Life goes on

 

In Meditations from the Heart, Howard Thurman writes:  

During these turbulent times we must remind ourselves repeatedly that
life goes on.
This we are apt to forget.
 
The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms;
the purpose of life outlasts our purposes;
the process of life cushions our processes.
 
The mass attack of disillusion and despair,
distilled out of the collapse of hope,
has so invaded our thoughts 
that what we know to be true and valid seems unreal and ephemeral.
There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.
 
This is the great deception.
 
By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion 
without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength of the clean and the commonplace.

Let us not be deceived.
 
It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces
by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained.
 
Birds still sing; 

the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam over the desolation of the battlefields,
and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gracious deed.
 
There is no need to fear evil.

There is every need to understand what it does,
how it operates in the world,
what it draws upon to sustain itself.
 
We must not shrink from the knowledge of the evilness of evil.
Over and over we must know that the real target of evil is not destruction of the body,
the reduction to rubble of cities;
the real target of evil is to corrupt the spirit of man 
and to give his soul the contagion of inner disintegration.
 
When this happens,
there is nothing left,
the very citadel of man is captured and laid waste.
 
Therefore, the evil in the world around us must not be allowed to move from without to within.
This would be to be overcome by evil.
 
To drink in the beauty that is within reach,
to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness,
to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God
in the quietness of the human heart and in the workings of the human mind—
this is, as always, the ultimate answer to the great deception.

AMEN.

It needs to said

 Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Paul can be really esoteric and theological, with paragraph long sentences that strain the brain. But then suddenly he’ll get really practical, punchy and concrete. All that to say, I wonder what was happening in the community that Paul felt the need to specifically address the thieves in the church. 

A few decades ago, we had some thieves in this church. I called Gary for the story and he directed me to Dick. Dick was on the counting team and began hearing from folks that their offering checks weren’t being cashed out of their bank accounts. This went on for a couple of weeks, and he asked Warren to look into it. Warren had heard that a few kids had been spotted going into the bathroom during worship. So he went to investigate, and found a stash of checks stuffed behind the radiator. 
 
For these details, I called Warren. The boys had been pocketing the cash from the offering plate and ditching the checks where they thought they would never be found. 
They were called into a meeting with the pastor. She told them if they’d amend their ways, she would not turn them into the police. They agreed to give up their stealing. But things were tense for a while. They’d taken some $1500 of the congregation’s money. And their parents were prominent members, embarrassed by their kids’ behavior. 
Warren had the kids do things around the church building, like yard work, cleaning the toilets, and miscellaneous painting jobs inside and outside the building. He set the number of hours that they had to work off and tells me he thinks they learned a lesson. Those kids presumably grew up to lead productive lives. 

The congregation showed those boys kindness, and the kids themselves learned they were not defined by their violation but claimed by the community as beloved children of God. 

This letter to the Ephesians says Christ has broken down all dividing walls and made us one new humanity. Our personhood is upheld in the upholding of each other. We’re not apart and alone, we’re in this life together. And our worth and place is not determined by what we do, but by what Christ has done. 
 
“Thieves must give up stealing,” Paul says. Fair enough.  Seems like good advice. But Paul doesn’t say “Don’t steal because it’s wrong.” Or “Have a little self-respect.” Or, “Do some good, honest work to make something of yourselves in the eyes of others.”  Paul says, “Give up stealing, do honest work with your hands, so that you have something to share with those in need.” 
We are not restored to our humanity and belonging by reclaiming some individual, personal dignity. We are restored to our humanity and dignity when we can act for one another in belonging.
 
The way of life Paul is describing is counter-cultural. It’s counter-intuitive. He’s just gotten finished saying we’ve been given new life in Christ, so live like what’s true is true. And here’s what a good life looks like. Then lots of concrete, even ordinary advice, plus a word to the thieves.
 
So, if Christ has made us free for a life of connection and fullness, how do we live this life?
First, Paul says, it’s putting aside falsehoods and telling the truth in a falsehood peddling world.  It’s normal for us these days to tolerate and spread rumors we know are not true to cut people down (as J.D. Vance has discovered).  We regularly claim complicated things are simple, and treat complicated humans like they’re simple. With photo filters and curated posts, we make our lives look sparklingly authentic and perfectly genuine, while hiding our weaknesses and hiding behind our politics or our labels.  
Paul says tell the truth. Why? Because we belong to each other. When the world says we’re apart and against, and we need to be thick-skinned and self-sufficient, we tell the truth of our belonging and our vulnerability, we live the truth of our shared humanity. 

Second, and not unrelated, Be angry, Paul says, but don’t sin.  My friend Jason is a pastor. After the death of his grandparents his family was feuding over the inheritance. On the way into church one Sunday morning, he got a call that his uncle had burned his grandparents’ farmhouse to the ground.  When he arrived at church Jason was full of anger and sorrow. 

But instead of hiding his anger behind religious platitudes and pretending everything was fine, he told the truth. He stood in front of his congregation and shared about the phone call. Then he said, “Right now I am really, really angry. If you need pastoral care this week, here is another pastor you can call.” 

To smother anger is to take it to bed with you, to bring it into your next day, and the day after that, to feed it until it grows so large that it turns around and smothers you. Don’t make room for the devil, Paul says, which is to say, don’t entertain temptation. Don’t indulge the craving for revenge or control. 

When Pastor Jason confessed his pain and anger to the people of God, he leaned into the belonging that holds us. And in doing so, he both invited care, and also showed those who might have been afraid of their own anger or sorrow, that if they shared their pain they would be cared for too. He trusted that God would move him through the anger and out the other side, though at the moment he didn’t see the way, so he let himself be where he was, where Jesus is, where Christ can us.

Third, in this life of new humanity in Christ, Paul goes on to remind us that what we say has power. How we speak to each other matters. Our words can tear people down, our words can build people up. 
 It’s like the Rumi quote Kristen always has at the ready:
Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself, “Is it true?” At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?” At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?” ~ Rumi

Cruelty is lazy. And can even be momentarily thrilling. It’s rewarded these days too. To let fear rule us, to turn off our hearts and brains and let the reactive part of us be in charge for a minute is just easier. It feels good to be the windshield and not the bug.
But then, if we’re paying attention, it feels terrible. Because to act with malice toward each other is to act against our own humanity. When we try to unbelong others we deny the very belonging that defines us. 

The currency of the Kingdom of God is kindness. Like the kindness the congregation and pastor showed those little Lake Nokomis thieves 30 years ago, and the kindness Paul calls the thieves in Ephesus to show to those in need by giving up stealing and working hard to make a decent living in order to care for others. 
 
Our words, Paul suggests, can give grace. Astoundingly, this means that the God of the universe can speak to people’s hearts through our mouths. People may hear the truth of their own worth and place because of what you and I say. And if our words, and our actions, can participate in the activity of the Divine claiming and healing the world, what is a good life if not that? 
 
The underlying, irrevocable fact Paul is trying to get across is we are all in this together. Kindness is living our belovedness with each other.
But lordy, it takes a beat. A pause to shift there. Thank God Paul says all this, because it all needs to be said. The way of belonging to God and each other needs to be remembered and practiced together. I need to remember and practice it. I need to be pulled out of myself to truly see others, even sometimes those others I love most in the world. We need a confession-repentance kind of deep breath moment of realizing we’ve slipped back into living the bondage we’ve been freed from, and turning our hearts back to God. Because in our own power we can’t muster the kindness, or brave the truthfulness, or extend the forgiveness, or do the not slandering, especially if we’re angry, or scared, or just plain tired. And we’ve had plenty of practice at the spite, apathy and lies.
 
But Paul just got finished saying we are being rooted and grounded in love. Like plants, with roots nourished deep below the earth, and sun shining from above, you and I are being actively tended and cared for, so that what comes from us and lives through us is love. So that we live in love, and for love. This is what Christ did, and the power of the Holy Spirit does, in us. 
 
And the deeper we are rooted and more we are grounded, the more love invades our cells and whose we are comes out in who we are. We find ourselves trusting belonging, welcoming others in and leaning in ourselves to the love that holds and upholds us all.

Christ has already made us one; that part’s not our job. Our job is to practice living what’s true. And we do it in really concrete and ordinary ways. So in this practicing, trusting, honest kind of life, may we be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us, and be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 
Amen. 

Perspective

Matthew 2:1-12

Isaiah 60:1-3

 

The story of Epiphany unfolds in a simple home on a simple street, where an ordinary-seeming family opens their 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, revealing to them that the God of the cosmos has come into this life with us, for us all, and is indeed embodied in this drooling toddler sitting before them.  And the mother and father, who - along with her formerly childless aunt and uncle, and a few local sheepherders – have carried this secret knowledge for a couple of years by themselves, are suddenly reminded of the scope of things by those from afar whose presence in their living room declares in no uncertain terms that the whole universe is in on this thing, that in their beloved child God is actually here, and his very existence in her arms has changed life for every person who has ever or will ever live. 

 

That’s Epiphany, celebrated by millions of people for two thousand years. But we tend to miss that at the time, the real story was just an odd little scene on the margins of another story that was far more visible, and it’s impact seemed far more real and pressing to far more people. 

 

The other story is of a so-called king, notably insecure and obsessed with his reputation, name locked away in his fortress, raging in fear, causing all in the land to be terrified and worried about what he might do, because he’s fixated on this perceived threat to his power and authority – a baby, he’s told by these foreigners, who has been born specifically to claim what has been his title, “The King of the Jews.”  So he uses manipulation and flattery to try to coerce these scholars from another land to do his bidding - as though they are under his jurisdiction or influence – so that he can stamp out a potential usurper by any means necessary.

 

Oh, Herod.  Poor, frightened, tormented Herod.  This 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 among us. And there is nothing you or anybody else can do about it.

 

No matter how it looks on the surface at any given moment, the heartbeat underneath is love.  And this 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, or their misguided and vengeful followers, not by the wisdom of the sages, or the coercion of earthly power, not by the tragic dysfunction of broken systems or the excellent functioning of perfect ones, not by widespread illness or concentrated madness, 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. 

This is the message of Epiphany.

 

Today’s scripture tells us about some, one especially, who missed God. Who lived in the way of fear, obsessed with their 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 tells us about those who welcomed God in. Who set down everything and went on a long journey to lay themselves down at the feet of the divine with ecstatic joy.  They let epiphany shape them, each moment, taking it in, noticing, listening, sharing, and then getting up and going home by another way, because ultimately our security comes from trusting our lives to the Great I Am, who directs the whole universe in true wisdom.  

 

And even when this King over all - who starts out his time here submitting himself 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.

 

Epiphany illuminates our 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 like those who followed the star we are called to lift our eyes to a further horizon.  The whole world is in on this conspiracy. It’s unfolding in the margins, in ordinary homes and ordinary lives on every continent at every moment, God is coming in. And the earth itself bears witness - every blade of grass, and creeping insect; every daily sunrise and blazing planet, light years away testifies. 

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 the bigger story; we are subjects of 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.  

 

So we are called to hang onto the ancient and cosmic promise and not to cower at bullies or venerate false power, 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 means we live our lives paying attention to dreams, and finding solidarity with people we think of as other, and bearing gifts for the unsuspecting, and gladly laying down our lives as a gift of gratitude to the God who comes in, and by the Spirit we are made willing to be redirected and sent home another way.

 

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.  The hidden, humble king, a baby savior, who saves us from all the darkness within and without. The One who brings together strangers to surrender in joy to the love and hope embodied in their midst. 

 

Nothing can stop love and forgiveness, nothing can hinder hope and healing – not the most terrible thing we can imagine or face can stop God from acting.  The world belongs to God.

 

So, Arise, shine; for your light has come. 

Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

Much Ado about Nothing

Acts 19:21-40 

(and John 14:1-6)

Chances are, most of sitting here today have never heard this story before.  It doesn’t show up at all in the lectionary, and I would suspect that even most preachers – while perhaps racing past it in a reading of Acts in seminary – have never heard it and certainly don’t remember it, and I know this because this week at text study, while we spent a good amount of time talking about the widow’s mite - the woman who gives two small coins and Jesus calls her blessed - when I piped up, “Well, I am preaching the Riot in Ephesus!” I got a round of hearty laughter but not a single look of recognition or word of insight.

To be honest, I’ve been distracted by this text.  I find it distracting.  And this in a week where I see God moving all around.

My facebook feed is flooded the electricity of this thing that is going on over at the website Momastery where some 49,000 people are connected, and through something called “Holiday Hands” they are posting small and big needs – for a Christmas gift card for a daughter, a new bed for a son, a month’s mortgage for an unemployed single mom, books for grandchildren, help for someone who lost their home, thousands of needs- but rapidly appearing are the responses –People all over the country answering one need – I have a gift card to Target I can donate, I can make you a quilt, I will give you money for your mortgage.  To strangers. Just because. 

I responded to one – mom of new triplets in MN needs help – I answered asking what she needs – meals? visits? someone to help with diaper changes and giving mom a nap? And I heard back that her need had already been met by another stranger. Day and night it is going on over there on that website- It’s updating as we speak – needs, responses, gratitude flowing onward, lives touched. The Spirit of God is reaching out, reaching in, reaching between strangers in their abundance and need.

And to be honest, when I come up for air after reading that, this text is a distraction to me.

 “Who is this God? And what is God up to?” I ask it, hoping to see something that I hadn’t seen before, to catch a glimpse of God at work in the story before me just as God is at work in the lives around me. But I don’t see God, really, instead I see a noisy, dramatic, pulling-people-all-into-its-vortex kind of distraction.

The hubbub is begun by a wealthy guy whose business is threatened by the implications of these teachings of Paul and followers of the Way, and so he drums up drama.  He draws together the artisans who make idols out of silver and starts to tell them that their livelihood could be at risk if this message of Paul’s spreads.  If these followers of the Way are saying there is no god made by human hands, and clearly we are in the business of making gods with our hands and selling them, if this thing catches on, we are sunk.  No mention, by the way, of the fact that the clientele purchasing silver idols was a rich fraction of the population – and the majority of those responding to the message of the Way were regular folks who couldn’t have afforded their own silver idol anyway. But no matter, this is a possible threat. So he summons the artisans and warns them of the risk.  This isn’t enough to get everyone as incensed as he is, though, so he extends the argument. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.’

I love the word fake newsperson Stephen Colbert has coined, “truthiness” – it means something that “feels” true. In other words, it doesn’t have to have a bit of real truth in it; it just has to get you riled up.  This is a new word, but not a new concept. truthiness is what Demetrius uses in this story to stir up controversy thousands of years ago and worlds away from our own abundant use of it in personal arguments, politics and public discourse today.

So now he’s got their attention.  How dare these people? Dishonor the goddess for whom we are known, the temple for which we are respected – that which defines us as a city and gives us standing in the rest of the world?  How dare these people!  So some followers of the Way are grabbed and thrust into the throng, And the rumble starts, and the riot builds, and pretty soon the mass of humanity gathered is shouting and the crowd is swelling and the rage is building and the majority of participants- it says – have no idea what is going on, but no matter, they’re yelling anyway – for hours, and in unison!

Until the town clerk – bless his soul – finally quiets them down – no small feat.  And points out to the huge throng of shouting people that this isn’t even their argument. That this guy Demetrius is upset about his business and has stirred their passion and frustration to his own end, and that they are all rioting about nothing in particular, about an imagined threat, a trumped up charge, a vague dismay.  So he tells them in his clerky voice that if this is a business disagreement – take it to court, and the rest of you, go home before you embarrass yourselves further or get into some real trouble with this illegal assembly.  And the whole thing dissipates and the scene closes with the sweaty, chastised and sore-throated chanters shuffling home, self-conscious and probably more confused than ever.

Who is this God, and what is God up to here?

Hmmm…. 

Well, stepping back, we see all around this text God is up to all sorts of things. People are being healed, people are being freed – released and empowered and delivered and welcomed into the Way of belonging and truth.  Lives and communities are being changed a person, a family, a town at a time. 

Before this scene we see Paul encountering people who were followers of Christ but had not yet been given words for this faith they already knew, and he prays for them and they receive the Holy Spirit, and then he teaches in lecture halls all throughout these towns and the text says, “This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.”

And then there is this crazy story where the gospel of Jesus Christ and the practices of the Way come up against the practices of magic, and again, people are released and set free and transformation happens for many people and the story ends,

“So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.”

And right after our text is this description:

"After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples; and after encouraging them and saying farewell, he left for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given the believers much encouragement, he came to Greece, where he stayed for three months."

So stuff is happening.  All over the place. God is right here doing things left and right, backwards and forwards.

But in front of us is our riot scene.  And when we ask the question, it echoes back to us from the hollow walls of this empty story. Who is this God and what is God up to here?

But to be honest, I don’t see God here.  And there are plenty of real crises and struggles in the book of Acts, real drama – hey, we’ve got a shipwreck coming up soon - and where God is is right there in the middle of things, but this isn’t one of those stories.  And so maybe we just need to concede that this story might not be about God. Perhaps this story truly is a big distraction from all that God is doing.

And that is not to say that the distractions don’t sometimes take up a lot of our time and energy. That we don’t get swept up into them too – either yelling with the crowd, or mediating the madness, or, God forbid, tossed around in fear, the very focus of others’ wild riots of rage  - so much so that our very lives may be in danger in the midst of it, or that others would tell us not to even show up, seeking to protect us from the heat. 

 That’s not to say that the power these distractions hold isn’t in some way real power- it’s power to stir, power to invigorate and whip up violence; it’s power to do real damage, not imaginary, nothing to be trifled with.  

But it’s not where God is.  It’s not where the truth is.  It’s not where the life is.  It’s not the Way.

Whether when the drama dies down the frustrated business man goes to file his paperwork to bring his complaint to the courts through the boring proper channels, or goes home in humiliation to lick his wounds and accept the failure of his efforts at vengeance by mob, we never know. Because that isn’t where the story is.  That is not where the Spirit is.

That might be the thing that looks really big and important in the moment, that seems to demand your loudest shouts and your longest hours, but in the end, means you go home anyway and everything’s the same, and all the while the Spirit is blowing and lives are being changed all around you and you’ve been distracted from the real thing for the flash and fervor.

What are the distractions that would pull you from the real? 

Because the real is really there.  While people are venting and yelling about fiscal cliffs and holiday sales, and impending crises and weight loss crazes and finger-pointing political fallout, and a quarter of a million people in New Jersey are still without electricity and finding strength to carry on in the solidarity of their neighbors and the help of strangers, and people in local shops and churches letting them plug in cell phones and giving them hot coffee and warm meals and free wood for their fireplaces. 

And while the rat race wants to pull me into thinking I have so much to do or worry about and things can seem so pressing and overwhelming – I have been living all week long in the miracle of this particular community of followers of the Way- the faith of you people and your prayers, and the reality that on Tuesday morning our Barb Day got in her car and drove down to Kansas City to the house of my sister, where she has been bathing babies and scrubbing floors and breathing hope into my sister and her husband by simply sharing their burden for a few days and letting them know they are not alone.

That is where God is.  When I see that I can totally answer, Who is this God and what is God up to?

You can see it too, can’t you?

Who is this God? This is the God who shares life with us! This is the God who is made known when one person says, I can do that, and reaches out to another.  When one person says, I’ve got your back. I’m with you here.  Or, I will hold your story sacred.  

This is the God who is not hindered or deterred by our riots or our truthiness or our impressive reputations or grand institutions or our persuasive arguments or our imposing crowds.  Kind of doesn’t need to even show up there – too busy doing the loving and healing thing in the real life margins of our trumped up drama.  

And what is God up to?  God is up to something really really big in a billion really small ways.  All the time.  This very second. And we are followers of the Way, remember? That means we’re part of it, people. We are right in it. 

So breathe deeply, church and listen to this one more time.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word of our God stands forever.

How will we know the way, Jesus? we ask.  

And he answers, because I AM the Way. I AM the Truth and I AM the Life.  And you belong to me.  So look for where the Holy Spirit is moving and join there.  Find out what God is up to and jump in.

Amen.