means or how it should look in the world.
- We know it requires sacrifice, 
- By any measure, we’ve got a long way to go.

So let’s go back to this moment, before the disciples were disciples, when they were just fishermen, minding their own business, and Jesus calls them to follow him.

There is so much good in translations of scripture that remove barriers to understanding because they take out English gendered language to more accurately communicate what the original language meant say. When the NRSV says, “And Jesus said ‘follow me and I will make you fish for people,” it captures the true meaning in the Greek, which is that it is for everyone, humankind, not just men.  
But by changing “fishers” to “fish for” we make a noun into a verb, and lose something important.  Listen to it this way: As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”
This poetic contrast splits the open the word “fishermen” into “fishers of men.”  
In that moment, Jesus isn’t just giving them a different job, he’s giving them a different identity, a different orientation in the world. Instead of being fishermen – sustaining yourself in the world and contributing to the whole through this certain set of skills – you are going to be fishers of men – oriented Christ and thus toward other people. You will change, by turning away from the sea and toward your sisters and brothers around you.  
In other words, You are no longer a fisherperson. You are a fisher of persons.

“Follow me.” Jesus says, “and this is what will happen.” 
Jesus is not calling them to follow a way of thinking or believing. 
He is not saying, Acquire more knowledge, or Live differently.  
He is not giving them a list to check off to make sure they are honoring God or living a worthy life. 
He is calling them to follow him, a person.
Bonhoeffer talked about this as the Who instead of the How. Jesus doesn’t give them a How – How should we live? How should we follow? How can we please God? How should we believe, or behave? How do we know if we are doing it right?

Instead, the living God stands before them and calls them as people, to follow a person – the person of Christ.  Who is this calling to me?  Who am I called to be?  Who am I called to be with?  A short time later, they will look at him in the dead calm aftermath of a suddenly shuttered storm and ask, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

This one who calls you is God incarnate. He sees you as a who – and shifts your who away from whatever it is that gives you security, self-understanding and purpose, whatever you thought it is that tells you who you are by telling you how you should live or believe.
Jesus turns your who back toward God and out toward the world God is saving, to seek other whos, to seek Jesus there alongside, with and for these other whos in the world.  
It is not, How do we follow?  Or, How do we know if we are following? But, Who are we being called by, and Who are we called to?

This scene opens with Jesus proclaiming the good news, and what he says sums up the book of Mark’s whole understanding of what the good news of the gospel is: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.
Blah, blah, church language – let me break it down: 
There are two words for time in the Greek, chronos time, which is where we get chronology, meaning hours and minutes and days, and Kairos time, which means the right time, the perfect, opportune time.
Jesus says there is no better time.  Eternity is fulfilled now. Right now God’s reality is fully here.  God’s way is unfolding right around and in and through and despite us. 

So repent! which doesn’t mean feel really bad and apologize. It means, open your mind to this reality, wrap your head and heart around it. Shift your way of seeing to God’s way of seeing.

And “believe the good news” means trust it, the verb pistis is not believe with your head, it is trust your whole being to it. To say, “I believe you” is one thing. To say, “I trust you” takes that belief to a whole other level. 
So here is what Jesus is walking around on the earth, strolling across the beach that day, saying to people, “Wrap your head around this good news and trust in it:  God’s reality is right here, now.”

So follow me, Jesus says. Come join me in this new reality. Let me lead you in it.
And he finds first Simon and his brother Andrew, and then James and his brother John, and calls them with each other, because discipleship is not a solo gig, it always connects us deeply with God and each other.  
And so instead of calling them to a measurement of their goodness, or to right belief or action, he calls them to others, to trade being fisherpeople for being fishers of people.  And he invites them to follow him, to walk with him and live with him and join him in the world – not to adopt a new belief system, or take a profitable place in the salvation pyramid-marketing scheme.  Follow me. I will be with you. I am here. I will lead you.

This changes everything. For them. For us.
The moment is realized; God is right here now. Jesus is alive. Out there in the world. Right here alongside us in this room this very moment.  And he is always calling us to join a who – not adopt a how. Jesus invites us to come as whoswho we each are, and reach out to other whos, real people, and promises to be with us as we are with each other. 

We come here to to this place every week together do that-  to be with Jesus, and to be with other whos and ask together, Who are you, God, and what are you up to? And to practice listening together for God’s response.  So that when we leave here, we are more connected to the who of God and the whos of others, and we can go back into our lives not asking,
How do I follow Jesus today? 
How do I live a good life?  
How do I know if I am doing it right?  
But, instead, Who will Jesus bring across my path today? 
Who will I see Jesus in today?  
Who will see Jesus in me?  
Who is my neighbor? 
Who is the person behind the offensive armor and defensive rhetoric that I’ve labeled my enemy? 
Who am I called to be in this moment, this situation, this relationship?

And yes, it will cost us to follow. Every time we join our who with another who, it costs us.  When your who becomes mother or father, you no longer live for yourself but for this small person in your care. It costs you your freedom and independence, your separateness, and your sleep. 
When you fall in love and commit your life to another person, you lose your singleness, it costs you your autonomy and your ability to disconnect or not care about another’s suffering or pain. 
When we are living in the who of following Jesus, it costs us our illusions and our disconnection. We trade our way of seeing for God’s way of seeing and then we recognize that we actually belong not just to ourselves, but to each other. We are responsible for each other, to listen, to care, to open our lives to one another.  And when we are with and for each other, we are joining Jesus, who is the embodiment of God, right here with and for us.  This is what following Jesus means.


“Hey fisherpeople, Jesus called out that day, follow me and I will make you fishers of people!”  Join me and I will take away what you thought your life was, and give you back your life for real.  Wrap your head around this truth and trust in it: The opportune time is right now. God’s reality is here.  And it is found when we share ourselves with each other, when we open ourselves to Jesus, who sees us as we are, and who calls us to follow him.
Amen.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

What's really going on, and those who get it




Epiphany has come to be known as the celebration of the three kings’ encounter with Jesus, only in this text there are only two kings, and neither of them are the Magi. 

Our passage begins “in the time of King Herod”, and I translate, “In the time of a notorious authoritarian demagogue, enormously wealthy and notably insecure, a ruler obsessed with his reputation, who both taxed the people extensively and offered extensive job creation on vast construction projects throughout the kingdom designed to build up his name. Herod was a sovereign answerable to a foreign government, who spent lavish sums of money building up his own private empire and secure fortresses, whose rule was characterized by security measures aimed at suppressing the people’s contempt for him and keeping them from speaking out, and whom history remembers for both for his successes and his tyrannical despotism, in that  time…”
In the time of that “king”’s rule, comes another king.

A baby, born amidst a bit of scandal and a shotgun wedding to a carpenter and his young bride in Bethlehem of Judea, which, to translate again, means either born in a tiny, nowhere town on the outskirts and in the shadow of powerful Jerusalem, or means to be born in a place of deep significance – the city of David, where David was born, and was later anointed by Samuel, and then later crowned King of Israel. The place where the matriarch Rachel, Jacob’s wife, was buried many generations before, (her tomb is at the entrance to town). The place where Ruth and Naomi returned and lived. To the seat of power Bethlehem of Judea was an unassuming little town.  To the people of Israel, it was a city of identity and symbolism, a city of prophets, and kings, and divine direction “from of old.” 

We’re not even one whole line into this story and it’s already dangerous and provocative!

So what we’ve read so far could be stated, in other words, “In the time of a flashy, demagogue king of commercial success and paranoid dominance known throughout the region as “the king of the Jews”, after the King of the Cosmos was born, when the Messiah was a toddler hiding in plain sight in the modest, secret place of divine promise and deep and ancient authority…”

In THIS time
some magi came from the East to the center of Herod’s power asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him…

Now, while there actually are some wise men in this story. Scholars, sages, scribes – they are not the magi, they are Herod’s advisors. The ones who are gathered to tell the one in power what he wants to hear. These chief priests and the rulers of the people confirm what the prophets foretold – that the messiah would come from Bethlehem.
 
But the ones who followed a star from a distant land, the strangers, foreigners who didn’t belong in the picture, they were magicians, astrologers, mystics with a vastly different worldview and understanding of the universe than anyone else here.
And they were the ones who really knew what was going on.

They came in obedience, following a celestial sign, and when they arrived they were overwhelmed with joy, and they humbled themselves before a child and a woman.  And then, not one bit deferential to the whims and commands of the so-called rulers of this age, they defied orders and went home by another way.
Their direction came from the Creator of the universe, who guided them with stars and dreams, and chose to be revealed in the vulnerability of a child whose life was under threat from those whom the world saw as powerful.

I love this story so much for so many reasons. I love imagining the Magi showing up, and what it does to the neighborhood. Their otherness: Other clothes, other language, other skin, and hair, and smells, and mannerisms, and customs. The little town is invaded by otherness, in the form of these people who recognized, and came to celebrate, that this whole world has been invaded by otherness: “The word became flesh and made his home among us.” God has come in! Their arrival declares, and now resides, incognito, next door.

And I love imagining Mary and Joseph’s tiny circle of co-conspirators and witnesses, those on the inside who get what is going on – which so far, if we’re counting, has only been the two of them, Great Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Zechariah, a bunch of random shepherds – whom I like to imagine them staying in touch with – and old Simeon and Anna from the temple.  Can you imagine that crazy hodgepodge getting together for a support group?  You have all been part of this amazing thing, this story that is changing the world has changed you, and nobody else will get it, but as different as you all may be, you have each other, you all are in it together.

But then suddenly this tiny circle is blown wide open by these people from the other side of the world, who have nothing in common with any of you – they haven’t shared the same messiah-hopes, or the same ways of being captive or oppressed. They haven’t learned the stories or believed the prophets; they haven’t longed for the salvation of Israel, and they know nothing of David, or Moses, or Abraham and Sarah, any of those whose lives had gone before, through whom God has shaped the way.
 
Here come the astrologers. The ones who aren’t even looking like you do to your God and faith of your people- instead they are looking beyond this planet altogether for direction. They are watching the stars and measuring the universe for order and revelation, and their story of longing for hope and deliverance couldn’t be more different than yours.  But also, at its essence, it is absolutely the same. 
We all long for our source, the source of all life.  And when love comes in, they will load up their camels and cross deserts and mountains to welcome it, to kneel down before the one who brings in the real, who brings salvation. And in wonder you discover that you are in it together far beyond how you ever fathomed together could mean.

Two stories are playing out at the same time.
One is the story of a so-called king, locked away in his fortress, raging in fear, perceiving threats to his power and authority, using manipulation and flattery to coerce strangers- as though they are under his jurisdiction – to do his bidding, so that he can stamp out a potential usurper by any means necessary.
The other one unfolds in a simple home on a simple street, with an ordinary family opening the door to astonishing strangers from afar, who unexpectedly kneel before a mother with a child on her lap, and then give strange gifts and tell strange stories in a strange language, with charades and hand gestures, of a long journey led by a mysterious star, the very heavens pointing them to this precise place.

Oh, Herod. The real story is so much bigger than you. It’s so much longer, deeper, stronger and more significant.  God is doing this thing.  God has come, God is here – and this thing is moving toward its eternal and everlasting conclusion.
No matter how it looks on the surface at any given moment, the heartbeat underneath is love, and the project of a whole world indivisibly connected to God and each other, of all nature in harmony, and all people in family, with God as the true sovereign, who rules in disconcerting vulnerability and incontestable strength – like it or not, that is happening. 

And it can never be thwarted. Not by ego-maniacal leaders, not by the wisdom of the sages, not by coercion or might, or brutal violence or tragic suffering, not by anything human beings can forget or demand, or screw up or succeed at.  Nothing we can do, or not do, can stop what God is already doing. It is unstoppable.

And yes, we do a whole lot to muck it up –accidentally or on purpose.  We can act like we are divided, we can kill, and blame, and shut down, and overlook each other. We can contaminate the earth and wipe out whole species; we can ravage our own hearts and minds and go numb or afraid – and fear can make us do terrible, heartless things. But no matter what, God is doing this.
It can happen through us or it can happen in spite of us, but God’s project of redemption and wholeness is under way, and it will not stop until all that remains is love.

Today’s scripture is about some, one especially, who missed it.
Who lived in the way of fear, obsessed with his own security and power – and ultimately lost it anyway because death is real, triumph is short-lived, and permanent success is an illusion. 
And it’s about some who got it.
They set down everything and went on a long journey to lay themselves down at the feet of it, to welcome in the divine with ecstatic joy.  They let it shape them, each moment, taking it in, noticing, listening, sharing, and then getting up and going home by another way because ultimately security comes not from what we build up for ourselves or tear down in others, but from trusting our lives to the Great I Am, who directs the whole universe in true wisdom. 

And even when this King, who starts out his time here submitting completely into the arms and care of those made in his image, grows up to be killed by these he has come in to love and save, even that does not stop the project, it only cements it deeper and opens it wider.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. Not ever.

We have a choice. We can look at what is right in front of us at any given moment, and we can live in fear. We can believe that the powers that rattle their sabers are the real powers, and that the terrible damage they can do – and they can do terrible damage – can break us, or make the world go off course.
But we are the others, brought into this story not through the genealogy and messianic longings of our people, but through the strangers who followed the stars. We are people called to lift our eyes to a further horizon.

The whole world is in on this conspiracy.  
Every blade of grass, and creeping insect; every daily sunrise and blazing planet, light years away.  We are people of this infinite vista, this vast, cosmic perspective, not bound to look only to the situations in front of us like Herods, captive in fear to events and circumstances by which we stand or fall, driven to go after our enemies or hide in fortresses of false security.
We belong to another narrative; we are subjects of another king: the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, eternal and omnipotent. 
And this King has come; and now there is nothing, not anything, that can separate us from the love of God.  God’s redemption is under way already and forever. 

In the tides of history, there is, as Ecclesiastes says, nothing new under the sun.  Nations rise and fall. Great leaders come and go, fools rise up and disappear, fear dominates and wars rage, babies are born and gardens are tended and beloveds die and are buried, their graves are covered with new fallen snow, and the sun melts the snow and spring comes again, and love, love, love, happens, in between, in all the nooks and crannies, weaving us together and weaving us into the story that cannot be derailed.  God’s story.  There is never anything so bad that it can alter the origin or the outcome – it all comes from God and to God it all returns.
And in the in between time, God comes to share it. 

And we get to share it too. 
We get to be in it together with all the otherness and beauty that is in it with us.
And we can even know that we are in it while it’s happening, not just when it’s all over, looking back to see that we mostly missed it.
We can choose to be guided by the deeper, eternal force of love, instead of the shallow whims of panic, the rise and fall of drama and dread, addicted to the non-stop fluctuations of worry, frenzy and regret.

This is God’s world. We are just living in it.
Arise, shine; for your light has come, 
Lift up your eyes and look around…
Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and rejoice. 
Nothing can stop love and forgiveness, nothing can hinder hope and healing –the most terrible things we can imagine can not stop God from acting.  
And God wants to act through us.
This weekend your session went away to ask the wisdom that directs the universe to direct us.  We went on a retreat to listen to God and each other with vulnerability and trust. God’s will, we said, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. And it wasn’t easy. But we tried to shed the things that hold us back, and we kept acknowledging our anxieties instead of hiding them, and naming our frustrations, and discomfort at not all seeing things the same way. The world right now tells us that different opinions means we can’t belong to each other, but we kept reminding ourselves our different perspectives were ok, a gift, actually. And we kept recommitting to ourselves, each other, and the task of listening deeply to the divergent voices and shared humanity, common calling and guiding light of the Spirit. 

We prayed for our nation, and for our church, and for ourselves.  And we marveled at God’s faithfulness to the band of people who have been meeting in this place to seek God together for 96 years, and holding with great care our own little chapter, that we are seeking to live as honestly and bravely and faithfully as we can.  And we left last night both weary and strengthened, with the gratitude that comes with sticking in there with God and each other, that stretches our souls a little wider and a little deeper to prepare us for what’s next.

We're invited to kneel before the hidden, humble king, a baby savior, who saves us from all the darkness within and without, and brings together strangers to surrender in joy to the love and hope embodied in their midst.  We're told to hang onto ancient and cosmic promises,
and not to cower at bullies or venerate false power. We're meant to pay attention to dreams, to find solidarity with people we think of as other, and to bear gifts for the unsuspecting. We get to trade false security for the vulnerable and life-altering journey that makes us weary but strong, and willing to be redirected and sent home another way.

Fear and love. 
Power and weakness.
Rulers and strangers.
In those days, in these days.

Two stories unfold; two stories are always unfolding.
One, as dominant as it sometimes seems, and as compelling as it often appears, will end. 
It is mostly illusion, anyway.
The other story is the story of God. It's the real one. Eternal and unstoppable.

And I, for one, am not going to miss it.

Amen.

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