Waking Us Up

 Matthew 21:23-32

Friday afternoon Maisy and I were standing in line at the doctor’s office waiting to check in for our flu and covid vaccines, when a young man sitting on a chair in the waiting room slid off his chair and began having a seizure on the floor. Easily 25 people were watching this. Me included. I saw right away what was happening, recognized it as a seizure, and stood rooted to the spot. 

I felt conflicted and also numb. Should I do something? By what authority would I intervene? Why me and not someone more qualified- we’re in a doctor’s office! What would people think if I just rushed over like I knew what to do, which I don’t. I am one of dozens of people here.  So, I just stood there. We all just looked on in silence.  Nobody moved.

 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was probably only 20 long seconds, a tall young man stood from his seat and rushed over. He turned the seizing man onto his side while his body tremored and shook, and then announced, loudly and clearly, “We’re having a seizure here. We need a doctor.” He was not a nurse or doctor. He was a fellow patient waiting for his appointment, just like the rest of us.

 

His action shook a few of us from our stupor. Another woman stood and joined them. I told the front desk what was happening; they paged for help. It took a terribly long time for nurses and doctors to arrive, but then they all seemed to descend at once. Maisy and I checked in for our appointment. The incident hung over us as we got our shots.  As we left the building, we watched the ambulance drive away with the young man inside.

 

Maisy said to me afterwards, “Mom, we all just consumed it, like it was on TV. We all just watched it happen instead of being people in the moment. We’re so desensitized; we weren’t even present.”

 

And I think she’s right. But our screens in front of our faces as modern people is just one way we get lulled into complacency, accepting lies as truth, which is to say, accepting that other people are none of our business, have nothing to do with us. Accepting that we are separate and unrelated, that we do not belong to one another; that we do not belong to God’s work of love and healing. That division, or isolation, or scarcity, or competition, is just the way it is. 

 

Just the day before this charged conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees, Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey in what we call “the triumphal entry.” (We’ve skipped ahead because we save these stories for Lent).  He went right into the temple—where the people are to gather in God’s presence—and saw in front of him a whole industry built up for putting barriers and hurdles between God and people. And he smashed it all to bits, throwing over the tables and scattering the money. Then he brazenly distributed healing to all who had need. He left the chaotic scene and spent the night elsewhere; but the next day he returned, and now the leaders are seething. 

Nobody likes to get called out. That whole table-turning thing was a real PR disaster.  It’s time to assert the upper hand, reestablish their rightful place in power.  So they question Jesus in front of a crowd. “By what authority do you do these things?” 

 

We all get caught up in comparing and competing. We think life is filled with scarcity and judgment, and our worth is earned, and can be lost. That’s life in the Way of Fear.  But, really, we all belong to God and to each other. This life is for receiving and sharing; we’re claimed by love and created for joy.  Jesus lives completely in the Way of God. In his very being, he is the conduit of this reality, holding all it is to be human together with all it is to be God, embodying in every moment our connection to God and one another.

 

So it’s a pretty funny question for them to ask him: “By what authority do you do these things?” 

Actually, by the authority that spoke creation into being and breathed life into the earth creature in God’s image. That spun the galaxies and flung the stars, filled the deep oceans with mysteries yet to be uncovered, and infused the earth with regenerative abundance. By that authority, Jesus brings healing and wholeness to people. By that authority Jesus calls out the Way of Fear and calls us back to the way of God. 

 

Standing there, with that authority pulsing through his veins, Jesus also has bottomless love for every human being, for even these angry, scared, adorable men standing here puffing their chests and weaving their word-traps. As he takes in their posturing and plotting, compassion and pity, longing and love fill him.  

But Jesus has no tolerance for their games. They want to act like ranking and earning and division and the things that stand between us are the real things, and he will not stand for it. Not for a second. He turns their question back on them, and they’re too afraid of upsetting their constituents to answer. You can’t answer about John? Jesus responds. Then I won’t answer about me.

 

Then he shares a story about a son who tells his father he’ll help in the vineyard and doesn’t do it, and a son who says he won’t help and then changes his mind. Which one actually does the father’s will? he asks. The answer is obvious.  If you trust you are part of the household, then act like it. Don’t talk like you do but act like you don’t. Behave as though you belong to this reality, because you do. Take up your part. Join in.

 

These people who are supposed to help others see it and live in it, the leaders in the temple, they talk about God’s reality, but they don’t recognize it in front of them. They’re so caught up in the fear and sin that they stay untouched, unaffected by the suffering of others, even by the hope and healing unfolding in front of their eyes when they witness what God is doing through John.  

 

The one who rode into town on a donkey yesterday ushers in a new reality. One of freedom. Those trapped in broken bodies are set free. Those trapped in a broken system that exploits and oppresses are set free. Those trapped in hypocrisy and self-protection are set free.  And, as Jesus tells the flummoxed and defensive leaders, some people experience and embrace their freedom sooner than others.

 

On Friday, when the tall young man dashed over and knelt down in that doctor’s office waiting room, tenderly turning the seizing man onto his side, his words and actions said, This man belongs to me. We belong to each other. And when he called out loudly, with authority, “We are having a seizure.” He asserted that the separation we act like is between us- is false. He put himself right there, alongside, with and for. He acted with what Bonhoeffer called “Stelvertregung” or “place-sharing.” When he said "we" he was living from our true humanity. When he shared this stranger’s place, we all saw Jesus.    

 

By what authority did this young man act? By God’s claim of love on us all that gives us to each other to love.  You and I carry within us the authority to forgive, the authority to step in and speak up, the authority to release burdens and speak words of grace and truth, the authority to kneel down beside a suffering stranger and command the room to wake up and see each other. 

We move through the world with Christ’s life pulsing through our veins, and access to Christ’s bottomless love for each human being. And when we assume the inner stance of least resistance, we’re open to hear God’s Spirit call us. We’re available for the power of God to move through us. We’re willing to be awakened and brought back into the real reality of love.  

 

Jesus comes in to share the darkest and most terrifying moments, when our weakness and helplessness is on full display, with the word “we.” We are in this together. You are not alone. I am here. I will not leave you or forsake you. And he does this through us.

 

Seeing someone act from the real reality while I stood motionless, revealed sin’s grip on me, which is to say, it showed me how I am trapped in the Way of Fear. I, who am supposed to help others see God and live in God’s reality.  Also, I, who teach about sabbath, but resist resting. I, who say all the time that God will lead us and provide for us, but feel surprised when it happens. I, who tell others to trust God with our lives and loved ones, but get pinned down with worry.

 

I could have let that moment when faced with my own hypocrisy and lack of faith send me into shame and defensiveness. I could have compared and condemned myself for my paralysis. Let it burrow me deeper into the Way of Fear. But I witnessed the Way of God in front of my eyes, and I choose instead to receive that gift.  

 

We belong to each other! That man on the floor belongs to me! The man who helped him belongs to me! All the people in the waiting room, with our own illness and fears, our own insecurities and worries, whatever stopped us from getting up, or compelled us to stand after he was already being cared for – we all belong to each other.  None of us deserves it, and none of us is denied it.

 

Someone living out what I believe in front of my eyes invited me back into the Kingdom of God. Live like it’s true. Live it and trust it. Don’t just say you do. Live the belonging. Take up your part. Join in.  

 

Jesus is about waking people back up to love.  Sometimes the summons is gentle; sometimes the summons feels harsh. Whatever invites us back into the way of love and connection and belonging is what Jesus brings. 

 

I am grateful for this weekend’s wake up call.  

Amen

The Rigged Game and the Real Love

Luke 16:1-13

"The parable of the dishonest manager." 

First of all, it’s hilarious to me that this guy is called the "dishonest" manager.   He seems brutally honest to me. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m too ashamed to beg. That is some self-honesty there. 

But let’s just stop for a minute and acknowledge before we dive in any further that this is one of Jesus’ most difficult parables, because it kind of sounds like the Son of God is saying God’s people should be more manipulative and unethical.  At least he does say we could learn a thing or two about shrewdness from folks like the dude who cheats and steals and lies, whose apparently commendable act is to use someone else’s money to buy off people, so that when he needs something they’ll help him out.

Commentators and preachers go to great lengths to pretty it up – they say he eliminated his commission or his own salary, so he was being generous and didn’t cut into his boss’s profits.  They suggest he forgave illegal interest, or was a mistreated worker bringing vigilante justice to an unfair system.  Anything to rescue Jesus from this disaster of a parable.  

 Luke seems so uncomfortable with this parable that he tacks on a bunch of additional takeaways for us, like he’s just giving up, What does it mean? You decide!
Here are some of Luke’s suggested applications, paraphrased:

•       Liars gonna lie. When people show you who they are, believe them. 

•       Respect is earned and trust is gained.

•       If you can’t be relied upon look after the neighbor’s dog well, what makes you think your parents would ever get you your own? 

•       No one can play on two teams.  You’ll be loyal and give one your best effort, and and neglect and resent the other.  You can’t serve God and wealth.

All of these are fine take-aways, so we could stop right now and each pick whichever one tugs at us the most, and call it good enough.  

But I think this is a great opportunity to circle back to something that has been so foundational to us as a congregation that it has changed how many of us live our daily lives, and certainly how we are church together.  Session just reiterated last week about how important this perspective is to us, and we haven’t explicitly spelled out in a while.  Bonus, maybe if we remind ourselves of this perspective again, we’ll get some insights into this perplexing parable as well.  

So here it is: The way of fear vs. The way of God.

There are two competing narratives all the time, everywhere, in life, in scripture, in media, in the structures we occupy, in the air we breathe.

 Our instinctive go-to is based on the earliest lie, which says we are in this alone and God can’t be trusted. We’re convinced that the goal of life is security and self-sufficiency at all costs. The Way of Fear builds on that lie to say that the powerful matter and the weak don’t, that having more makes you better, and that all human worth is earned. So those around you are competition for your resources, threat to your security, or obstacle to your goals. There is us and there is them, enemies and allies, and if you’re not with us, you’re against us.   

Scarcity is the rule – there simply is not enough so take what you can and guard yours well. And that’s not just money, that’s also things like respect, dignity, opportunity, voice and worth, limited commodities all, so only some people can have it at any given time.  Safety and well-being is hard to get and easy to lose, so never slow down, never give up, never let go, never lose your place. You must be vigilant about self-protection and avoiding weakness, or even the appearance of weakness.  Life is an uphill battle, a never-ending to-do list, a criticism factory churning out judgment, comparison and shame, packaged in urgency and anxiety, and coated with desperation to avoid death that smells like younger, fitter, better, more. 

This week in the news, the way of fear was on display. It’s a system that uses human beings in need as pawns in political stunts, and then turns around to use them again as trophies of political self-righteousness.  A system where the movement of goods matters more than the lives of the people transporting them.  A system where people have to choose between food and rent while big companies rake in record-breaking profits and refuse to lower their prices. A system where the quality of the healthcare you can expect to receive can be predicted by the color of your skin.  This is what the way of fear looks like. 

In contrast, the Way of God is the real reality under it all.  The truth is that life begins in abundance and gift, and the earth and everything in it belongs to God, who made us for connection with God and each other. This belonging is foundational and permanent. Even when we forget or deny it, it remains.  There is nowhere God’s love does not reach, and nothing God’s love does not bear.  Each person is loved just as you are, and you are not meant to be “perfect,” just meant to be you, the only one of you God will ever make on this planet.  Together in all our glorious difference, we live alongside all these unique others who are in it together, with and for each other in this life as siblings and friends, companions who bear each other’s pain and joys.

There is enough for everyone because what we have is for sharing.  It’s all meant to work together in harmony.  And no matter what it looks like at any given moment, it’s all heading toward complete connection and wholeness, because God is the one who decides the end, and in Christ, it’s already been decided.  We can live in freedom and rest, we can join in redemption and hope, we can take in wonder and joy, and we can face our losses knowing death is not the end of the story, that life and love are eternal.   

In the news this week the way of God was on display in a high school football team coming together to rebuild a bridge destroyed in a storm, a billionaire giving away his entire company to support climate action, and a close-knit island community dropping everything to provide food, clothing, housing and a warm welcome to unexpected weary travelers, sitting together for hours and listening to their harrowing stories, witnessing the bond of mutual care they’d forged with their fellow travelers navigating horror and hardship.  Drawing on their own sense of community and resilience through hurricanes and covid, these people relished the chance to minister to strangers, opening their hearts to true encounter that not only helped those whose lives are currently in upheaval, but also enriched the lives of those surprised in an ordinary week by the gift of their arrival, reminding them all that we all really do belong to each other.  That’s the way of God peeking through.

 So back to this parable, which is all the lodged in the way of fear. The so-called “dishonest” manager oversees corrupt wealth for an unethical rich guy in a broken system. And perceptions matter. If someone thinks his manager is stealing, the owner is firing him whether he did it or not, because the reputation of the business must not be tarnished. 

 The game is rigged. It’s all pretend. The manager’s actions expose as much when, after he uses his last act to slash the debts of his boss’s debtors, instead of exploding in rage, a slow smile creeps over his boss’s face, and he claps the manager on the back and bellows, “Touché!” 

 And it took the man losing his job to wake him up to how messed up it all is.  
What really matters? What is really real? 
Our belonging to God and each other.  
 
So much of life functions in transactional relationships. What can we get from the other person? And that way of functioning is still at play for our manager. It’s maybe all he knows. So he thinks, I don’t have the skills to make it out there on my own! But I do know transactional relationships. If I reduce their debt, they will be obligated to welcome me in.  
 
But what interests me here is that Jesus rephrases the man’s thought and reiterates his point, when he closes out the parable with, “So I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” He added the word eternal. 

Eternity in scripture isn’t so much about time. It’s about substance – quality of being. Eternity is love, underlying, overlaying, everlasting, permanent love, love holding it all.  
What would it be like to be at home in love? 
To move in the world connected in love? 
To know you are welcome in each other’s love and to have love to welcome others into?  
 
I think our deeply honest manager, who knows his own limitations, who knows the jig is up, who is being ejected from his secure and comfortable seat in the way of fear, wonders about this, doesn’t yet know how to get there, but he knows he wants it.
 
As the clock is ticking down, and security is about to escort him and his cardboard box from the building, he uses the tools of the way of fear—the cunning, manipulation, and transactional relationships, the familiar resources at his disposal, along with the last bit of leverage he has while he still has access to the account passwords—to lower debts, buy good will, and reach out for connection, in an effort to propel himself into this something else, this deeper thing, the intangible, authentic and eternal.
 
Maybe he wonders if his life could be for something more, if he could maybe experience the belonging of being at home in love, of moving through the world connected to others in love, instead of existing as a cog in the wheel of commerce, comparison and corruption.
 
Luke says we can’t serve two masters, God and wealth. In other words, we can’t let our lives be for both the way of fear and the way of God. We will either pursue personal security at the expense of trusting God and upholding one another, or we’ll embrace connection and reject rivalry and scarcity.

Serving the one master got this manager nowhere. So, while he’s not sure yet how to serve the other, he’s going to take a stab at finding out.  Kudos, good sir.  More power to you.
 
I think generations of Christians are scandalized by this parable because we sort of believe our religion is meant to make us good citizens that prop up the dominant system with sound investments, ethical behavior and upward mobility.  It’s offensive to hear Jesus tell a story of someone blowing it apart and then praise him for it. 
 
But it’s all pretend. None of it will last.  
All that matters is what’s eternal -  love.  
 
We can choose to surrender to the love that already holds us all, the belonging that already connects us, and practice living in that eternal reality until that becomes the most familiar and natural way to be. 
 
Or we can live in the way of fear, scarcity and anxiety, dutifully striving away for what doesn’t last.  And when something punctures that and we have to face our own weakness and isolation, we can take comfort in knowing that, however mysterious and ungraspable it is, the way of God is here to meet us, even if our way of reaching for it is flawed and corrupt.  

We belong to God and each other, and every time we remember that--no matter how we turn back to that--we will be welcomed into the eternal home of love. 

Amen. 
 
 
 

The deeper truth

 

Devotion for Being Apart -
October 4

I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been shared on this blog.

Psalm 19

This weekend I’ve been cranky and frustrated and weary.  I can feel it when "the insolent have dominion over me."  It churns inside me and I have to let it out by adding to the noise with my own rants of incredulity and horror.  Andy calls it, “The Kara Talks Over the News About the News Podcast.” But I can’t help myself.  The Psalmist, most likely King David, prays, “Keep me back from the insolent, Lord;” I say, “Let me at them!” 
 
Right now there are so many voices, so many words. Shouting over each other to be heard. And we are listening to them all, taking them into ourselves, letting them shape us, make us afraid, anxious and angry, tying us in knots, paralyzing us.
 
As the decibels get turned up and the rhetoric roars in these next couple of months, Richard Rohr last week advised we safeguard our souls by standing “as a sentry to the door of our senses” and limiting our news intake to an hour a day. He said, “It will only tear you apart and pull you into the dualistic world of opinion and counter-opinion, not Divine Truth, which is always found in a bigger place.” 
 
Divine truth is always found in a bigger place. Bigger than opinion and counter-opinion. Bigger than fear and division. Bigger than viruses, and sickness, politics and fires, racism and power-mongering, bigger than all the words and voices that separate us into for and against, or seek to steal our hope.  But these days, I frequently feel pulled into the dualistic world. I often feel torn apart. 
 
This might be a good time to refresh ourselves on the Way of Fear and the Way of God that have guided us for a while.  Because this whole prayer, this poem, is celebrating the Way of God. It is resting in the confident peace of the bigger place, and by praying it, David is helping himself return to that place, being put back together. 
 
The Way of Fear begins in self-sufficiency and judgment; it curls us in on ourselves to seek security, self-preservation and personal glory, even at the expense of others.  Our worth is earned, having more makes us better, and other people are competition for resources or obstacles in our way –they exist to be used or discarded.  Every moment the world is urgent and dangerous so we can never let our guard down; and there is no stopping or resting or we will lose our place. In the Way of Fear, we walk through the world ruled by death, threatened always by the fear of loss - loss of dreams, plans, reputation, belonging, so we are dominated and held captive to isolation and suspicion.
 
The way of God begins in gift and abundance. This is the bigger place where the Divine truth is found.  We are created for connection and belonging, so the way of God opens us up toward the world and one another. We are loved just as we are, and meant to live fully this one wild and precious life we have been given. The people journeying alongside us are neighbors, friends, siblings, not threats, rivals or competitors.  We need each other to be whole, we have everything we need, and what we have is for sharing. We are meant to stop frequently and purposefully, to rest and receive this gift of a life, and because most of the things that really matter are slow and take time. The world is filled with beauty, infused with the life of the God who holds us all.  
Life in the way of God is shaped around the justice that means everyone has what they need, the kindness that means “I will stand with you,” and walking humbly—vulnerably, honestly—with our God, (Micah 6:8) who never leaves us nor forsakes us. We’re made for life—to seek life, and nurture life, and contribute to life for others—to feel joy in our deep abiding connection to God and each other. The love of God that breathes all life into being holds us and connects us, and nothing in all of creation can ever separate us from this love, so we are free to be with and for one another fully and wholly.
 
David’s Psalm reminds us that this message being proclaimed all around us, in ongoing expression, it’s being told every moment, just not with speech or voice.  Just not in the way we’re bombarded with.  The deeper truth is being told, from a bigger place than opinion and counter-opinion.
 
But the deeper truth is set at a different frequency. We have to attune ourselves to hear it. It sounds like music, and poetry, and windsong. It’s heard in children’s laughter, and snoring dogs and growling stomachs and sizzling food. It's expressed in quiet sighs, and unrestrained tears, and gentle pats, and falling rain. 
 
The whole cosmos declares the wonder of God, David writes, this vast, living container of a world witnesses to what God does.  Even though it’s not amplified voices and teleprompter speeches, God’s way is talking to us all the time; the deeper truth goes out to all the earth. When we forget there is a God, we quiet ourselves and listen for the voiceless voice, the speechless words of creation’s message. No matter how loud the noise of fear gets, we can hear the humming world to remember there is a God over all of this.
 
The second movement of David’s poem celebrating the way of God is for when we forget who God is and who we are meant to be with and for each other.  David gushes about the law of God – God’s way is not chaos and cutthroat; it’s not everyone in it for themselves. It’s ordered by love and designed for belonging. It revives the souls, and makes wise the simple, and rejoices the heart, and enlightens the eyes. It is pure and good trustworthy and true.  And at any moment we can turn to the wisdom of our faith, and immerse ourselves in scriptures - the words of Jesus, the prayers of Psalms, and the stories of the struggles and conflicts of the faithful who have gone before us, in their own forgetting and remembering that there is God who loves, and orders and intervenes in this world, we are reminded too. 
No matter how bitter the division and turmoil, and how disordered things appear, we can feed ourselves on the precious gift of scripture and words and writings of women and men of faith who’ve gone before, to remember who God is and who we are meant to be with and for each other. 
 
And David’s final moment is within, turning right toward God it shifts the mic from creation and scripture to our own mouths.  When we forget that we belong to God, and find ourselves overwhelmed by hopelessness or swept up into the discord, we speak to God directly from the heart.  God see me as I am. Clear out everything in me that gets captive and caught in the way of fear. I am being dominated by the disdainful and contemptuous; I might even be disdainful and contemptuous myself.  May the words that come from my mouth, and the thoughts that swirl in my heart, be part of your reality, be reflections of your love and care for all people and this whole wide earth.  Keep me in your way, O God. Keep me here.
No matter how badly we feel torn apart, polluted with and sucked into the fray by the undertow of despair and disgust, we can open our vulnerable hearts right to God and ask to be cleared out, put back together and set right to remember that we belong to God, and we can trust and rest in God’s reality.
 
In the midst of the fires and the virus and the crazy politicians, God is still good. In all things, no matter what they are, God is still moving the world toward goodness. 

We can choose to listen to the voices fighting for power, splitting us into my team against your team, and echoing sonorous speeches of doom.  But day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge of a good God whose purpose for the world, for each one of us, is not hindered or stopped by the violence of our rhetoric or the damage of our actions.  And we can choose to listen to that instead.  
 
God’s way of love and justice and standing-with-you kindness moves through it all – in the middle of the suffering, right up against loss, not backing down from fear or the noise, and paying no mind to the mindgames or the power plays.  Because in Christ our God is right here with us, in the death, leading to life, the light shines that no darkness can put out.  Behind, underneath, through and always, gently and unceasingly, God’s way persists and prevails.
 
 CONNECTING RITUAL:

Before we go to bed, whenever that is in our home, may we pause pray, and so our hearts with each other and the world:'

God of all,
help me listen to Divine truth in the bigger place.
Attune my heart to your frequency, Lord.
I want to see hope, and feel joy, and recognize love
and share all these things with others.
I want to be grounded in the wisdom that transcends the noise.
I want to be brave to face suffering and pain,
knowing your love meets us there too,
there especially.
I want to see you, Jesus, here with us.

Free me from the way of fear.
Help me to live in the way of God.
Teach my heart to hear
the voice of truth.
Amen.

Prescription for the week:  Limit news to one hour a day.  Take some or all of these supplements: Read poetry, listen to music, spend time in nature, read the bible, read some of the mystics, or writers Henri Nouwen, Eugene Peterson, Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris, sit in silence for five minutes, tell God whatever is going on in your heart.