Beyond the Smile

Sermon preached October 13, 2013

Texts: Luke 17:11-19

            I am backsliding.  Just a couple of weeks after I said I would look for sermon examples from more contemporary culture, here I am reaching back, back before my time.

            Accentuate The Positive:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUmAbi0Vm4

            That’s Bing Crosby from the 1940s.  Bing was still around when I was a boy, he even sang a duet with David Bowie.  Of course, David Bowie is no longer a young man.  So for those of you who are younger, you might be wondering what kind of name is “Bing,” just like some who are older may be asking what kind of name is “Kayne.”  I figured I better get something from this century into this part of the sermon.

            Accentuate the positive.  That is a popular message in much of our culture, and it has been for some time.  The Power of Positive Thinking was an enormous best-seller for many years.  More recently, popular speakers like Loretta Laroche offer advice like:

Squeeze the juice out of every moment of every day. Let it be filled with delight, joy, love, and good humor.

            Many of us have heard this story, I am guessing.  Once there were five-year-old twin boys, one a pessimist and the other an optimist.  Wondering how two boys who seemed so alike could be so different, their parents took them to a psychiatrist.  The psychiatrist took the pessimist to a room piled high with new toys, expecting the boy to be thrilled. But instead he burst into tears. Puzzled, the psychiatrist asked, "don't you want to play with these toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."  Next the psychiatrist took the optimist to a room piled high with horse manure. The boy yelped with delight, clambered to the top of the pile, and joyfully dug out scoop after scoop, tossing the manure into the air with glee. "What on earth are you doing?" the psychiatrist asked.  "Well,” said the boy, beaming “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

            Such stories and sayings are often summarized on bumper stickers about having an attitude of gratitude.

            You may notice that I smile a lot.  It comes easy.  One time I heard that it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown.  I guess I enjoy doing what’s easier.

            So, is smiling a lot, is encouragement to have an attitude of gratitude, is looking for a pony in the piles of manure, is positive thinking the heart of biblical, Christian, faith-rooted gratitude?  Does God just want us to put on a happy face, or is there more beyond and behind the smile that we need to dig into?

            There is little question that today’s story about Jesus is also about gratitude.  Ten lepers approach Jesus, though keeping their distance, asking for mercy.  He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests.  As they go, following Jesus’ instructions, they are made clean, cured of their condition.  One of them, filled with astonishing joy, does not continue on the journey to the priests.  We guess that the others might do that, and it would make sense.  Don’t you need to follow through on the task?  What if the healing disappears if they do not follow through?  Nevertheless one of them, a Samaritan, runs back to Jesus, praising God and thanking Jesus.  Jesus wonders about the other nine, and then says to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you well.”

            There are a lot of angles to this story.  Perhaps the Samaritan discontinued to travel with the others and returned to Jesus, in part, because he knew he might not be welcomed by the priests.  Samaritans were considered religious outliers.  Yet the Samaritan becomes the “hero” of the story.  And what do we make of Jesus’ final saying?  Was the cleanliness of the other nine rescinded?  There is no indication of that in the story.  They remained “healed.”  What then of this Samaritan who is told, “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you well.”  This suggests some kind of deeper healing.

            Gratitude, biblical, Christian faith-rooted gratitude has something to do with a deeper healing.  Beyond the smile, there is more going on.

            Sometimes in our popular culture when it focuses on an attitude of gratitude, on accentuating the positive, sometimes we are even encouraged to be grateful for the negative.  Some popular culture understandings even argue that we bring the negative on ourselves, attract it.  If so, it must be what we need and so we should be grateful for it.

            I want to suggest here, and then elaborate for a few moments on the idea that biblical, Christian faith-rooted gratitude is not simply giving thanks for the good times, or when things are going well, though it includes that; and it is also more complex than simply saying thank you for all the bad things in our lives.

            Not long ago I read an essay by the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski entitled, “Is God Happy?” In the essay, Kolakowski argues this: Even if we are able to experience physical and spiritual pleasure and moments beyond time, in the ‘eternal present’ of love, we can never forget the existence of evil and the misery of the human condition.  We participate in the suffering of others; we cannot eliminate the anticipation of death or the sorrows of life. (Is God Happy?, 214)  So you may not want to invite this man to a dinner party.

            What I appreciate about Kolakowski is that he pushes me to think about gratitude in deeper and richer ways.  Somehow gratitude cannot be simply looking for a pony in a pile of manure, because sometimes the manure of life keeps getting dumped.  It cannot be simply accentuating the positive, when some of the negatives are so significant.  Biblical, Christian faith-rooted gratitude has to grapple with the significance and seriousness of human suffering.  It has to get beyond the easy smile.  The Samaritan who comes to know deep healing still remains a Samaritan, unwelcome in the broader Jewish community of the time, though welcome in the Jesus community.

            So what does biblical, Christian faith-rooted gratitude, grappling with the significance and seriousness of human suffering look like?

            It is certainly gratitude for good things.  The Samaritan, a leper, is a leper no longer.  Wild joy and gratitude are appropriate, even if they cause the man to stray from Jesus’ instructions.  Joan Chittister, in her book Happiness, writes about faith-rooted gratitude.  To protect ourselves from becoming constantly negative about the little irritations of life until they become burdens rather than simply passing aggravations, it’s important to remind ourselves of the little gifts of our lives that live on in us yet, that punctuate our every day, and, far too often, that go totally unnoticed. (123)

            There is truth in the popular culture stuff about an attitude of gratitude.  We do need to look for all those places in our lives where there are gifts, many simply there – the sunrise or sunset, the sound of the waves or the trees when the breeze blows gently.  There are gifts of friendship that we have both worked on and yet come beyond our work.  There is music and art and literature.  There is the pleasure of physical exertion and activity.  Ironically, while one part of our culture encourages an attitude of gratitude, another part is constantly nagging at us that our lives are incomplete.  What is advertising but a constant message that you are not who, what or where you should be, but you can be if you purchase the right product.

            Faith-rooted gratitude is gratitude for life’s goodness, and an encouragement to pay attention to life’s goodness, not take it for granted.  Yet paying attention to life means we also see what is not so good.  Anne Lamott in her book on prayer, Help, Thanks, Wow, writes: It is easy to thank God for life when things are going well.  But life is much bigger than we give it credit for, and much of the time it’s harder than we would like.  It’s a package deal….  We and life are spectacularly flawed and complex. (44-45)

            Trying to hold that complex reality together as we consider gratitude leads us to the heart of biblical, Christian faith-based gratitude.  It leads us to God, for it is gratitude to God that is at the heart of biblical, Christian faith-based gratitude.  The Samaritan “turned back, praising God with a loud voice.”  He was grateful to God.  When we give thanks for the good gifts of life, we are grateful for friends, for creative souls who create art, for meaningful work in a job created by people and an economic system.  But as Christians we assert that in the midst of all these goodnesses there is the goodness of God.  God has something to do with all the good we know and enjoy.

            Monday I was at a meeting of our Board of Ordained Ministry, and the opening devotion asked the question, “Where have you seen God?”  Where have you seen God.  To pay attention to the good gifts of life is to begin to answer the question of where we have seen God.  Where there is goodness and beauty, there is God.

            And gratitude is possible when life is difficult, when things are not going the way we desire, when we are aware of evil and suffering and that we all will die, gratitude is possible because this God who is goodness and beauty is always at work, even in the most difficult moments of life.  Patricia Farmer puts it well: Beauty cannot be drowned.  It cannot be swept away.  It will not give up or give in.  And in the ruins of tragedy, God never stops luring, creating, transforming, redeeming, and loving things back into life and wholeness. (Embracing a Beautiful God, 41)  God, in the words of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, God works with “the tender elements of the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love” (Process and Reality, first edition, 520).

            Biblical, Christian faith-rooted gratitude is God centered.  We give thanks for the good gifts of life, many of which are gifts of sheer grace, because we trust that God works to create such goodness and beauty.  We don’t lose gratitude because we trust that in even the most difficult and dire circumstances, God remains at work luring, creating, transforming, redeeming, and loving things back into life and wholeness.  We don’t have slap on a silly smile and say thanks for the difficulties and dreaded circumstances.  Beyond and behind the smile, in the tears, we can be grateful that God never leaves us or forsakes us, and is always working toward healing and wholeness.  In the long run we may even embrace the tough times.  Henri Nouwen once wrote, “It is a difficult discipline to constantly reclaim my whole past as the concrete way in which God has led me to this moment and is sending me into the future” (quoted in Melanie Svoboda, Traits of a Healthy Spirituality, 102).

            Gratitude heals deeply because gratitude helps us see goodness and beauty we may miss in the busyness of our lives.  Gratitude heals deeply because when we are grateful we feel that our lives are o.k., that we can make it through tough times, and even grow through them.  Beyond the smile, gratitude heals, and we can always find some seed of gratitude because God is always finding us in love, embracing us and moving us toward healing and wholeness and toward the healing and wholeness of the world.  Amen. 

Sparking

Sermon preached October 6, 2013

Texts: II Timothy 1:3-7; Luke 17:5-6

            “Teach Your Children Well”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r4H3u1mrWc

Now I know some of you try and guess if I am going to play a song during my sermon, and try and guess what that song might be.  This may seem an odd combination – “Teach You Children” with the sermon title – “sparking.”  What am I encouraging you to teach?

            Sparking can refer to courting or wooing, and apparently this use of the term has Scandinavian origins.  Apparently we Scandinavians are not always just the frozen chosen.  Sparking can imply kissing.  It can refer to having a crush, or an attraction.  “Didn’t you know that guy was really sparking on you?”

            But this morning I don’t want to talk about what we teach our children about romantic relationships.  Maybe another Sunday. I want to use “sparking” in the sense of giving off sparks, of igniting, of rousing up something.  And I want to do this in the context of the verses from II Timothy and of the camp song referred to in the Invitation to Worship.  The setting of II Timothy is a letter of Paul to a younger follower of Jesus named Timothy.  Paul writes of Timothy’s “sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice.”  Timothy has faith, Christian faith.  It is a spark that began with his grandmother and his mother.  It only takes a spark, to get a fire going, and apparently this spark stayed lit in Timothy’s life.  Paul encourages him to keep it lit.  “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you.”

            So how do we pass our faith on, particularly to next generations?  How do we spark faith in others, particularly those younger than us, and maybe, particularly in the lives of our children?  I am going to make an assertion, a rather bold one, then qualify it, than return to it.  That’s where we are going.

            We have the best opportunity to pass on Christian faith when we rekindle it in our own lives.  More important than any particular church programs we can offer, keeping our own faith sparked, vital, alive matters most in whether or not that faith gets passed on.

            So here is qualification one.  Programs matter.  Little things we do matter.  Jesus saying about faith the size of a mustard seed tells us that small things can have a big impact – and I will return to that later.  Programs matter.  We strive to have quality programs for children and youth.  We are in the process of hiring a new youth director because we think that provides us an important opportunity to teach and share faith with our youth.  Every Sunday morning we offer Christian faith formation for children and youth.  These matter.  These make a difference.  Bringing our children and youth matters.

Over the years I have had some conversations with parents who say that they are not going to have their children participate in any faith community growing up.  When they get older they will let them decide.  While that may have a nice ring to it, it is pretty vacuous.  If children are never given the opportunity to learn about Christian faith, what will they even have to decide?  Programs matter – qualifying statement number one.

The second qualifying statement is this – there are no guarantees.  When you hear me assert that keeping our own faith sparked, vital, alive matters most in whether or not that faith gets passed on, and think perhaps about your own children, if they are now adults, and maybe not part of a faith community, you may ask “Where did I go wrong?”  I know people ask that.  This is not a sermon trying to create guilt and hand-wringing about the past.  There are no guarantees.

A concept I have come to appreciate in recent years is the concept of “overdetetrmination.”  Essentially it means that there are multiple factors affecting human action and we often go wrong when we try to simplify the causes of particular human actions.  It is a sophisticated way of saying that there are no guarantees when it comes to sparking faith in others.

If someone is not churched or not interested in faith, it is simplistic to look only to the faith life of parents or grandparents.  Timothy’s faith was a faith that his grandmother Lois lived, and his mother Eunice lived, but Paul was also a factor in the development of that faith.  “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.”  We live in a society where in the broader culture Christianity is often seen as narrow, judgmental, anti-science, and even if we don’t share that kind of faith with our children, they may associate Christian faith with that kind of thinking and being, and struggle with it.  There are no guarantees.

Qualifier number three, and the last one.  Faith may take on new expressions in our children and youth.  They may find another stream of the Christian tradition that keeps their faith lively and vital.  There was an interesting blog circulating recently, “Young Evangelicals Are Getting High.”  The essay discussed a growing trend among young adults who had grown up in non-denominational, evangelical Protestant churches are moving toward more highly liturgical churches, and this trend was much to the dismay of the essays author.  I happen to think the Methodist stream of Christian tradition has a lot to offer, but the sparks we ignite may carry people in some other directions.

With all those qualifiers in the back of our minds, it still makes sense to me to say that we have the best opportunity to pass on Christian faith when we rekindle it in our own lives.  More important than any particular church programs we can offer, keeping our own faith sparked, vital, alive matters most in whether or not that faith gets passed on.

            Toward the end of his book Psychology: The Briefer Course, William James wrote: But just as courage is so often a reflex of another’s courage, so our faith is apt to be faith in someone else’s faith.  We draw new life from the heroic example.

            A recent national survey of congregations shows that young adults are more attracted to congregations with spiritual vitality than ones with programs for their age group.  Where congregations place significant emphasis on spiritual practices, young adult participation is stronger. (The Christian Century, October 2, 2013).  In a book many of us read together a couple of years ago, Christianity for the Rest of Us, Diana Butler Bass identifies some significant Christian spiritual practices: hospitality, discernment, healing, contemplation, testimony, diversity, justice, worship, reflection, and beauty.

            In my years here I have talked about us being a place that nurtures a thoughtful, passionate and compassionate Christian faith, a faith marked by joy, genuineness, gentleness, generosity and justice.

            Keeping our own faith vital and alive, engaging in spiritual practices that nurture a thoughtful, passionate, and compassionate Christian faith, is what we need to be doing to spark faith in others.  We have the best opportunity to pass on Christian faith when we rekindle it in our own lives.  Keeping our own faith sparked, vital, alive matters most in whether or not that faith gets passed on.

            And one final note.  We don’t need to be spiritual giants to be sparking faith.  We just need to tend to that mustard-seed sized faith that we have.  Just tend to that, but tend to that.  You can’t start a fire without a spark, but it only takes a spark to get a fire going.  Amen.

God of the Gap

Sermon preached September 29, 2013

Texts: Luke 16:19-31


If I Were a Rich Man


This is a song we could all sing with feeling, at least if the lyrics were more gender neutral.
But here’s something to think about. If we take the Bible seriously we need to know that there wealth is viewed with a great deal of concern. Many are familiar with the words from I Timothy: But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. (6:9-10a). The Bible is full of cautionary tales about wealth.
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. So begins a story told by Jesus. God, would it have been too much to have given me a small fortune? This rich man in the story is given no name, only well-described. It may be helpful to know that purple in the time of Jesus was the color of wealth, royalty, and position. The Roman Empire regulated how purple was to be worn.
In some tales, people come into wealth at the end of the story, and they all live happily ever after. Not so here.
There is another character in the story, a poor man, someone desperately poor, so poor he does not have the energy to move away from dogs licking at his open sores. Yet this man gets a name, Lazarus – the name is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Eleazar which means “God helps.”
Both the rich man and Lazarus die. Death – the great equalizer, yet in the story death does not really equalize things. The afterlife reverses things – the rich man is in torment and Lazarus is in comfort. The rich man, who had ignored Lazarus in this life, though perhaps not completely or how would he recognize him, the rich man asks from Lazarus just a taste of water. Within the confines of the story there is an uncross able chasm making this impossible.
It is good for us to remember here that this is a story. This is not intended to be a description of the afterlife. It is not really about the afterlife at all, but about this life. The message isn’t subtle. You cannot not care about the poor. If you follow Jesus, not caring is not an option. God is a God of the gap, a God who cares about those on the margins, without neglecting to care for those who are well-off.
If not caring about the poor is not an option, we find ourselves smack in the middle of the messiness of life where spirituality – following Jesus, is all mixed up with morality – what is the right thing to do and who is a good person, and these get mixed into politics – how are we going to live together as a society.
A recent issue of The Christian Century reported on the results of a poll asking respondents “When Jesus and the prophets urged concern for the poor, they were primarily talking about (a) our obligation to create a just society, or (b) charitable acts by individuals?” Among all respondents, 50% chose charitable acts in contrast to 41% who chose creating a just society. The number was 57% to 33% among white mainline Protestants.
Now you may be nodding inside. Jesus certainly is talking about charity when he mentions the poor. We should be engaged in directly working to improve the lives of those who find themselves poor. But how do we confront the fact that charity isn’t enough, nor is it always effective or efficient. For instance, it makes more sense to construct public sanitation systems than to simply allow for charitable care for those sickened by unsanitary conditions.
Charity isn’t enough. In the United States 17.6 million families face food insecurity. Military families used $100 million in government food aid last year. That did not prevent the House of Representatives from recently voting to cut food assistance programs by $40 billion over the next ten years, with even deeper cuts considered. Feeding America, the largest hunger charity in the country processed $5 billion in food and funding last year. Feeding America would have to double its contributions to make up for these recent cuts while maintaining their current services.
All recent economic data indicate that the middle class in the United States is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the percentage of income going to the upper income brackets is increasing. With the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percentage of children in poverty than the United States (The Nation, 10-7-13). Charity isn’t enough.
Interestingly in an op-ed piece in Friday’s Duluth News Tribune another pastor in town wrote an article decrying how words have been misused especially “by those on the left.” He asserted that those on the left now define “fairness” as “the state of things when all people possess the same level of material resources irrespective of their education, initiative or responsible life decisions.” I am not sure anyone defines fairness in that way, though some might. Could fairness, though, entail that while inequality is acceptable given people’s choices, initiative, and education, perhaps fairness also means no one falls too low, that a fairer society is one where no one starves?
These are tough questions and there are no easy answers. Even if we agree that this story, in urging care for the poor, asks us to engage in the creation of a more just society as well as to offer charity, how we attain the goals of a more just society is open to vigorous debate. The bottom line is that we cannot not care about those who are poor if we want to follow Jesus.
And here’s another frame, another challenge as we seek to follow Jesus. In 2006 a Princeton University study by neuroimaging researchers found that the very poor are viewed with such disdain that they are often dehumanized. Brain activity suggested that the very poor were viewed with disgust and repugnance. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues in her most recent book that “narcissistic emotions such as envy, shame, and disgust” threaten social arrangements when not held in check (Political Emotions, 116) Disgust can be personally and socially destructive. So this story of the rich man and Lazarus, a story told by Jesus which has something to do with following Jesus, is not only about action to alleviate poverty. It is also about looking into our own hearts and souls to see if we really see those who are on the margins as fellow humans, persons created in the image of God, this God who wants to bridge the gap between us.
If people experience disgust toward the very poor, perhaps we can understand why. If we experience disgust toward the very poor, perhaps we can understand why. We may fear our own vulnerability. If the very poor are poor completely of their own mismanagement of life, then surely we can manage our lives well enough to avoid their fate. To see the humanity of those on the margins is perhaps to see that sometimes life circumstances can overcome we humans. Enormous medical bills become bankruptcy. Untreated mental illness becomes living on the streets. An abusive home environment with insufficient social intervention becomes a youth on the streets. Rather than confront our own anxiety about the vicissitudes of life, it can be easier to look at those on the margins, those with the dogs licking their sores, as less than. Perhaps we stop seeing them all together. In the story Jesus tells, it is this man who has a name, Lazarus.
A miser bought himself a nice piece of pastry but before he could taste it, he accidentally dropped it in the street. When the miser picked it up he found to his disgust that the pastry had become covered with dirt. Just then a poor man asked for charity. The miser was hardly about to part with good coins; he never had. He handed the poor man the dirty pastry and thought no more about it.
But that night the miser dreamed. And in his dream he sat in a large restaurant, a crowded restaurant with waiters running about, bringing the customers the most wonderful cakes the miser had ever seen. Yet not one waiter came his way. At last, furious, he shouted for service. But all he was given was one dirt-covered piece of pastry.
“What is this!” he roared. “How dare you bring me this dirty pastry! I did not ask for charity! I have money enough to buy the finest cake!”
“I’m sorry,” said one waiter. “You cannot use money here. This is Eternity, and here you can only eat what you, yourself, sent ahead from the Mortal World. You, alas, sent only this one piece of dirty piece of pastry, and I’m afraid that’s all you may receive.”
This is tough stuff. Following Jesus can be a challenge. We are asked to look at our world and see where it can be better. It is not about blaming those who are doing well, it is asking questions about our current social arrangements that seem to allow some to do tremendously well, while too many others are slipping, and too many are not making it. It is not about feeling guilty, it is about searching our hearts and souls to see where we are not seeing, to move from disgust to compassion.
Gospel is another word for good news, and maybe you don’t feel like you’ve heard any. Well, here’s some. Change is possible, in our hearts and in our world. We can all grow in our ability to see and to care. That’s good news.
Here’s some more. God knows us by name, even when we are at our most vulnerable. There are other kinds of poverty than material poverty. God cares about that gap, but also about the other gaps in human life, those wounds of the soul that leave us feeling like Lazarus. The compassion of God is boundless, and God’s attitude toward us is never one of disgust, only of compassion. That’s good news.
You are loved, so love. In this complicated, messy world, know you are loved and know you can love, by the grace and power of Jesus. Amen.

Crazy Like a Fox

Sermon preached September 22, 2013

Texts: Luke 16:1-9


Last weekend, we watched a very entertaining movie starring Matthew McConaughey entitled “The Lincoln Lawyer.” The movie is based upon novels written by Michael Connelly. McConaughey plays Mickey Haller “L.A.’s top criminal defense lawyer – a fast-living, freewheeling pro who does business out of the back seat of his classic Lincoln Town Car” (from the back of the dvd). Haller is not above skirting some of the legal niceties. He sends gifts to court officials so as to get inside information about his cases. He takes money from a motorcycle gang, to defend one of their own, but does so under some false pretenses. The movie was very entertaining and engaging – intense and suspenseful. McConaughey’s Mickey Haller is a familiar type of character in our movies, television, and fiction – the kindhearted rogue or the loveable outlaw.
The kindhearted rogue, one whose heart and intentions are in the right place, who wants to do good, and is willing to short-circuit what it considered proper or even legal, is a familiar character. So, too, the loveable outlaw. We see this character in Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. We see it in James Garner’s Jim Rockford, a private detective who would impersonate others when needed. We see it in Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. I would guess that many of us have our favorite kindhearted loveable outlaw or rogue.
Jesus seems to have a soft spot for such characters, too. At least he does in the story he tells today. A manager for a rich man is taken to task for not managing responsibly. The rich man wants an accounting of the manager’s work as he is being let go. The manager says to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” The manager goes about reducing the debt of those who owed the rich man money. And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.
Strange story in many ways. Why would the rich man approve of the actions of his manager? The manager may have had authority to lessen debt. What he may have been cutting was his share, not what had been owed the rich man in the first place, and perhaps thereby even increasing the likelihood that the rich man would be re-paid. Being a shrewd business man himself, the rich man admires the manager, appreciates his street smarts, his wit. His actions may seem crazy, but he is crazy like a fox.
In telling this story, Jesus, too seems to admire the manager. Is he advocating corruption, business deals that are not on the up and up? I don’t think so. Like novelists, television writers and movie makers today, Jesus tells an engaging story to get us to think. What Jesus is getting us to think about is thinking, is questioning, is discerning.
This coming week in your church newsletter you will receive a copy of a Member Covenant for First United Methodist Church. My article in the newsletter describes what this is about, and I don’t want to go into all of that this morning. I want to mention one part of this covenant. One part of the covenant says that as a congregation we pledge to “support the growth of a thoughtful, passionate, compassionate faith in all who come to First UMC.” The kind of Christian faith we want to nurture here is a thoughtful, passionate and compassionate faith.
So here is one version of Christian faith. You say “yes” to Jesus. Some may call that conversion. Some may call that being born again. You say “yes’ to Jesus and then you look into the Bible as an answer book, that gives you all the answers you need in your life if you just read it rightly.
I found a church that has quite a presence on the internet, and is a good example of what I am talking about. It is also a real church community. The church, in its statement of beliefs says this: The sole basis of our beliefs is the Bible, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. It was uniquely, verbally, and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit and was written without error in the original manuscript. It is the supreme and final authority in faith and life in every age. From that base, the church has among its core values the following: We believe that God designed men and women to be different. The husband and wife have differing but complementary roles in the family. The husband is the head of the household, loving and leading his wife, as Christ as his example. The wife is to support and respect her husband. I wanted to find out more about what that might mean so I listened to parts of four sermons in a series “How Should a Man Really Love his Wife.” By the way the shortest of the sermons was about how a woman should love her husband and it was 26 minutes long, the longest was 53 minutes long. Just saying. Anyway, in the briefest sermon, the pastor said to women: “Here’s how God wants you to be: sweet, gentle, gracious, kind, responsive, cooperative and respectful.” Now there is nothing wrong with any of those things, but is that really a complete list of the qualities we want to see in women? Where is strength, or courage?
I am not interested in an extended discussion of this theology, only wanting to note that the kind of Christian faith that some churches put forward is one where you say “yes” to Jesus, and then find all your answers in the Bible. This may not be a “thoughtful faith,” that is, one that asks questions and invites thinking.
Let me be clear about something here. There are places where very definite biblical values don’t leave a lot of room for debate. If we follow Jesus, for instance, I think murder is out. Stealing is out. Lying seems out. I am just taking some of the basics from the Ten Commandments. Seems pretty straightforward. Not all cats are gray, afterall.
But have you ever asked, “Is all killing murder?” If so, followers of Jesus should not be in the military. What constitutes a lie? Your loved one comes to you and says, “how do I look in this?” You can tell she or he really likes the outfit but it is not your favorite. Do you fudge a bit? Is that a lie, or are you acting out of care for someone you love?
What about other questions that confront us in our lives? What should I do with my life? What vocation should I choose? What sorts of outreach should I choose as I seek to share the love of God in Jesus? Afterall, there is more good to be done in the world than anyone of us can do.
Jesus holds up a loveable rogue to help us admire his thoughtfulness, his thinking, his questioning, his discerning. A thoughtful Christian faith takes discernment seriously. Here are a couple of good descriptions of discernment.
[Discernment]… a set of attitudes and practices by which we willingly open our hearts to the heart of God, our minds to the mind of God, our intentions to the purpose of God. (Gil Rendle and Alice Mann, Holy Conversations, 139) Discernment does not simply confirm our hunches or intuitions. Instead, it is a perilous practice that involves self-criticism, questions, and risk – and it often redirects our lives. (Diana Butler Bass, Christianity For the Rest of Us, 95)
The idea that we have to think about our faith, deeply and critically, is rooted in a theological perspective. God’s creative word meets our condition, emerging quietly and most often unnoticeably in the midst of who and where we are (Marjorie Suchocki, The Whispered Word, 4). God’s word is hidden incarnationally in the world. It is a whisper. Suchocki, 6)
Jesus praises a loveable rogue because he understands our need to be thoughtful, questioning, sharp witted in our journey of faith. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist stream of the Christian tradition may also have understood some of this when he put forward the idea that in making decisions about life and faith, Christians need to consult Scripture, which remains central to our faith, but also tradition, reason and experience. On this journey of faith we need to be thoughtful, thinking, questioning, pondering. We need to do that together. Together we need to be a community of conversation and action.
Two final thoughts this morning about a thoughtful, discerning faith. A thoughtful Christian faith really is a journey, an on-going process of growth. That makes it both uncomfortable sometimes, but also makes it an adventure. Joan Chittester writes these wise words. Life is an accumulation of becomings, all of them important, none of them complete…. Because life tests us, we must not fear to test life. Every decision must be reviewed, every impulse evaluated. Then we will only be where we are because where we are is still right for us, still teaching us what we dearly need to know. (Called To Question, 56, 60)
The life of faith is an adventure. We need to keep saying “yes” to Jesus as we think about what it means to follow him in our complex world. Yet the God we know in Jesus, this Spirit that always seems to be somewhere on the horizon always beckoning us forward, is also an ever-present companion. God is not like that irate rich man, leaving us to our own devices. God is with us. The poet Mary Oliver put it well (“Look and See”):

Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look, and see.

Only look and see – discernment.
Look, see, think, dream, imagine, question. Be crazy like a fox. Grow a thoughtful faith, by God’s grace and Spirit. Amen.

Where Have You Been?

Sermon preached September 15, 2013

Texts: Luke 15:1-10


John Sebastian "Welcome Back"

This summer I preached a series of sermons on “sticky Scriptures,” Biblical texts suggested by you, texts that were problematic in one way or another. So with this sermon it would seem I am starting a series of snotty sermons. Doesn’t this title – “Where Have You Been?” reek of arrogance? I mean, where have you been?
With this phrase, tone and emphasis are everything. Where have you been? Where have you been… to which we might append “all my life”? Where have you been? Part of the challenge of our reliance on e-communication, text messages and the like is that they don’t come with a tone. We sometimes have to explain ourselves by adding letters like – lol (laugh out loud). Body language makes a difference, too. Arms crossed, tapping your toe – “Where have you been?” Arms extended, lightly – “Where have you been?’
Jesus is telling us “where have you been stories” with the emphasis on “you,” on welcoming. The stories have a light touch, a streak of humor. Which one of you, having one hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? Think about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody’s hand went up. So I have ninety-nine sheep, and I am going to leave them to find the one that has wandered off? What happens to the other ninety-nine? What are the chances that one of them will wander off? I’ve heard that this is not likely, but you have already had one wander away, why not another? Sounds like something out of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. It would not make economic sense. The shepherd in the story, assuming he owns the sheep, is well-to-do. He has not made silly economic choices. Wouldn’t you take the loss of one sheep rather than risk the safety of the other ninety-nine? Apparently not in God’s economy.
The lost sheep is found. The shepherd “lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’” Really? If I had lost something on the job, then found it, I would keep it to myself, a little embarrassed by my mishap. Not in this story. The guy wants to throw a party.
If this story isn’t quite enough, Jesus tells another. What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? O.K. Here, at least, the other coins are not going to wander off. Furthermore, the coins are valuable, worth about a day’s wages. We are not talking a missing penny here. Her behavior in searching seems justified for that kind of money. But then, she, too, “calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’” Again, a party. Not something I would do. Again, I would be a little embarrassed that I had lost the coin in the first place. I would not be anxious to admit it. A couple of years ago I bought a roll of stamps, not an insignificant purchase. I knew I bought them but two days later, I could not find them. I really hate to lose stuff, so I looked and looked, and finally located them on a book shelf where I never typically put stuff. I remember getting distracted by the phone or something and setting them down in a safe place. This is the first I’ve told anyone. Sorry, I did not have a party.
Of course, maybe the woman in the story needed to tell her neighbors, really needed to explain herself, I mean all those lights and noises coming from her place last after dark, at strange hours. Do you think the neighbors will buy the lost coin story?
These are “where have you been?” stories. They are about joy. One commentator on these texts wrote that in these stories “the joy of finding the lost is as extravagant as concern for the lost is excessive” (Discipleship Study Bible). So why is Jesus telling these wonderfully rich and humorous stories? Some of the religious leaders of the time were critical of Jesus. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Where have you been, Jesus, hanging out with the losers and the outcasts I bet!
Jesus responds to their sarcasm and bitter criticism with these lovely stories, and then makes a serious connection. “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” This extravagant joy, this odd happiness, this is God. That economically challenged shepherd, this is God. That kind of wacky neighbor lady looking for her coin, this is God.
Here is how theologian and preacher Frederick Buechner describes what’s going on in these stories and in the gospel. God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd all turn out to have other things more important to do than come live it up with him, goes out into the skid rows and soup kitchens and charity wards and brings home a freak show. The man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner. The old woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes her daily rounds of the garbage cans. The old wino with his pint in a brown paper bag. The pusher, the whore, the village idiot who stands at the blinker light waving his hand as cars go by. They are seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are lit and the champagne glasses filled. At a sign from the host, musicians in their gallery strike up “Amazing Grace.” If you have to explain it, don’t bother. (Telling the Truth)
Is Buechner a little over the top, not any more than Jesus in his stories.
This is God’s attitude toward us. “Where have you been?” spoken with arms extended and gesturing a welcome. Where have you been for so long, I’ve missed you, been saving a place just for you.
This is God’s stance toward us, always searching. If we wander away, God turns on all the lights, sweeps under all the furniture, dusts in all the corners, until we are found.
This is God’s stance toward us, joy – wild, extravagant joy. God’s “Where have you been?” is not “Where have you been?” – glaring with arms crossed, but “Where have you been?” – welcoming with a joyful voice.
God welcomes us, embraces us, joyously, extravagantly. Revel in this wild welcoming God.
Then, and there is a “then,” then remember that we want to reflect that hospitality, that joyous welcome in our life together as this church.
We are a place that says we “welcomes all people.” These stories are about welcoming. We are a place that says we are “guided by the teachings and unconditional love of Jesus.” These stories are what that looks life. We want, here, to “be inspired to live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.” Disciples of Jesus Christ extend God’s welcome widely and wildly, to all, no exceptions.
If we take these stories seriously, our welcome here should be an active welcome. We cannot just wait for folks to show up, though when they do, we need to welcome them welcome all. Active welcoming is reaching out, inviting others to the party. Yes, we believe God’s Spirit moves in people’s lives to bring them here, but you may be the occasion for God to bring someone here.
Maybe even think of it this way. We want this to be a place where we each hear God say, in a warm, welcoming way, “Where Have You Been?” We want to hear those extravagantly joyful words in our own hearts. I hope you do. Then, consider this. You may help someone else hear God’s welcoming voice in their own life. It’s an idea as wild as these stories Jesus tells.
Where have you been? It’s great to see you. Welcome back. Welcome others. Amen.

The Gospel According to Phil

Sermon preached September 8, 2013

Texts: Philemon 1-22

Lucille Ball Museum Jamestown, NY

Garfield Memorial Cleveland

Henry Ford Museum Dearborn, MI

Henry Ford Museum

It is an old bit of humor in sitcoms, persons showing their vacation pictures to barely interested friends, inflicting their vacation pictures on others. The technology has changed over the years – slides, home movies, videos. Now you can just show others on your phone, and typically that is much briefer.
The New Testament letter of Paul to Philemon seems a bit like we are peering in on someone’s home videos, eavesdropping on some personal conversation. “One thing more – prepare a guest room for me.” I bet you won’t see any signs at football games this weekend with that Scripture verse cited or quoted. Because it seems so specific, and because it is such a brief letter, it is probably Paul’s most neglected writing in the New Testament. Can this letter still speak to us? I suppose I could say “no” and let us all go home really early. But that would not be honest. I think the letter of Philemon can speak to us, and speak powerfully. I think there is a Gospel According to Phil.
To let this letter speak requires some work. We need to know both the story in the letter and the social and historical context which helps us understand the story better.
The basic story line is this: Onesimus is a slave whom Paul has met in prison. Onesimus has run away from his master, Philemon, and, probably stolen something when he left. Philemon is a person of some standing, wealthy enough to have a slave or slaves. He is also a prominent Christian, one who has come to faith because of the work of Paul and one whose house probably serves as the site of a house church. In their encounter, Onesimus, under the teaching of Paul, becomes a Christian. Paul is writing to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus, urging Philemon to take Onesimus back, and to see him as not simply a slave but also as a brother in Christ. Paul also offers to make restitution for anything that Onesimus has stolen.
Perhaps another reason this book has become so neglected is that the topic of immediate concern has become so foreign to us – slavery. How can we even think of someone as a prominent Christian and a slaveholder? Unfortunately, it wasn’t that long ago that slavery was an enormous debate in the Christian community, and this letter may have been used to make the case that Christians could, in fact, keep slaves. Thankfully, we have moved beyond that argument.
Some understanding, though, of slavery in the time of this letter is important to help us understand the letter better and see how it might speak to us today. The Roman Empire was a highly stratified society. At the top of the ladder in an area would have been Roman officials appointed to administer the area politically, militarily or financially. Then you would have had the local privileged class – privileged by heredity or money – the small landowners, the shop owners, the crafts people. Next would have been the freedmen and freedwomen, former slaves who had been released or who had purchased their freedom. At the bottom of the social pyramid were the slaves – an immense number of them who provided a crucial economic benefit to the Empire. One might become a slave in a number of ways: a prisoner taken in war, kidnapping, through debt, children born into slavery. There were different kinds of slaves. The most burdensome form of slavery was to be slave labor – manual labor, construction, rowing ships. Household slaves, on the other hand, might have lived more like household servants in the homes of wealthy persons (butlers, nannies). Some slaves were well-educated and might serve as administrators or household tutors. This may have given them the opportunity to earn money and hence, eventually, purchase their freedom. We don’t know the specific situation of Onesimus.
History lessons may be right behind home videos in exciting people’s energy! Sorry about that, but it is necessary work if this book is to speak to us.
Knowing all this, we can still be disappointed that Paul does not more forcefully tell Philemon that slavery is incompatible with Christian faith. Instead, Paul asks that Philemon receive Onesimus back “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother.” Yes, the language is ambiguous, but Paul does not seem to be challenging the institution of slavery, at least not in this letter. In the other writings of Paul, we find principles which Christians used to finally say that slavery was not compatible with Christianity. Owing people and being Christian do not fit together. Holding sway over people, while they remain unfree, does not fit with being a follower of Jesus.
Though he does not challenge slavery, Paul is digging deep into Philemon’s daily life, and here this letter can speak to us. One clear message of this letter is that Christian faith, to be a follower of Jesus, to live in God’s Spirit, is something that has an impact and touches all of life, not just the special or extraordinary. The heart of Christian spirituality is not mountaintop experiences of rapture, though they may come. The heart of Christian spirituality is not only comfort when we are hurting or in despair, though this matters a lot. The heart of Christian spirituality is how we live our lives day in and day out. In Jesus, all of life is brought into the light of love. That’s the Gospel According to Phil.
We frequently hear the phrase “spiritual but not religious.” People say they are spiritual but not religious. Part of this is a legitimate criticism of the church, telling us that people see too great a distance between Sunday morning language and Monday to Saturday living. We need to take that seriously. I love how Paul sets up part of his argument to Philemon. “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ.” We share our faith effectively when what we say has something to do with what we do. We can’t just talk about love, we need to love.
At the same time as I take seriously the critique offered in the phrase “spiritual but not religious,” I would pose a return challenge. Does that stance sometimes amount to seeing spirituality as so private that it is reduced to inner feelings and the inner life alone, without trying to make spirituality something that has an impact on all of life? Is this distinction a means of avoiding the messiness of an actual community of people working on their spiritual journeys together?
Christian spirituality, following Jesus, life in the Spirit is meant to reach into every facet of our lives. To be sure, an important part of Christian spirituality involves practices, “spiritual practices” – prayer, meditation, contemplation, worship, scripture reading, service, giving. These remain important, but for Christians, spiritual practices are always in the service of making all life different. We don’t just pray then go about our merry way, we pray in order to be made different. We pray so that we might become more like the one to whom we pray. We pray for a better world and work to make the world better. Christian spirituality, following Jesus, life in the Spirit is bringing the whole of our lives into the light of love – our everyday, ordinary, quotidian lives - - - to use the phrase from Romans 12:1 in The Message: our sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around lives. No part of our lives is exempt from the light of love, and that is both amazing, and a little disconcerting. Let me briefly plunge a little deeper, get a little more specific.
One of the issues in Philemon is an economic issue. Philemon’s economic situation involved having Onesimus in his household. Following Jesus, life in the Spirit, asks us some hard economic questions. What does love require in a country where 17.6 million households have trouble feeding their family members, where 46 million of our fellow citizens do not know where there next meal is coming from (Thurday’s newspaper)?
Following Jesus, life in the Spirit, asks us some difficult questions about the world political situation. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” We are on the verge of bombing Syria. If the evidence is true, the Syrian government heinously and criminally used chemical weapons against its own citizens. Does peacemaking mean never engaging in war, no matter how much others may be suffering? But will dropping bombs help secure a more just resolution of issues and create conditions for more peacefulness in the world, or will anti-Americanism simply be more inflamed? The answers are not easy. Love requires that we think deeply, but following Jesus does not seem to leave us the option of not thinking about this at all, or of thinking that war and peace have nothing to do with life in the Spirit.
Christian spirituality, following Jesus, life in the Spirit asks us to consider in every area of our lives – what does love require? What will genuinely witness to God’s love in Jesus? Christian spirituality, following Jesus, life in the Spirit is not just about doing the right thing, though it is about that, it is about becoming different kind of people. Paul finally wants for Philemon that he will act lovingly from his heart.
As strange as this letter is, and as problematic as it can be, it speaks to us. It speaks to me. How do I live as a follower of Jesus as a husband, a father, a friend, a pastor, a citizen, an inhabitant of planet earth? What does love require? There are even more themes that we will leave untouched – the power of persuasion, the importance of second chances – there is a lot there for us parents and friends.
The Gospel According to Phil is about a love that seeks to transform the whole of our lives. It can be a demanding love, but first it is an accepting and forgiving love, a love that refreshes hearts. “Grace to you and peace.” Always, grace and peace for the journey. Amen.

All Y'All

Sermon preached September 1, 2013

Texts: Hebrews 13:1-2; Luke 14:1, 7-14

O.K. So it’s becoming a little bit of a cliché’ that I start my sermons with music, but there are worse things, so here goes:

The Moody Blues, “Lovely To See You Again”

Lovely to see you again, my friend. And it is lovely to see you all. Think for a moment about a time or times when you felt welcomed – warmly, joyously. At their best, class reunions have some of that, and they are especially fun when you are welcomed by someone you never thought really even knew who you were in high school. Family reunions have even more of that feeling of welcome. One of my fond memories from my college days was attending a big family reunion in Rice Lake Wisconsin. It was where my grandmother was from, and her mother was still living. We rented part of the fairgrounds because of the size of the group. It was a lot of fun. I know I have mentioned that the community of Rice Lake was a special place for me growing up because of the warm welcome given by my relatives.
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Jesus: “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.”
I am kind of thinking that Jesus would not have made a good professional party planner. What kind of lousy guest list is this?
Of course, that’s not really what Jesus is talking about. He’s not saying we shouldn’t have dinner with friends or relatives. He is reminding us, with a bit of humor, of how deep, how radical sacred hospitality is. Hospitality means more than being nice. Hospitality means more than simply being cordial or polite. Christian hospitality, rooted in our own experience of being welcomed by God reaches out to embrace strangers and the strange.
In her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, in its chapter on hospitality, Diana Butler Bass writes: Although hospitality takes many forms, from the kiss of peace bestowed by a Goth teenager on an elderly woman, to offering bread to a stranger and thanking a homeless person for coming to breakfast, the core practice remains the same: Christian people, themselves wayfarers, welcome strangers into the heart of God’s transformative love. (87) Hospitality – welcoming others into the heart of God’s transformative love, welcoming because we are loved.
When we lived in Texas, we heard a lot of “y’all.” “Y’all want to go for a coke” – which meant any kind of soft drink – you never said “pop” in Texas. But “y’all could mean just one other person. Someone might ask you – “y’all want to get a cup of coffee?” To make it clear that someone was taking about a group, you sometimes would hear “all y’all.” “All y’all want to go to the game tonight?” All y’all was an inclusive term. It is a great way to speak of Christian hospitality. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it. When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed. All y’all.
Hospitality has to do with inclusion. It has to do with making space, warm and welcoming space. Jesus links it with humility in the gospel for this morning. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.
To the first scenario Jesus describes, we might simply say “awkward.” But do we take a lower place just in hopes of getting a better one? Is that what humility is all about? Seems a recipe for disappointment. Again, I think Jesus is using a little humor to make a point, contrasting the humility with humiliation. Humility is being comfortable enough with oneself that you don’t need to find the place of honor.
I really like what Robert Emmons writes about humility. Humility is the realistic appraisal of one’s strengths and weaknesses – neither overestimating nor underestimating them. To be humble is not to have a low opinion of oneself, it is to have an accurate opinion of oneself. It is the ability to keep one’s talents and accomplishments in perspective, to have a sense of self-acceptance, and understanding of one’s imperfections, and to be free from arrogance and low self-esteem. (The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 171)
Hospitality and humility are interconnected. Recognizing strengths and limitations, we recognize that it helps to make room for another, for more, for different, for change. Humility is recognizing simultaneously that we are loved deeply and wildly by God, and that God isn’t finished with us yet. There is always room to grow and we grow by welcoming the new, the unfamiliar.
Quickly I want to make some of this general discussion more concrete by suggesting how profound the idea of Christian hospitality can be across various areas of our lives.
Hospitality, welcome, all y’all, can be extended to ourselves, and should be. We need to extend hospitality toward ourselves. Positive change often happens not when we feel completely crummy about ourselves, but when we have enough care for ourselves that we want to change for the better. The therapist Tara Brach writes, “when we practice Radical Acceptance, we begin with the fears and wounds of our life and discover that our heart of compassion widens endlessly” (Radical Acceptance, 4). Even in twelve-step programs, which often talk about hitting bottom before you want to change, there is that sense that you are worth the effort to change, relying on a higher power.
Another kind of inner hospitality that we need to practice is to make space for new ideas, welcome space for new ways of looking at our faith, our lives, our world. Spiritual growth, as I talked about last week, has something to do with continuing to learn and grow and mature.
Christian hospitality, sacred hospitality speaks to our wider world. Fifty years ago this month, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and reminded us that our nation was falling short in the area of hospitality. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned.
In a sense, civil rights is about hospitality, about welcome, about making space. The struggle of women to be heard and empowered is, in a sense, about hospitality, about welcome, about making space. On this pride weekend, gay rights can be seen as being about hospitality, about welcome, about making space. Hospitality does not prescribe particular policies, but when we leave it out of our thinking about our social community, we are not thinking with our best Christian minds. As our nation grapples with immigration policy, hospitality should not be left out of the equation. It does not prescribe particular policies, but if we neglect it when we think about immigration reform, we are not thinking about immigration reform with our best Christian minds.
If there is a place where hospitality, where welcoming, where making space should be most evident it should be in our life together as this Christian community of faith, this Jesus community. “Through hospitality, Christians imitate God’s welcome,” Diana Butler Bass reminds us (82). As a church community we should always be making space for people who are trying to make space in their lives for more of God’s Spirit, God’s welcoming love. Butler Bass goes on to write [quoting Henri Nouwen]: Hospitality is the “creation of a free space” where strangers become friends. “Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.” (79) I will be saying more about the church as an “all y’all” place in a couple of weeks.
Hospitality is not always easy. Opening our arms and hearts wide means that persons and ideas, both strange and wonderful, may arrive. Hospitality, welcoming, making space, is, however, our calling from God who welcomes us warmly, joyously, as warmly, joyously and wildly as a father welcomes a long-lost son in another story Jesus told. By making open, welcoming space in our lives, in our world, in our church, angels in disguise may just arrive. That’s good news for all y’all. Amen.