How Odd

Sermon preached September 21, 2014

Texts: Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 20:1-16

            “How Odd” Power Point with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDrfHj3j398

            How odd.  A while back I was reading some essays by E.B. White, the author of Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, who was also an essayist and editor and contributor to The New Yorker.  In one of his essays he writes: “I discovered , though, that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life’s more stereotyped roles.”  (Essays of E. B. White, 25).  I posted this on Facebook on Friday with the comment – “I’ll take his word for it.”  How odd.

            We, though, as followers of Jesus should be no strangers to strangeness, nor to oddity.  Jesus often told stories with odd dimensions to them to provoke our deeper thinking.  He wanted his stories to so grab hold of us that there would be no turning back, no chance of resuming stereotyped roles.

            Today’s story is no exception.  A land owner is in need of workers for his vineyard.  He goes out early in the day and hires workers, agreeing to pay them the usual daily wage.  He hires more workers at nine, noon, three, and five.  At the end of the work day, the owner wants to settle accounts.  He has his manager pay the workers, beginning with those hired last.  Seems like an odd choice.  These workers receive the daily wage.  We don’t hear about any of the other workers, except for those who were hired at the beginning of the day, who signed on to work for the usual daily wage.  You get the impression, though, that the others had been getting that same daily wage.  In any event, after waiting their turn, and beginning to anticipate a bonus for their long day of work, they are paid what they agreed to work for, the usual daily wage.

            Their response is not unreasonable.  They grumbled.  “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”  The owner replies that he has not done them wrong.  He kept the contract agreed to.  He then adds: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or are you envious because I am generous?”

            There is a strangeness to this story, many odd elements.  We noted one, that the owner paid the last hired first, almost as if he wanted those who worked first to see what he was doing.  The understandable reaction of the workers seems denigrated in the story.  The owner may have been generous to those last hired, but he would not have been considered generous by those first hired.  He may have been “fair” but not generous with these workers.  The owner comes across as a mixed bag – generous, manipulative, capricious.  He is not very well-schooled in understanding human behavior.  His system of payment might encourage workers to seek to be hired later in the day.

            Here’s another oddity.  If you want to try and apply Jesus story to current political economy, you could get two very different directions.  On the one hand, the story could support a decent minimum wage for all.  The usual daily wage in the time of Jesus was really a subsistence wage.  It was just enough to get by.  Those who got hired early in the day should, at some level, been glad that those families of the workers hired later in the day would have enough.  Less pay would have meant some kind of deprivation.  On the other hand, the story gives great latitude to the job creator.  “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?”  Who should tell this entrepreneur what he has to do with what belongs to him?  It seems this story may not be much help as we go to the polls in November.

            So what’s up with this odd little tale?  I think this story is really trying to tell us that there are some things that just don’t fit into calculations of deserving, and God’s grace is one of them.  God offers love freely and generously to all, and never gives up offering it.  God’s love is not something we “deserve” except in the sense that we all deserve to be loved, which really means that we need some sense of being loved in our lives to become the full and rich people we can be, to become our creative best.

            I think of the theological reflection on Bernard Meland about human existence.  Meland notes that we are born into a “nexus of relationships.”  He goes on: We do not create these relationships; we experience them, being given with existence.  And from this matrix come resources of grace that can carry us beyond meanings of our own making, and alert us to goodness that is not of our own willing or defnining. (Fallible Forms and Symbols, 151)  The tragedy of life is that some come into a nexus of relationships that is not very healthy.  All the news about child abuse and mistreatment this week arises because we know how painful and scarring mistreatment can be for children as they grow into adulthood.  The good news is that God is also always a part of that nexus of relationships, offering opportunities for healing, growth, redemption.

            In Jesus story, there are also echoes of an older story from his tradition.  In Exodus, the Israelites are none too pleased about their travel accommodations.  They complained to Moses and Aaron, wishing to be back in Egypt where at least there was bread and meat.  All they see now is wilderness, desert.  God responds.  “At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread.” Quail provided meat, and a kind of thin bread was given, though they thought it odd.  And each day, there is just enough for that day.  And this is grace.

            Frederick Buechner: The grace of God means something like: Here is your life.  You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.  Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It’s for you I created the universe.  I love you. (Wishful Thinking).

            In another essay, Buechner also writes movingly about grace, about the experience of grace.  Not every moment of our lives, Heaven knows, but at certain rare moments of greenness and stillness, we are shepherded by the knowledge that though all is far from right with any world you or I know anything about, all is right deep down. (The Clown in the Belfry, 113)  This is grace.

            This is grace.  God offers love freely and generously to all, and never gives up offering it.  God’s love is not something we “deserve” except in the sense that we all deserve to be loved, which really means that we need some sense of being loved in our lives to become the full and rich people we can be, to become our creative best.  Grace is God’s constant offer of that love.

            In his book Calm Surrender, Bemidji writer Kent Nerburn shares two memories that help him think about God and forgiveness and grace.  The first story he recalls is about the child of a friend, seven months old. Nerburn writes about visiting his friend, and his bond with the child.  I would cradle him in my arms; he would grasp me tightly.  We would stand together, a man in the full strength and awareness of midlife, and a child in the dawning of his days, sharing a warmth and a trust that overcame all differences of biology and chronology, and made us, for a moment, two people with a common heart. (128)  The second memory is of time spent with an elderly aunt.  We had cared about each other, but there had been no deep sharing of the intimacies of each other’s lives.  But on her deathbed, something changed.  When I came to visit her, we found ourselves inexplicably drawn to each other….  She craved my presence, and I, hers.  I would sit by her bedside, holding her hand, telling her what I knew about different religion’s beliefs about death, asking her about the uncharted landscape she was exploring moment by moment, and simply being present to the mysterious power of her dying.  As I left her the last time… we simply held each other. (129)

            Nerburn reflects: Neither of these events was momentous.  They were the common clay of everyday life.  But, each, in its own way, spoke the same fundamental truth.  Here I was, at the peak of my powers in life, having been blessed with the opportunity to be present to two people – one at the beginning of life, one at the end of the journey – who were physically helpless but spiritually guileless and pure of heart.  And, in each case, what they sought most from me, and I from them, was to be held.  Anything else we would have shared would not have meant as much. (129-130)

            To be held, this is grace.  We are held in God’s embrace.  And just a quick word – this being held by God changes us, transforms our lives.  If we really let ourselves be held by God in grace there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life’s more stereotyped roles.  It may even have an impact on our social lives and politics.  Accountability matters.  Doing good matters.  But is there some floor below which we will do our best as a human community not to let anyone fall below?  What might that look like and how might we best get there?  That is another topic for another day.

            Grace transforms, but we need to let it.  The problem with those workers in the story of Jesus is that they missed the opportunity to see grace.  They started calculating what is essentially incalculable.  What is the price of being held?  And the problem with the Israelites is that they, too, had trouble seeing grace. “What is it?”

            This is your life, you might not have been, but you are, and this is grace.  There are moments when amidst all the chaos and pain of the world, you know a deep down rightness, and this is grace.  Something inside of you gives you the strength and courage to hold someone else, and this is grace.  And you are held, and this is grace.

            And just like giving a pig an enema, grace changes us.  There is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life’s more stereotyped roles.  How odd of God to keep offering us that grace, to keep holding us, embracing us.  How utterly odd.  How utterly beautiful.  Amen.

           

Dancing With the Cows

September 14, 2014

  

Texts: Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

            Groucho Marx – what a comedian.  I could dance with you till the cows come home.  On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows and you’ll come home.  In that same film, Duck Soup (1933), Groucho Marx’s character, Rufus T. Firefly is greeted by Margaret Dumont.  “As chairwoman of the reception committee, I welcome you with open arms.”  Is that so, how late do you stay open? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsw9jYU_rJI)

            All this stuff about Groucho Marx and about cows is a rather strange way to welcome you all today.  Cow Sunday – Celebration of Welcome – are we making comparisons between you all and cows who return home after a summer in the Scottish highlands?  The Scripture reading from Romans does not exactly help us out.  “Welcome those who are weak in faith.”  Sort of a backhanded welcome – on second thought I’d rather dance with the cows ‘till you come home.

            As followers of Jesus, though, we should be no strangers to strangeness.  Some of the stories Jesus tells have a certain strangeness to them.  Today’s story is no exception.  If we have been around the church awhile, we have probably heard the story before.  It follows Jesus telling Peter that he is to forgive seventy-seven times.  Some translations read seventy time seven.  If you are keeping track, you probably missed the point.  Then Jesus tells the story.  A king is owed ten thousand talents.  The one who owes him the money is more than a household slave, probably more like a sub-ruler.  The amount of money in the story is absurdly high.  The annual salary of Herod the Great was nine hundred talents.  The man begs the king for patience, and the king grants his release and forgives his debt.  The man is given a new lease on life.  He has a new found freedom.  And what does he do with it?  Someone owes him money -  one hundred denarii, a denarius was the typical day’s wage for a laborer.  How does the newly freed man use his freedom?  He has the person who owes him money thrown into the debtor’s prison.  In the end, his own debt is reinstated.  Following the story, Matthew has Jesus utter these words, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

            Forgive from the heart, or else!  Holy cow!  Nothing like a good threat to lighten the mood, or warm the heart, or say welcome.  Except there is deep irony here.  To be sure part of the point of the parable is that our decisions have consequences.  We can use our freedom badly, use it to fall into habits of behavior that enslave us.  We can divert the flow of grace, and that often comes back to bite us.

            But wait, isn’t there something in this story about the kingdom of God, and how it gets going with an unbelievable act of grace?  Does that just suddenly end?  I don’t think so.  We can mess up as recipients of God’s grace, but I don’t think that the grace just goes away.  How late do you stay open, God?  All day and all night.  Till the cows come home.

            At its heart, this is meant to be a story about grace, about forgiveness, about welcome – about God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, God’s welcome and about how that should change us, should make us more welcoming people, should help us as we try and create a more welcoming community.  And we are trying to create a welcoming community.  You are welcome here.  You are welcome here whether this is the first or hundredth time you’ve been here.  The very first line of our mission statement as a church is “to welcome all people.”  Every week in our bulletin, we print a statement that says: “FUMC is an inclusive, Christ-centered community of faith, meeting people where they are in their spiritual journey.”  When we baptize, we pledge to surround the one baptized with “a community of love and forgiveness.”

            Wherever you are in the journey of life, no matter how much baggage you may carry, you are welcome in the name of the God of open arms.  No matter who you are, you are welcome here in the Spirit of Jesus.  “Welcome the weak in faith” – that’s all of us sometimes.  Spiritual growth is possible and is important, but it is not often a straight road.  I appreciate how Eugene Peterson renders the first part of Romans 14 in The Message.  “Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do….  They have their own history to deal with.  Treat them gently.”  Don’t we all have some history to deal with?  Our pledge to each other is that we will surround each other with a community of love and forgiveness.  We will treat each other gently.

            To be sure, “forgiveness” is complex and messy, and is the topic for other sermons and conversations.  Certainly one part of the biblical idea of “forgiveness” is the idea of welcome.

            So let me ask you a question.  Can you welcome yourself?  Maybe part of forgiveness is self-welcome.  Maybe you’ve been that pretty awful slave sometime in your life, badly misusing your freedom.  When someone has given you grace, you’ve turned around and been graceless.  We all have our histories to deal with, but in the name of Jesus Christ, we will surround you with a community of love and forgiveness, because that’s what God does.  Can you welcome yourself?

            And I thought a little bit about the word “welcome” this week.  It comes from older words that mean being pleased at having a guest.  Have I told you how pleased I am that we are together today?  But I also hear in the word a place where we come to be well – welcome.  I think we want this to be such a place.

            Patricia Adams Farmer is an ordained minister, teacher and writer.  She has a lovely book entitled Embracing a Beautiful God.  In one of the short essays that makes up that book Farmer write about her Aunt Mary Belle, who is the family genealogist.

            After having supper with Aunt Mary Belle, my sister, Lexy, e-mails me with the revelation: “Did you know we have family members by the name of Looney?  Does it surprise you?”  “It figures… certainly does explain some things,” I e-mailed back, smiling.  “But I suppose it could be worse.”  And it is.  She continues: “Mary Belle got all the birth and death certificates in her genealogy research, and one of the Looney’s deaths was listed as ‘eaten by a hog!”

            Reflecting on this e-mail exchange with her sister, Patricia Farmer goes on to write: With regard to our personal pasts, it’s the same.  We need to know and embrace every part of ourselves – Looneys, hogs and all - with compassion (and humor).  In this way we open the door to new ways of seeing ourselves and the world….  In this honest way, we offer to God our whole selves, which God then embraces, transforms, and opens up for new future paths of joy.  In familiar language, it’s all about forgiveness, healing, wholeness, and wisdom gained. (62-63)

            Welcome.  We are and want to be a place that welcomes all people.  Welcome.  We are and want to be an inclusive, Christ-centered community of faith, meeting people where they are in their spiritual journey.  Welcome.  We are and want to be a place where all are surrounded by a community of love and forgiveness.

            There is this other lovely vision of this kind of community that we are and want to be.  It is found in part of a poem entitled “Out of Cana” by Sister Maura Eichner.

Eat bread.  Drink wine.  Try to sing the song

of Christ.  Live life.  If you can dance, dance.

Everywhere grace awaits.  Desire to love to love.

            Welcome.  This is good news – good news to be heard, celebrated, taken in.  the good news is that God’s arms are always open late, and open early, open till the cows come home.  This is good news, which deserves to be danced to, even dancing with the cows.  You are welcome, by God, by others, in the name of Jesus.  You are welcome.  Welcome others.  Welcome yourself.   This is good news, to which we might say, in the theme of the day “Cowabunga.”  And amen.

Rocking Without Capsizing

Sermon preached September 7, 2014

Texts: Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20

            Hues Corporation, “Rock the Boat” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfBwsG8ubFw

            I have had a few conversations in recent weeks with young adults who are not all that charged up about becoming “adult.”  With the freedoms and choice that come with adulthood there are also new responsibilities to assume – bills to pay, laundry to do, dishes to wash.  As we move into adulthood, some of those who were with us on the way begin to age and some die.  As we grow into adulthood, we come to recognize that life is often more complex and messier than we perhaps thought.  Of course, this analysis supposes that we had relatively secure childhoods, and unfortunately, there are too many who did and do not.  That’s another difficult truth we can learn as we grow.

            I think part of the appeal of the music of our youth is that it evokes a simpler time.  “Rock the Boat” was a song from 1974.  I turned 15 that year.  Now that time in life also has its challenges, and they are real.  But as the distance grows from age 15, one often remembers the simpler times – a fun song that you just wanted to dance to.

            Well, a few years later, 1987, I was in Dallas, Texas.  We had moved there so I could pursue my Ph.D. at Southern Methodist University.  I got a job as a youth pastor to help with our family income.  We were a family of four, then, and I could not simply be a full-time student without contributing something to our family income.  Anyway, I was hired by a church in Dallas as a youth pastor.  The basic commitment was to lead the weekly Sunday evening youth group, which included time for recreation and for some teaching.  That first fall, as I was planning for something around which to do some teaching for our Sunday evening youth group I came across a book written by Christian singer Michael W. Smith.  It looked like a good resource to use to start some conversations.  It was not an official United Methodist resource however, and without knowing it, I had stepped on a land mine in that church.

            United Methodist Churches in the South tend to have very developed adult Sunday School programs.  Six or seven adult classes met at this church every Sunday morning, along with classes for children and youth.  What I did not know was that before my arrival, one of these adult Sunday School classes had hired a teacher from a theologically conservative seminary in Dallas – Dallas Theological Seminary.  He was with the class for a couple of years, I think, and in that time became very critical of The United Methodist Church and United Methodist theology.  It got to the point where the church made the decision to fire this teacher, leading to the departure of some of the Sunday School class members as well.  In order to prevent a future occurrence, the church had established a policy that all curriculum used in church programs had to be United Methodist curriculum.  So I come in and suggest that we read Michael W. Smith!  I was asked to come prepared to discuss this at the next council meeting.

            Conflict in the church – imagine that.  We are a group who has in its founding document, the Bible, these words: Owe no one anything, except to love one another….  Love does no wrong to a neighbor.  Love and conflict?

            My doctoral dissertation advisor in Dallas was Joe Allen, professor of Christian ethics at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.  Joe’s major book on Christian ethics is entitled, Love and Conflict.  In it he writes: Conflict is an inescapable feature of life, in several senses: conflict among moral claims, conflict among the interests of various people and groups, and conflict as struggle over those interests.  He goes on: Conflict is not simply evil, nor is harmony simply good; it depends upon what kind of conflict or harmony (9).

            Love and conflict.  Conflict is not simply evil – it depends.  While I stepped into something in my church in Dallas, and created a bit of conflict, it turned out to be a good conflict well-managed.  We had a good discussion at the council that evening.  The senior pastor, Fred, for whom I developed a deep affection, even though he and I have some significant theological differences, helped let the council know that I was not simply another youth pastor, but that I was an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church and should be trusted to teach well.  I was not out to split the church.  The council was open to the conversation, and supported my choice. I was the youth pastor in that church for all seven years we were in Dallas.

            Love and conflict.  Love does not erase our differences, but calls us to work with our differences with compassion and care.  Owe no one anything, except to love one another.  Sometimes the call of love moves us to rock the boat a little.  Loving change can require a little boat rocking, but in love we want to avoid capsizing the boat.

            So I want to spend just a couple more minutes with our Scripture readings to see what insight they offer about love, conflict, rocking the boat without capsizing it.  I am looking at this not because we are in the midst of significant conflict here, but precisely because we are not.  It is in times like these that it is most helpful to think about the kind of people we want to be, even when conflict arises.  It is in times like these that it is helpful to develop qualities of character and skills so that we can work well with conflict when it arises.

            Our two texts are an interesting combination.  Paul cites a number of familiar laws found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and says they can all be summarized by love – “love your neighbor as yourself.”  The text in Matthew, on the other hand, seems to be an expansion of the concept of love.  Here is what love in community looks like, particularly when there are disagreements and differences.

            So what does that look like?

            If you have an issue or disagreement with someone, talk to them, or maybe not.  I have worked in the area of conflict transformation for The United Methodist Church using this model from Matthew 18, and we added a step.  Sometimes, it is o.k. to let something go, if we can really let it go.  I think of the wise words of Lewis Smedes in his book A Pretty Good Person: What we often need is not to be forgiven, but to be indulged a little.  Not every annoyance needs forgiveness.  Some pains beg a little magnanimity.  I need it from my wife when I  switch channels mindlessly on the television set.  She needs it from me when she stretches her short stories at dinner into full-length novels.  With a little magnanimity, the quality of the big soul that puts up with small pains, we can reserve serious forgiving for serious offense. (170)  Sometimes it is ok to let a disagreement go, if you can really let it go and not store it up for a later attack.  I often tell couples to watch out for “Always” and “Never” in their disputes.

            When you do have an issue with someone, though, begin by talking to them.  It can take courage, but it is the loving thing to do.

            If that doesn’t help resolve the issue, get some help.  This is not the same as finding three other people to agree with you and ambushing the other person with how wrong they are.  In a marriage, it may be seeking someone who can help you move through a difficult time.  In a church community, it may mean speaking with the Staff-Parish Relations Committee if you are having an issue with me, or with another staff person.  If you are struggling with someone else in the church, it may mean coming to me.  We are here for each other.

            Sometimes we need to get even more help.  Sometimes churches get really stuck in an issue and need to invite someone in to help.  I served for a number of years on the “Conflict Transformation Team” for The United Methodist Church in Minnesota.  We helped churches work through difficult times.  If you are struggling in a personal relationship and you have sought some help from friends and that has not been enough, maybe some professional help would work.

            Then there is the painful reminder in Matthew 18 that sometimes relationships end.  Churches make decisions that may have wide but not unanimous support, and someone decides they cannot live with that decision.  It is painful, but it happens and sometimes people have to move on.  The wonderful irony of the Scripture in Matthew is that it says that such folks should be treated as a Gentile and a tax collector.  But aren’t those among the people Jesus hung out with?  In the midst of pain, a word of hope.  Sometimes even our best efforts at conflict transformation won’t keep people together, but Jesus never gives up on us.  Jesus seeks whatever healing is possible.

            Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor whose person and ministry have garnered some significant attention.  She has been interviewed by Krista Tippett.  She has a book.  She is a sought after speaker.  In her book, Pastrix: the cranky, beautiful faith of a sinner and saint, Bolz-Weber writes about church, and what she tells people who are joining the church she pastors.  This community will disappoint them.  It’s a matter of when, no if.  We will let them down or I’ll say something stupid and hurt their feelings.  I then invite them on this side of their inevitable disappointment to decide if they’ll stick around after it happens.  If they choose to leave when we don’t meet their expectations, they won’t get to see how the grace of God can come in and fill the holes left by our community’s failure, and that’s just too beautiful and too real to miss. (54-55)

            In Matthew 18 it talks about where two or three are gathered.  In my experience, where two or three are gathered, there will be disagreement sometimes, disappointment sometimes, conflict sometimes – some of that conflict necessary boat rocking, some not.  I also trust that where two or three are gathered in the name and spirit of Jesus, he is there, forming us in love and grace so we can be more magnanimous, big-souled.  And where two or three are gathered, the grace of God happens in some remarkable ways, too beautiful and too real to miss.  Amen.

I Want To Take You Higher, part 2

Sermon preached August 31, 2014

Texts: Romans 12:9-21

Romans 12:9-21: New Revised Standard Version and The Message

Let love be genuine.

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.

Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.

Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.

Love one another with mutual affection.

Be good friends who love deeply.

Outdo one another in showing honor.

Practice playing second fiddle.

Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame.  Be alert servants of the Master.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

Be cheerfully expectant.  Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder.

Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down.

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

Get along with each other, don’t be stuck up.  Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.

If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do.  “I’ll do the judging,” says God.  “I’ll take care of it.”

No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”

Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, of if he’s thirsty, get him a drink.  Your generosity will surprise him with goodness.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

            David Bowie, “Changes” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3vxEudif8

In last week’s sermon, I spoke, in part about the work of God in our lives and in our world as “transformation.”  We read the first part of the twelfth chapter of Romans and zeroed in on the first part of verse 2.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds (Romans 12:2a).  We considered some other renderings of this passage.  Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within (Phillips).  Do not become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead fix your attention on God.  You’ll be changed from the inside out (The Message).

            Ch-ch-ch-changes.  That’s what God is about.  Jesus wants to take us higher.  The Spirit wants to transform our hearts, souls, lives.  The Message version of Romans 12:2 uses yet another image.  It begins, as noted, Do not become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit in without even thinking.  It goes on: Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.  Just this week in Time there was a brief piece on “narcissism,” with the sub-title “We’re all born to adore ourselves, but not all of us grow up.”  There is a lot in our culture that drags us down to immaturity. Ch-ch-ch-changes – Jesus wants to take you higher.  God wants to develop well-formed maturity in us.

            Last week we considered one area in which we are to be transformed by the Spirit of God.  We all have gifts to be celebrated and cultivated.  It is not just those with extraordinary talents who have gifts, we all do.  If Romans 12 is our guide, however, we all have gifts, but none of us has every gift, so we need each other in some important and fundamental way.  That strikes at the very heart of why we need the church.  We need the church because we need each other.  And if Romans 12 is our guide, we are also to use our gifts for some larger good, not simply for our self-aggrandizement.

            Continuing on in Romans 12, which is all about the kind of transformation the Spirit seeks to nurture in us, we see a shift.  We begin with transformation.  We focus on our gifts, our uniqueness.  But then there is this change.  Instead of continuing to speak about unique gifts, Paul writes about qualities that we should all be striving to nurture and cultivate in our lives.  Here is what God is seeking to grow in you.  Here is how Jesus wants to take you higher.  Here is what the Spirit is up to in you.  This is well-formed maturity.  Then we get wave upon wave of images and ideas.  It reminds me of a jazz musician taking a theme and developing it, playing it just a little different each time through.  It reminds me of waves rolling upon the shore, transforming the shore line a little each time.  It is almost as if Paul is embodying transformation in his writing about being transformed.  You can feel it in the reading, and I hope you felt that a bit when Geoff and I read.

            So how is God working in our lives?  What does this transforming presence of the Spirit seek to do in us?

            Let love be genuine – love from the center of who you are.  You need to develop a solid center if you are going to love from it.  Love one another with mutual affection – be good friends who love deeply.

            Outdo one another in showing honor – practice playing second fiddle.  Don’t be the great somebody.  It is not always easy, walking that fine line between developing our center, celebrating our gifts, and not being the great somebody.

            Keep yourselves fueled and aflame.  Don’t quit in hard times.

            Be cheerfully expectant.  I love Wendell Berry here – “be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

            Pray – and pray again, and pray again.

            Contribute to the needs of the saints.

            Extend hospitality to strangers – be inventive in hospitality.  Make friends with nobodies.

            Bless your enemies.  If they are hungry, feed them.  If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.  Your generosity will surprise him with goodness.

            Laugh with your friends when they are happy.

            Share tears – weep with those who weep.

            Live in harmony with each other, even with those who may not be a great e-harmony match.  It’s us, folks, we are who we need to be in harmony with.

            Do not repay anyone evil for evil – don’t hit back.  The lesson I remember learning was “don’t start the fight, but if someone else starts it, make sure you win.”

            Discover beauty in everyone.

            Live peaceably with all, so far as it depend upon you.

            Don’t be overcome by evil, don’t let it get the best of you.  Overcome evil with good.  Hold on to dear life to the good and thereby overcome evil.

            Wow.  A bit overwhelming, isn’t it?  That’s what God’s Spirit is doing in us.  This is well-formed maturity.  This is the way Jesus wants to take us higher.  Ch-ch-ch-changes.  Can our lives really look something like this?  Well, we are not at this by ourselves.  God is with us.  We have each other.

            And it is here among ourselves that these qualities of character are to become qualities of community.  God’s transforming work is meant for our families, for our church community.

            As this kind of transforming work is happening here, perhaps then we have a real gift to share with the world.  If we can love genuinely, if we can practice playing second fiddle, if we can be inventive in hospitality – welcoming the stranger and blessing our enemies, if we can discover beauty in everyone, maybe we can be of more help in a world torn by violence, revenge, racial tension, sexual exploitation, injustice and oppression.  Given what we have seen in Ferguson, Missouri, our world needs to find creative and kinder ways forward.  Given what we see in Israel-Palestine, our world needs to find creative and kinder ways forward.  I am not sure of the exact implications of this Scripture for that situation, but revenge upon revenge doesn’t seem to be getting us very far. Given what we see in Syria and Iraq, our world needs to find creative and kinder ways forward.  Again, I am not sure what our text might mean for a situation where you have people willing to behead others.  Sometimes evil has to be confronted forcefully, but not with vengeance as its primary motive, I think.  The important point in all of this is that it is as we are being transformed, and as our community is being transformed, we have creative gifts to share that can perhaps also transform our world.  We are at our best when we love other things together.

            Ch-ch-ch-changes – God’s Spirit wants to transform you, transform us, transform our world.  Ch-ch-ch-changes – Jesus wants to take you higher.

            Two final thoughts.  Marva Dawn is an insightful writer and theologian, and one of the places she has been insightful for me is in her work on Romans 12.  She wrote a book about it which was originally entitled “The Hilarity of Community.”  In Romans 12:8 Paul writes about acting compassionately with “cheerfulness.”  The Greek word he uses is hilarotes, from which we derive our word hilarity.  The word can carry the connotation of one’s heart laughing, or of one’s eyes dancing.  God’s transforming work is serious business, but it is also to be filled with joy and hilarity.  We are invited to a joyful journey of transformation.

            A story (Anthony DeMillo, Taking Flight, 162).  Once, in a village, there was a congregation whose rabbi would disappear each week on the eve of the Sabbath.  The members suspected that the rabbi was stealing away to meet God in some secret place of prayer.  They decided to have one of their members follow him.  This is what the man saw: the rabbi disguised himself in peasant clothes and served a paralyzed Gentile woman in her cottage, cleaning out the room and preparing a Sabbath meal for her.  When the congregational spy returned, the congregation asked him, “Where did  the rabbi go?  Did he ascend in to heaven?”  “No,” the spy replied, “he went even higher.”

            Let love be genuine – love from the center of who you are.  Love one another with mutual affection – be good friends who love deeply.  Bless your enemies.  Be inventive in hospitality.  Discover beauty in everyone.  Overcome evil with good.  Jesus wants to take you higher.  Jesus wants to take us higher.  Amen.

I Want To Take You Higher, Part I

Sermon preached August 24, 2014

Texts: Romans 12:1-8

            Sly and the Family Stone, “I Want To Take You Higher” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDjnB_61k58

            Like the style of that song or not, there is something very biblical, very Christian about it.  “I Want to Take You Higher.”  That’s what Jesus is about.  That’s what’s at the heart of the Christian faith.  Theologian and biblical scholar Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, writes, “the Christian life… is about ‘being born again’ and the ‘kingdom of God” (126).  These are “two transformations at the heart of the Christian life: the individual-spiritual-personal and the communal-social-political” (103).

            Jesus wants to take you higher.  God’s Spirit wants to transform your life.  Every Bible ought to come with a warning label – “If God’s Spirit speaks to you through these words, you will be changed.”  Every worship service ought to come with a cautionary note, “God’s Spirit transforms lives – watch out!”

            Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds (Romans 12:2a).  We have already encountered some other renderings of this passage.  Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within (Phillips).  Do not become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead fix your attention on God.  You’ll be changed from the inside out (The Message).

            So what’s so wrong with the world that we need to be taken higher, transformed?   The thing I really appreciate about the alternative renderings of Romans 12:2a is that they don’t assume that the world and the culture are without value.  But they do assume that there are some concerns, that fitting in without thinking is a problem, that being squeezed into the mold of the surround culture squeezes something important out of us.

            During our vacation, I came across these words, written by Lin Yutang (1875-1976), a Chinese writer, inventor and translator.  They were written in the mid-Twentieth Century.  The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success.  They are the things that make Americans so unhappy and so nervous.

            Seriously?!  Our vices are efficiency, punctuality and the desire for achievement or success?  I want to do well.  I don’t really like waiting.  If things can be done more efficiently, why not?  It saves time and money.  But step back a bit.  Do you remember a time when you pulled into a gas station and someone actually came out to fill your gas tank, and wash your windows?  Now I can fill up my car and not even talk to anybody, but what happened to those jobs?  We can go to the grocery store, and never have a cashier check us out.  It can be efficient, but what will it do for employment?  Do we even stop and wonder if there can be something to consider other than efficiency?  Do our lives ever become too governed by the clock?  Have you ever encountered someone who was a success by most standards, but wished they had been less of a success and a better parent or spouse or friend?

            Being different from the world does not mean rejecting the beauty and goodness we see in our culture, but it asks us to see the darker sides as well.  It asks us to look at the ways we remain caught in issues we would just as soon be over.  Ferguson, Missouri reminds us again that there remains deep fissures in our society based on our history of race relations.  I have a pretty high trust level in police officers.  They are there to enforce the laws, and they are often put in difficult situations to do just that.  Might my feelings toward law enforcement be different if in the not too distant past the laws that were being enforced were laws that systematically discriminated against members of my family, laws that made me drink at separate fountains, sit in separate places, attend different schools.  It takes time to heal deep wounds, but we Americans are not really that fond of history – get over it, man up, move on.  Working with our difficult history – personally and socially, can take time and be more complex.  That work is not always “efficient.”

            The Spirit of God wants to take us higher, to be different.  Don’t be squeezed into the mold of the world.  Don’t fit into the surrounding culture without even thinking about it.  The entire chapter 12 in Romans explores some of these significant transformations, and we will be looking at this chapter this week and next.

            Jesus wants to take us higher.  We are invited to be different, but let’s be honest about the difficulty of that.  Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “People wish to be settled; only so far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them” (in Anne Lamott, Stitches, 56).

            So let me, in the last few minutes of this sermon, look at one way we are invited to be different, to be transformed.  I want to again hear from that significant theologian, Sly Stone.   Sly and the Family Stone, “Everybody is a Star”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m29F4FtVo-U 

            Everybody is a star.  “We have gifts differing according to the grace given to us” (Romans 12:6a).  You are gifted.  Now that may not seem very counter cultural, but I think it is.  We often refer to those who are gifted as persons with very special talents.  That’s o.k., but not all of us necessarily have those kinds of extraordinary talents that others would call “gifted.”  We are almost encouraged to envy those who are so gifted, ignoring the ways each of us is gifted.  Someone writing about Romans 12 penned these wise words.  Our society is desperately searching for people with a sense of adventure and Hilarity, those who feel good about themselves and delight in their own capabilities and visions and gifts (Truly the Community, 69-70).

            Is that us?  Do we really believe this about ourselves, that we are gifted?  Earlier this week I came across these word of Joan Chittister in a devotional.  We are full of the riches of a life-time – the experiences we’ve had and the wisdom that has come from them; the dreams we’ve had and the things that obstructed them; the hurts we’ve had and the things that cured them. (Living Well, 105)  No one else has had your experiences, and the wisdom you’ve derived from them.  No one else has dreamed your dreams, and worked with them.  No one else has suffered your hurts, and dealt with them.  You are gifted.  You have gifts.  If you want to explore one way to look at those gifts, I would invite you to take a spiritual gifts inventory (http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/spiritual-gifts-online-assessment) and I will put a link on our Facebook page for that, and it will be in this sermon when it gets posted on our web site later this week.

            Do we believe we are gifted, that we have gifts?  Maybe the best we can do is believe it sometimes, but that in itself, is a gift.

            But here’s another part of this whole idea of gifts that is different from what we often encounter in the world around us.  We have gifts, but they are different gifts, and because we do not have the same gifts, we need each other in some fundamental way.  Paul uses the image of the body.  Each part of the body needs the other parts.  We need each other.  Part of our transformation happens when we are together in community.

            And here is yet another part of this whole idea of gifts that is also different from what we often encounter in the world around us.  We are to develop and use our gifts in such a way that we contribute to a larger good.  Our gifts are less about self-aggrandizement than about enriching the world, helping transform the world just as we are being transformed by God’s Spirit and the love of Jesus.

            I want to wrap up this morning with a quote and two brief stories that speak to me about the kind of transformation God is working in our lives.  In all honesty, I think I have shared these before, but they are some of my favorites.

            I used a longer version of this last week, but this line is a good reminder to us of our gifts and the right use of our gifts.  The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet (Frederich Buechner, Wishful Thinking)  Your deep gladness is a clue to your giftedness, and those gifts are to be used to meet some of the deep hungers of the world.

            Rabbi Zusya said, “In the world to come, they will not ask me “Why were you not Moses?’  They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?” (The Spirituality of Imperfection, 2)

            A brother asked one of the elders, “What good thing shall I do, and have life thereby?”  The old man said, “God alone knows what is good: Yet I have heard that one of the Fathers questioned the great abbot Nistero, who was a friend of Anthony, saying, ‘What good work shall I do?’ and Nistero replied, ‘All works are not the same.  The Scriptures say that Abraham was hospitable, and God was with him.  And Elijah loved quiet, and God was with him.  And David was humble, and God was with him.  What therefore you find your soul drawn to and desiring in following God, do it, and keep your heart and know peace therein.’” (The Desert Fathers, 5; The Desert Fathers, (Waddell) 68; Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, 25-26)

            Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.  Jesus wants to take you higher.

Do not let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within (Phillips).  Jesus wants to take you higher. 

Do not become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  Instead fix your attention on God.  You’ll be changed from the inside out (The Message).  Jesus wants to take you higher.

You are gifted. You are a star.  Don’t let the world tell you differently.

You have gifts that can help heal a broken world.  Don’t live in the world without out remembering that.

We need the gifts each other offer here.  Don’t let the world squeeze that truth out of you.

The Spirit is taking us higher.  Amen.

From the Heart

Sermon preached August 17, 2014

Texts: Matthew 15:10-28

            So which would you rather be?  Would you rather be the person who “always does the right thing” but often with little joy, without having her or his heart in it, or a person who “follows their own bliss,” but often leaves behind a mess, particularly relationship wreckage?  Neither seems very appealing does it?

            If forced to choose, I would hope most of us would choose to be that person who does the right thing, does their duty.  The world is just a little better place when we all seek to do what is good and right.  As a Boy Scout, I was encouraged to do a good turn daily.  Acting on our intentions to do good matters.

            Here is where things can get a little muddy, though.  Good intentions don’t always lead to actions that produce good results, even though the good is intended.  On our vacation we visited the home of President Rutherford B. Hayes in the small town of Fremont, Ohio.  Hayes’ home is a museum, and on the grounds is the first presidential library established in the United States.  Hayes was a one-term president, elected in 1876.  His was the only presidential election in our countries history decided in the House of Representatives.  Hayes had lost the popular vote.  By all accounts, Hayes was a good and decent person who sought to do his best for his country.  “He serves his party best who serves his country best.”  Yet it was under Hayes that the United States ended reconstruction, which resulted in a deep backsliding of civil rights for Black Americans, particularly in the South.  And it was Hayes’ policies toward Native Americans which led to the establishment of Indian Schools, places where Native children were taken too and where they were forbidden to speak their languages – “kill the Indian, save the child.”

            And if acting out of a sense of duty and good intentions does not always produce good results, we also need to admit that a sense of duty can become narrow, pinched – and that is not so good either.

            Many of you know that my family and I vacationed in New York.  We visited our older daughter in Rochester, NY and then spent some time in New York City.  What you may not know is how we ended up in New York City.  Our original plan was to travel into New Hampshire and Vermont, maybe even Maine, after we left our daughter’s.  What happened?

            The musical Les Miserable played in Duluth in July.  Julie had mentioned to me earlier in the summer that she would like to see it, but the dates were not ideal.  That week was Ruby’s Pantry on Thursday.  I was scheduled to officiate at a wedding on Friday.  Obviously these were part of doing the right thing for me.  Saturday of that week, the Islamic Community of the Twin Ports, as part of an initiative of the Minnesota Council of Churches, invited community members to a Ramadan dinner.  I thought it important to go, and I forgot about the possibility of Les Miserable.  I have a pretty strong sense of trying to do the right thing.  Julie was kind enough to offer to go with me to the dinner, though I had disappointed her about Les Mis.  What made matters worse, though, was that there was some confusion about the time for the dinner, so when we arrived at the Islamic Community at the time specified, 7:00, the only people there were the half dozen community members who had come to dinner.  No one from the Islamic Community was there.  A few phone calls were made, and we discovered that they were not planning on arriving until 8:30.  The meal happens following sunset.  Out of my “sense of duty,” Julie missed her opportunity to see Les Miserable.  So I proposed we go to New York City on our vacation to see a Broadway show.

            This morning’s Scripture reading offers a different vision of life from either the vision of the rather joyless, duty-bound person or the person just doing their own thing regardless of the consequences to others.  Jesus teaches about the human heart.  Rules about what we eat miss the point, because “whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer.”  The heart is what matters, and the heart expresses itself in what comes out in speech and in life.

            The vision here is one of heart and life flowing together.  It is a vision of speaking from the heart, living from the heart.  In the past I have used the Mobius strip to speak about the kind of interconnection that we want to see in our lives – where the inner person, the heart, gets expressed in how we live, but also where how we live affects the inner person the heart.  Do you know that the French word for “heart” (Coeur) is related to the English word for “core”?  The life we are invited to by Jesus is a life where there is some congruence between our heart, our core, and what we say and do.  It is not simply a vision of following our bliss, doing what comes naturally, because what we do also affects that core.  The vision is of a good life flowing from a good heart, of an alignment between heart and life where one flows into the other, transforming the other.  It is a vision of the active and on-going transformation of the heart and of life.

            One of the ways I have appreciated thinking about this relationship between heart and life is in Frederick Buechner’s discussion of vocation.  Reflecting on the idea of what God calls people to, Buechner writes: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done.  If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b).  On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably me requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either….  The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. (Wishful Thinking, 118-119)

            Heart and life aligned.  Joy and goodness embracing.  Core and surface woven together.  This is God’s hope and dream and calling for our lives.  This is the direction of the Spirit’s movement in our lives.

            What makes this morning’s Scripture reading utterly fascinating is the ironic twist that occurs.  Jesus says, “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?  But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.”  Then there is the story of the Canaanite woman who approaches Jesus asking for help.  “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  What comes out of Jesus’ mouth?  “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  That’s cold.  What comes from the mouth proceeds from the heart?  Yikes.

            The tenacious and courageous woman does not give up.  “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  It is a transformative moment in the story.  Something catches Jesus, surprises him, it seems.  There is a change.  “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  A change of heart and a new response leads to healing.  Jesus idea of doing good gets enlarged, where it may have been a little bit pinched before.

            With the saying and the story together it seems we have a vision of the kind of life God desires for us - heart and life aligned; joy and goodness embracing; core and surface woven together.  We also have a way for letting our hearts be transformed – be open to the pain and courage in the world, let your heart be broken and touched and opened, be willing to be surprised, be open to growth and change, even changing our idea of what the good asks of us.  This summer, a new definition of humility has come to me.  At least I have never heard it put this way before.  To be humble is to be open to being surprised, particularly surprised by God.

The kind of life God desires for us is a life where our hearts and lives are aligned, where joy and goodness embrace, where the core and the surface flow together and are woven together.  That’s the kind of life God desires, and part of the journey to that life and in that life is a journey of openness to pain, to beauty, to being surprised.

Doing the right thing still matters, matters tremendously.  We need to find the right things to do when we still suffer the kind of heartache we are suffering in Ferguson, Missouri.  We can do better.  We need to find the right things to do when we are reminded again of the amount of silent pain and suffering that can be part of even the most successful lives.  Robins Williams suicide reminded us of that.

What we yearn for, what we long for, is doing the right thing with joy.  What we yearn for and long for are hearts, are cores, that are deeply wise and compassionate and passionate for a better world.  This is what God wants for us, too.  We get there, in part, by being open to the hurt, pain, beauty, and brutality (“beautality” someone has called it), the wisdom, and courage we find around us.  We get there by cultivating humble hearts.

The journey continues, together, with each other, with Jesus.  Amen.

Don't Mean a Thing

Sermon July 27, 2014 (I have been on vacation for a couple of weeks)

Texts: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

            “It Don’t Mean a Thing”  Ellington: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQpZT3GhDg

            Ella and Ellington: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxfMRhyzu3g

            “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing – do wah, do wah, do wah, do wah, do wah.”

            What does “the kingdom of God” mean?  Why might we care?  We care because “the whole message of Jesus focuses on the kingdom of God” (Norman Perrin, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom, 1).  This idea was important to Jesus and as followers of Jesus, we need to pay attention to it.  We want to pay attention to it.  And if you are wondering, Matthew’s use of the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” is just another way of talking about “the kingdom of God.”  The terms are interchangeable.

            So what does the kingdom of God mean?  It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got what? 

            The kingdom of God is not the name of a place, but it is a symbol that wants to point to a reality, a symbol that invites us to think, dream, and imagine a little differently so that we might also live a little differently.  I like to talk about the kingdom of God as “God’s dream for the world.”  In my rendering of the Jesus Prayer, we use the phrase, “may your kingdom come, your dream arrive, your purposes prevail.”

            The kingdom of God is a symbol for God’s dream and purposes becoming a reality.  It might be said to be a horizon symbol, something always out ahead of us, luring us on into the future, asking us to work to build a different future.  It is a future, though, that can break into the present.  The symbol of the kingdom of God is also an inviting symbol.  We are invited by it to think, dream, imagine and live differently.

            That’s where things may get a little more uncomfortable for some.  The kingdom of God is not just God’s doing, but we are invited to participate.  John Dominic Crossan: God’s kingdom is here, but only insofar as you accept it, enter it, live it, and thereby establish it (The Power of Parable, 127).  Another way to put this is the way South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu did, quoting St. Augustine: St. Augustine says, “God without us will not, as we, without God cannot (in Crossan, 135).  When we pray for God’s kingdom to come, God’s dream to arrive, God’s purposes to prevail we should do this knowing that we will be involved in that happening.

            So we are getting just a little bit of the swing of the kingdom of God - do wah do wah do wah do wah do wah.  But there are more notes to play.  What does it look like, feel like, taste like when indeed, God’s dream arrives right now, when God’s purposes prevail in our historicality?  This is really what these parable of Jesus in Matthew 13 are trying to get at.  What’s it like when God’s dream breaks in and becomes real?  As a poet, Jesus is maybe at his best in describing the feeling you get when you glimpse the Thing itself (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

            With parables, Jesus is trying to help us experience and anticipate the experience of God’s kingdom, God’s dream touching our lives and the world.  What does it look like, feel like, taste like?  But he uses the language of symbol, metaphor, parable, poetry.  Jesus parable-riddles generate ambiguity at a variety of levels but never fully resolve that ambiguity (Tom Thatcher, Jesus the Riddler, 81).  We want to know how the kingdom of God swings, what it tastes like, feels like, looks like and what we get is the language of symbol, poetry, metaphor, parable which gives us hints, suggestions, whispers, impressionistic images.  It is a little like grabbing jello, but that is part of the adventure of following Jesus.  This engages us heart, mind and soul.  We participate in dreaming the kingdom as well as in making the dream a reality.  What we know is the overall direction – love, but defining love is also a little like squeezing jello.  It is also like jazz, where what the musicians play depends, in part, on what the other musicians are playing.  It is also like dance where, if you are going to do it well, you need to pay attention to the music and to your partner. 

            One other general comment.  Another reason that symbols, parables, metaphors, poetic language is so appropriate with its ambiguity, hints, suggestions is not only to invite us in, to invite our participation, but also because God’s dream, when it arrives is often shrouded in ambiguity and irony.  I have long appreciated the thoughts of Patrick Henry on this.  I trust God’s grace but I hesitate to identify it in particular cases.  It often blindsides me, regularly catching me off guard, seldom hits me square in the face.  When I know the grace of God, it’s nearly always after the fact, usually long afterward….  Over and over again, grace has come as irony: an off-balance deflating of my pride, sometimes as funny as vaudeville slapstick; a gentle dismantling of my despair (when I’m really hopeless nothing is scarier that hope, so grace has to be indirect, sneaky); clarity when I’m too confused and confusion when I’m too clear. (The Ironic Christian’s Companion, 2, 6)

            Having said all that, we can still ask what does it look like, feel like, taste like when God’s kingdom comes, God’s dream arrives, God’s purposes prevail? 

            Often there is a touch of the miraculous – like a mustard seed becoming a tree, or alike a woman baking with sixty pounds of flour (three measures) - and I am using that word both intentionally and carefully.  We often use the term miraculous to refer to only those things we cannot otherwise explain.  That’s o.k., but sometimes the miraculous has to do with the element of surprise, of seeing hidden dimensions of experience we had not seen before.  I love Walt Whitman’s meditation on the miraculous (“Miracles,” Leaves of Grass:

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart by sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky…

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with

   the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same

The miraculous need not be big and dramatic, though it may be.  It might be small, inconspicuous, perhaps almost innocuous, until finally it grabs hold of you.  It may start out as small as a mustard seed, or as insignificant as a bit of yeast in a large quantity of flour.

            What does it look like, feel like, taste like when God’s kingdom comes, God’s dream arrives, God’s purposes prevail?  There is inclusion and wise discernment together.  When the mustard seed becomes a tree, which, by the way, they don’t – mustard plants are shrubs – except in God’s wild imagination, when the mustard seed becomes a tree, all kinds of birds flock to it.  There is beauty, welcome, song. 

Yet we are not to let “inclusion” be mistaken for sloppy thinking.  Here’s what I mean.  We believe God loves all, and we mean all you all – everyone.  God loves, God welcomes, God accepts.  That doesn’t mean there are no criteria for self-criticism.  That doesn’t mean there are no expectations as we seek to follow Jesus.  There remain things in my life, caught in the net of my life, that I need to throw away.  There remain things in our life together that we expect of each other and hold each other accountable for.  Years ago, when I served as a District Superintendent in The United Methodist Church, I had to do some difficult work with a few church persons who needed behavioral guidelines for their participation in the church.  They had engaged in some pretty destructive kinds of behavior where the congregation, with my help, needed to say, “enough.”  The kingdom of God can show up there, too.

Over the course of the history of the church, we have erred way too often on that “wisdom” side, until it has become foolishness, than we have on the side of welcoming.  Seeds of love grow amazingly, and there is room for all.

What does it look like, feel like, taste like when God’s kingdom comes, God’s dream arrives, God’s purposes prevail?  Well, we have room for the old and the new.  Talk about the need for a dance.  There are traditions in our faith worth rediscovering, and some older things that have lost their vitality. There is new music which can communicate faith, and there are some new ideas that are little more than a flash in the pan.  Finding life in some of the tried and true and being open to being surprised by the new – that’s what it feels like, looks like, tastes like when God’s dream arrives.

What does it look like, feel like, taste like when God’s kingdom comes, God’s dream arrives, God’s purposes prevail?  There is joy and there is passion.  It is like discovering buried treasure or a valuable pearl.  When God’s presence is real and powerful, well, there is a bit of a party.  “Be joyful/though you have considered all the facts” as the poet Wendell Berry encourages.

What does it look like, feel like, taste like when God’s kingdom comes, God’s dream arrives, God’s purposes prevail?  There is the miraculous in the mundane, inclusion and discernment, the old and the new, joy and passion.  And all this is often elusive, sneaky, unpredictable.  Last week I said that one of the paradoxical elements of the Christian life is that there is this deep inner peace in knowing that we are loved by God and this inner restlessness which continually reminds us that God’s redemptive work is not yet finished.  Another paradoxical element of the Christian life is that God is always present in love, always wooing us “to become the image of God we were created to be” (Marjorie Suchocki, in Rethinking Wesley’s Theology Today, 63) yet there is a certain elusiveness in that presence.  If we are too quick to say, that’s where God’s kingdom showed up, we may not be getting it right.  God’s love is always present, and often unpredictable.  Are we open to being blind-sided by God’s grace?

I have been thinking this week about my friend Teri.  Teri is currently the lead pastor at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis.  About a year ago she came from Brookings, South Dakota where she had had a wonderfully successful and long-term pastoral ministry.  She will be leaving Hennepin Avenue next month.  She feels a need for a break from pastoral ministry.  I am guessing that for her, she was a bit blindsided by this new whisper of God’s Spirit.  There seems to be a mustard seed planted here, a little leaven, something new is emerging out of something old.  I hope she finds joy and passion in the midst of the unknown ahead.

This week, as well, I stumbled upon an old movie, not all that old, only 2009.  I don’t know about you, but I can get caught up in movies that I have seen and liked.  Well, I was finishing up dinner, and found “The Blind Side.”  I love that movie.  It is based on a true story about a well-off white family in Memphis, the Tuohys, who come to take an interest in an African-American street kind named Michael.  Michael develops into a very good high school football player, gets a scholarship to Mississippi, and ends up being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.  He is a left offensive tackle, whose job it is to protect the quarterback’s blind side – hence the name of the movie.  I have seen the movie a few times, but it was not until this week that it really hit me.  The real blindside in this movie is the way the Tuohy family is blindsided by their caring for Michael and how much it changes their lives.  They are blindsided by goodness.  They are blindsided by grace.  It’s like a mustard seed that gets planted and turned into a tree.  It’s like a little leaven in a whole pile of flour that still does its work.  It’s like not being so blinded by the bad in the Memphis projects that you can’t see the good when you catch it in your net.  New family is created, a more inclusive community, and there is joy.

That’s what it looks like, feels like, tastes like when God’s kingdom comes, God’s dream arrives, God’s purposes prevail.  It’s got that kind of swing.  Let’s keep finding it, and creating it, and living it together.  Amen.